Intel has added 10 server components to its product lineup to
support its latest Xeon chips with faster front-side buses and
larger cache.
The server boards and chassis are designed for the Xeon DP chip,
used in one-way and two-way servers, said Philip Brace, director of
marketing for Intel's enterprise platforms and services division.
Intel upgraded speed of the front-side bus, or the main data
pathway in a chip, in the Xeon DP chip to 533MHz last month.
Five server boards for the Xeon DP chip are being released today.
The Intel Server Board SE7501WV2 is a rack-optimised board designed
for Intel's 1U (1.75 inches) and 2U server chassis. The other three
boards, the SE7501HG2, the SE7501BR2, and the SE7501CW2, are
designed for pedestal workgroup or departmental servers. The HG2 is
designed for performance, while the CW2 is the value option.
Intel also released a server board that can be used in either
servers or workstations. The Intel Server Board SE7505VB2 is
designed for use with Xeon DP chips and Intel's 7505 chipset. It
comes with an AGP (accelerated graphics port) 8x for advanced
graphics technology.
Builders will also have two new chassis products to choose from.
There is the SC5250-E, a chassis designed for small and
medium-sized businesses, and the upgraded SC5200 chassis, which can
hotswap a serial ATA backplane.
Intel sells server boards and chassis separately to system builders
of one-way and two-way servers, but servers with four or more
processors require the board and chassis to be integrated in a
server platform.
The Xeon MP chip was recently upgraded with a larger L2 cache, and
Intel has updated two server platforms, the SRSH4 and the SPSH4, to
support the larger cache, he said.
The SRSH4 is designed for four-way rack servers, while the SPSH4
works in four-way pedestal servers.
Finally, Intel unveiled new RAID (redundant array of independent
disks) controllers available for server manufacturers. The PCI
(peripheral component interconnect) controllers come in
performance, midrange, and value configurations, and feature
Intel's RAID software.
Pricing information was not immediately available. Intel will sell
these products to distributors, who then sell them to system
builders.