IBM BladeCenter HS23E
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Key features
The IBM BladeCenter HS23E is a performance for value blade server optimized for energy efficiency and
density by offering flexible configuration options. Designed specifically for use in business critical and
entry virtualization applications, the blade offers higher performance with 1600 MHz memory and optimal
processor performance in a standard 30 mm form factor. The HS23E supports the latest Intel Xeon
processor E5-2400 product family, two ports of 1 Gb Ethernet, high-capacity, high-throughput memory,
and high speed I/O, including Virtual Fabric adapters for IBM BladeCenter. In addition, the HS23E is
compatible with BladeCenter E, S, H, and HT chassis. (Some configurations may have limitations. See
Table 5 for compatibility details.)
Scalability and performance
The HS23E offers numerous features to boost performance, improve scalability, and reduce costs:
The Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 product family improves productivity by offering affordable
dual-socket system performance with eight-core processors with up to 2.3 GHz core speeds, up to 20
MB of L3 cache, and one QPI interconnect link of up to 8 GTps.
Up to two processors, 16 cores, and 32 threads maximize the concurrent execution of multithreaded
applications.
Intelligent and adaptive system performance with Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 allows processor
cores to run at maximum speeds during peak workloads by temporarily going beyond processor
thermal design power (TDP).
Intel Hyper-Threading Technology boosts performance for multithreaded applications by enabling
simultaneous multithreading within each processor core, up to two threads per core.
Intel Virtualization Technology integrates hardware-level virtualization hooks that allow operating
system vendors to better use the hardware for virtualization workloads.
Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (AVT) improve floating point performance for compute-intensive
technical and scientific applications.
Up to 12 DDR3 ECC memory RDIMMs provide speeds up to 1600 MHz and a memory capacity of up
to 192 GB. (See Table 7 for details.)
The theoretical maximum memory bandwidth of the Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 product family is
38.4 GBps, which is 20% more than the previous generation of Intel Xeon 5600 processors.
The use of solid-state drives (SSDs) instead of or along with traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) can
improve I/O performance. An SSD can support up to 100 times more I/O operations per second
(IOPS) than a typical HDD.
The HS23E scales to 12 I/O ports on a single-wide blade with integrated Gigabit Ethernet and
optional expansion cards, offering the choice of Ethernet, Fibre Channel, SAS, iSCSI, and FCoE
connectivity.
The server offers PCI Express 3.0 I/O expansion capabilities that improve the theoretical maximum
bandwidth by almost 100% (8 GTps per link using 128b/130b encoding) compared to the previous
generation of PCI Express 2.0 (5 GTps per link using 8b/10b encoding).
With Intel Integrated I/O Technology, the PCI Express 3.0 controller is integrated into the Intel Xeon
processor E5 family. This integration helps to reduce I/O latency and increase overall system
performance.
