Key Features - IBM BladeCenter HX5 Product Manual

Key features

The IBM BladeCenter HX5 is a scalable 2-to-4-socket blade server optimized for virtualization,
consolidation, database, and ERP. It offers outstanding performance, and superior reliability and
fault-tolerant memory characteristics.
IBM® has been designing and implementing servers under the X-Architecture® name since 2001. IBM
eX5 technology represents the fifth generation of enterprise servers based on the same design principle
IBM began with in 1997: to offer systems that are expandable, offer "big iron" reliability, availability, and
serviceability (RAS) features, with extremely competitive price/performance on an Intel Xeon
processor-based system.
Scalability and performance
The BladeCenter HX5 offers numerous features to boost performance, improve scalability, and reduce
costs:
The HX5 supports up to two high-performance Intel Xeon E7 family allowing you to upgrade as
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business needs require.
The server can be scaled to four processors by connecting two HX5 servers together to form a single
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system image; alternatively, extra memory can be added with the addition of the MAX5 memory
expansion blade
Supports the Intel Xeon E7-2800, E7-4800 and E7-8800 families of high performance processors, up
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to 10 cores each, offering superior system performance
Each HX5 scalable to 512 GB of memory internally or 1.25 TB of memory with the addition of the
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MAX5 memory expansion blade.
Intel Turbo Boost Technology dynamically turns off unused processor cores and increases the clock
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speed of the cores in use, by up to three model frequencies. For example, with 7-10 cores active, a
2.4 GHz E7-2870 10-core processor can run the cores at up to 2.53 GHz. With 5-6 cores active, it can
run those cores at 2.67 GHz; with only 1-4 cores active, it can run those cores at 2.8 GHz
Each processor includes an integrated memory controller, to reduce memory bottlenecks and improve
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performance. Memory access is at up to 1066 MHz frequency, depending on the processor model
and memory used.
The MAX5 adds an additional memory controller to maximize memory parallelism and performance.
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In processors implementing Hyper-Threading technology, each core has two threads capable of
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running an independent process. Thus, a 10-core processor can run 20 threads concurrently.
Intel's Virtualization Technology (VT) integrates hardware-level virtualization hooks that allow
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operating system vendors to better utilize the hardware for virtualization workloads.
Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) technology for processor-to-processor connectivity and Intel
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Scalable Memory Interconnect (SMI) processor-to-memory connectivity:
Intel QPI link topology at up to 6.4 Gbps with four QPI links per CPU
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Intel SMI link topology at up to 6.4 Gbps with four SMI links per CPU
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The server has 16 DIMM sockets, plus an additional 24 DIMMs with an optional MAX5 memory
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expansion blade, for a total of 40 DIMM sockets.
The use of solid-state drives (SSDs) instead of, or along with, traditional spinning drives (HDDs) can
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significantly improve I/O performance. An SSD can support up to 100 times more I/O operations per
second (IOPS) than a typical HDD.
Two optional 1.8-inch SSD bays for local booting and data storage.
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IBM BladeCenter HX5 2