Intel's Next-Generation Server Promises

The Blackford Server Chipset (Bensley Platform)

While Blackford is the server device and will be available in a fully-featured and as well as stripped-down value version, Green Creek is a modified design that caters to the workstation market. The new platform's performance enhancements thus won't represent Intel's only hope to help stave off the AMD threat as it will address a wide variety of applications as well.

Blackford comes with three x8 PCI Express ports that can be utilized for networking or mass storage controllers or a PCI-X bridge. The Blackford VS (Value Server) will have two configurable x4 PCIe ports only and will not support quad-channel memory. There will be new ESB-2 I/O controller hubs (bridges) that come with all the necessary interfaces such as integrated SATA2 ports and USB 2.0.

The Green Creek Workstation Chipset (Glidewell Platform)

Apart from the 16 PCIe lanes that can either be configured as a single x16 port or as two x8 port for dual graphics support, there is not much of a difference between Green Creek and Blackford.