Quad-Core Xeon Clovertown Rolls Into DP Servers

Intel 5000 Chipset Platform Aka Blackford

The 5000 chipset is available in three different flavors to power your Xeon 5300 platform. 5000V is the value version, for only 32 GB RAM; the two others will support up to 64 GB of fully buffered DDR2 memory (DDR2-533 or 667), with or without ECC, running in dual-channel or quad-channel mode. The Northbridge and Southbridge are interlinked via x4 PCI Express, and the 5000 series offers 20 PCI Express lanes that are configured differently, depending on the chipset model.

The main difference between the E7500 series and the latest 5000 chipset series is the latter's Dual Independent Bus (DIB) architecture. Processors on older Xeon platforms had to share the Front Side Bus, which can represent a bottleneck. Now, each processor socket gets its own interface. Thanks to the clock speed increase to 333 MHz, each processor has a total bandwidth of 10.66 GB/s. Even at 266 MHz it's still 8.33 GB/s.

Feature Set

Memory Controller Features

• Speculative read to memory launched after address decode
• Early initiation of defer reply reduces idle latency
• Defers replies, cross bus snoops, IO snoops and processor requests arbitrate for the FSB using a multi-tier weighted scheme
• 16 MB SF for improving system performance
• Eliminates remote/inbound snoops and increases bus efficiency
• Optional mode to defer memory requests in SF mode instead of completing order mode
• Weighted arbitration amongst PCIe ports to balance bandwidth
• Uses FBD protocol capabilities for higher efficiency
• Higher reordering capabilities than prior generation MC
• Intelligent rd/wr switching schedules writes while conflicts are present on reads or vice versa
• All CAS commands issued with auto-precharge