System Overview
ROBO-8920VG2 User’s Manual
1-1
Chapter 1
System Overview
1.1 Introduction
Introduction of PICMG 1.3 (SHB Express) did help industries to have much higher
I/O bandwidth along with rapidly speed up processor. However, the performance
segmentation requirements are not satisfied yet since the extreme computing power
and I/O throughput are not applicable. Same evolving path of Pentium 4
processor, the thermal design power of server grade processor almost hits the critical
point that leads noise and vibration issues as well. Fortunately, Intel announced a
new category Xeon processor that only generates 31W (2.0GHz), so the TDP of dual
processor on-board down to 62W that similar to dual PIII processor. More than
that, the Xeon processor LV also supports dual-core technology.
ROBO-8920VG2, the PICMG 1.3 SHB supports dual Dual-Core Xeon processor LV
(four cores) adopts Intel E7520 and 6300ESB chipset. The board equipped four
DDR2 DIMM sockets allows up to 8GB, ECC registered memory for those
applications that could benefit from it such as media streaming, data storage,
machine image, telecommunication and broadcasting. I/O interfaces are improved
at the same time like PCI Express x4 based dual Gigabit Ethernet controller; dual PCI
Express x8 and one PCI x4 links.
Though PCI Express x4 or x8 add-in cards are not popular now, they can be very
flexible to feature legacy I/O interconnection such as Hub Link on ROBO-8820VG2,
a dual Xeon ePCI-X SHB that supports up to four PCI-X buses. Dual PCI Express-
to-PCI-X bridge can be utilized to create same PCI-X buses and gather all PCI-X slots
together for those add-in cards that have their own communication channel.
Graphics display is another advantage of this superior SHB because many industries
need more than a display of most servers because those applications are image
related. ROBO-8920VG2 equipped ATI Radeon 7000 graphics processor running on
separated PCI bus. Default configuration with 32MB DDR video memory delivers
enhanced 3D and 2D performance. Optional supports 64MB DDR video memory
and dual VGA output.
