Chapter 1: Introduction
1-9
1-2 The 5500/5600 Series Processor Platform
Built upon the functionality and the capability of the 5500/5600 Series Processor
platform, the X8DTT-H+/-HF+/-HEF+/-HIBXF+/-HIBQF+ motherboard provides the
performance and feature set required for dual-processor-based systems optimized
for High Performance Computing (HPC)/Cluster server platforms. The 5500/5600
Series Processor platform consists of the 5500/5600 Series (LGA 1366) proces-
sor, the 5520/5500 (IOH-36D/IOH-24D) IO Hub, and the ICH10R (South Bridge).
With the Intel QuickPath interconnect (QPI) controller built in, the 5500/5600
Series Processor platform is the fi rst dual-processing platform that offers the next
generation point-to-point system interconnect interface to replace the current Front
Side Bus Technology, substantially enhancing system performance by utilizing se-
rial link interconnections, allowing for increased bandwidth and scalability.
The IOH connects to each processor through an independent QPI (QuickPath
interconnect) link. Each link consists of 20 pairs of unidirectional differential lanes
for transmission and receiving in addition to a differential forwarded clock. A full-
width QPI link pair provides 84 signals. Each processor supports two QuickPath
links, one going to the other processor and the other to the 5520/5500 IOH.
The 5520/5500 IOH supports up to 36/24 PCI Express Gen2 lanes peer-to-peer
read and write transactions. The ICH10R provides multiple PCI-Express SATA
and USB connections.
In addition, the 5500/5600 Series Processor platform also offers a wide range of
RAS (Reliability, Availability and Serviceability) features. These features include
memory interface ECC, x4/x8 Single Device Data Correction (SDDC), Cyclic Re-
dundancy Check (CRC), parity protection, out-of-band register access via SMBus,
memory mirroring, and Hot-plug support on the PCI-Express Interface.
Note
: Intel 5500 (IOH-24D) is available for OEM only.
Main Features of the 5500/5600 Series Processor and the
5520/5500 Chipset
Four processor cores in each processor with 8MB shared cache among cores
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Two full-width Intel QuickPath interconnect links, up to 6.4 GT/s of data transfer
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rate in each direction
Virtualization Technology, Integrated Management Engine supported
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Point-to-point cache coherent interconnect, Fast/narrow unidirectional links, and
•
Concurrent bi-directional traffi c
