Chapter 2: Overview
2-11
2-2 Chipset Overview
Built upon the functionality and the capability of the Intel 7500 platform, the
X8QB6-F/X8QBE-F motherboard provides the performance and support for quart-
processor-based HPC/Cluster/Database servers. The 7500 platform consists of the
7500 Series Socket-LS (LGA 1567) processor, the 7500 (IOH), and the ICH10R
(South Bridge).
With the Intel QuickPath interconnect (QPI) controller built in, the 7500 Series
processor is the fi rst generation chip multiprocessor (CMP) platform that offers
point-to-point system interconnect interface, greatly enhancing system perfor-
mance by utilizing serial link interconnections, allowing for increased bandwidth
and scalability.
The IOH provides the interface between QPI-based processor, and industry-
standard PCI-Express components. Each processor supports four full-width,
bidirectional interconnects that run at the speed of 4.8 GT/s, 5.86 GT/s or 6.4
GT/s. Each QPI link consists of 20 pairs of unidirectional differential lanes for data
transmission in addition to a differential forwarded clock. The two x16 PCI Express
Gen 2 connections can also be confi gured as x8 and x4 links to comply with PCI-E
Base Specifi cation, Rev. 2.0. These PCI-E Gen 2 lanes supports peer-to-peer read
and write transactions. In addition, the legacy IOH provides a x4 ESI (Enterprise
South Bridge Interface) link support for the legacy bridge.
The 7500 chipset also offers a wide range of ESI, Intel® I/OAT Gen 3, Intel
VT-d and RAS (Reliability, Availability and Serviceability) support. The features
supported include memory interface ECC, x4/x8 Single Device Data Correction
(SDDC), Flow-through CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check), parity protection, out-
of-band register access via SMBus, memory mirroring, and Hot-plug support on
the PCI-Express Interface.
Main Features of the 7500 Platform
Fully-connectivity (with four Intel® QuickPath Interconnects and up to eight cores
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in each socket with 24MB of shared last level (L3) cache supported)
CPU-Integrated memory controller with support of DDR-3 1066 MHz RDIMMS
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running at 800/978/1066 MHz via a memory buffer
Virtualization Technology, Integrated Manageability Engine (ME) supported
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44 bits physical address and 48 bits virtual address supported
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