Intel E8500 Chipset

Let's talk now about the new Intel E8500 chipset and its new features.

This chipset has the following basic specs:

• PCI Express bus support (three 8x slots and  one 4x slot).
• PCI-X bus support (one PCI-X 133 slot and two PCI-X 100 slots).
• Four memory channels, allowing a maximum theoretical transfer rate of 12,800 MB/s using DDR2-400 memories.
• DDR266, DDR333 and DDR2-400 memories support (pay attention because this chipset doesn't support DDR400 memories but DDR2-400).
• Supports dual-core Xeon CPUs (code-named Paxville).
• Two independent busses. At the previous chipset for Xeon MP (Intel E8870) all system processors shared the same 400 MHz (3.2 GB/s) bus. In this chipset we have two independent busses of 667 MHz (5.3 GB/s) each, thus it is said that servers based on this CPU has an external maximum theoretical transfer rate of 10.6 GB/s. If two processors are used, each processor will be installed on a separated bus. If a four-CPU configuration is used, each bus will have two CPUs installed.

click to enlarge
Figure 3: Intel E8500 chipset dual bus architecture.

click to enlarge
Figure 4: Intel E8500 chipset summary and comparison with a ServerWorks GC-HE chipset solution.

Total or partial reproduction of the contents of this site, as well as that of the texts available for downloading, be this in the electronic media, in print, or any other form of distribution, is expressly forbidden. Those who do not comply with these copyright laws will be indicted and punished according to the International Copyrights Law.

We do not take responsibility for material damage of any kind caused by the use of information contained in Hardware Secrets.