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Hardware Socket F Opteron Servers and Motherboards Shown at Computex
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - June 6, 2006 2:05 AM

7 comment(s) - last by kenyee.. on Jun 9 at 9:21 PM

Gigabyte shows off a motherboard, Inventec shows off servers

Motherboard and server manufacturers have been showing off new motherboards and servers designed for the new AMD socket F architecture at Computex. AMD socket F processors are based on an LGA-1207 socket design and uses DDR2 memory. Socket F processors are the replacement for previous Socket 940 Opteron. This time around AMD has no intention of releasing single processor Opteron 1xx series for socket F, instead socket F will only be used for two and four-way systems.

Gigabyte has a dual socket F board on display. The GA-3AESV-RH integrates the Broadcom HT-1000 and HT-2000 I/O controllers. This is unusual as manufacturers typically use AMD or NVIDIA chipsets. Nonetheless the Broadcom HT-1000 provides PCI-X 64/133, SATA II, USB 2.0, 32-bit PCI and IDE while the HT-2000 provides PCI Express and dual Gigabit Ethernet. The EATX board will support Opteron 200 and 800 series socket F processors. DDR2-533/667 MHz memory is supported up to 48GB with ECC. NUMA is also supported with the GA-3AESV-RH. Lastly there’s an integrated ATI graphics chip which may possibly be the older Rage XL.

Expansion slot options are plentiful for a server environment -- two PCI Express x8 slots, one PCI Express x4 slot with a single lane routed to it, two PCI-X 100 MHz slots and one PCI slot. SATA II with support for RAID 0, 1 and 10 are available. SAS with RAID0, 1 and 10 is also available for those that require more bandwidth than SATA II has to offer. Gigabyte will offer LSI software RAID 5 for those that require it. As with most server boards SCSI is offered as an option with a zero-channel raid (ZCR) card provided by Adaptec or LSI Logic.

Inventec has two socket F Opteron servers on display. The IR2500 is a 2U server based around the NVIDIA nForce Professional 3600 and NEC UPD720404 PCI-X bridge. The nForce Professional 3050 MCP is available as an option too. Up to 48GB of DDR2-533/667 MHz is supported across twelve DIMM slots with NUMA support highly likely. Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports are standard on the IR2500, though quad Ethernet ports are available with the optional nForce Professional 3050 MCP. SAS, SATA II and SCSI Ultra 320 with optional RAID 5/6 round out the storage options. Expansion slots are available via two risers for a combined total of four PCI Express x8, one PCI-X 100 MHz, and one PCI Express x4 slots. It’s unclear which expansion slots are available without the optional nForce Professional 3050 MCP.

A quad dual-core 4U server is also offered for those that require more processing power. The IR4300 is similar to the IR2500 but increases memory support to 64GB across 16 DIMM slots and changes the available expansion slot configuration. Three PCI Express x8, one PCI Express x16, and one PCI-X 64/66MHz slots are available.

Expect availability for the Gigabyte GA-3AESV-RH around Q3’06. There’s no word on availability of the Inventec servers yet. Pricing is unknown for both units at this time.

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AMD Xeon?

By Cygus on 6/6/2006 3:43:52 AM , Rating: 3

Anyone else find it funny that they have an intel xeon logo on the display case for the opteron board?

:p

RE: AMD Xeon?

By Stele on 6/6/2006 4:03:48 AM , Rating: 2

Yes I thought so too... at first I only noticed the intel logo, minus the Xeon, and thought that it was because the board uses an Intel PCI-X controller (as does the Asus Socket-F board). Then on reading the article I realised it uses Broadcom's ICs for that, and enlarging the pic clearly showed the odd Xeon logo. Hmmmm new levels of cross platform compatibility? :p

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RE: AMD Xeon?

By Anh Huynh on 6/6/2006 4:11:24 AM , Rating: 2

I was waiting for someone to point that out :p

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RE: AMD Xeon?

By phaxmohdem on 6/6/2006 6:21:49 AM , Rating: 2

Intel logo or not, that 2U is damned sexy!

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Broadcom new at chipsets?

By MrKaz on 6/6/2006 8:57:34 AM , Rating: 2

This is the first time they are doing chipsets? Or they already have chipsets for AMD or Intel?

RE: Broadcom new at chipsets?

By Stele on 6/6/2006 10:15:33 AM , Rating: 2

There was a company that specialised in server chipsets, producing some very solid stuff for years (though largely for the Intel platform). You might heard of them - Serverworks.

Broadcom acquired them not too long ago, and have since marketed their products under the Broadcom name. The HT1000 and 2000 are essentially their first products under the Broadcom umbrella, unless I'm mistaken. Arguably the best chipset for the Opteron platform available right now in terms of feature set, having drawn on their wealth of server chipset experience.

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