1.3Special features

1.3.1Product highlights

Latest processor technology

The motherboard comes with dual 604-pin surface mount ZIF sockets designed for the Intel® Xeon™ processor with 800 MHz Front Side Bus (FSB) and 1 MB L2 cache. The processor incorporates the Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology, the Intel® NetBurst™ micro-architecture that features hyper-pipelined technology, and Extended Memory 64-bit Technology (EM64T). The EM64T enables the support for 64-bit operation system, such as 64-bit Windows® and Linux. See page 2-10 for details.

Intel® E7320 and Intel® 6300 ESB chipset

The Intel® E7320 Memory Controller Hub (MCH) and the Intel® 6300ESB I/O controller hub (ICH) provide the vital interfaces for the motherboard.

The MCH provides the processor, dual-channel DDR-333 registered ECC memory, and PCI Express interfaces. The ICH is a new generation server class I/O controller hub that provides the interface for PCI-X 1.0.

DDR 333 memory support

The motherboard supports DDR 333 registered ECC memory which features data transfer rates of 333 MHz to meet the higher bandwidth requirements of the latest 3D graphics, multimedia, and Internet applications. The dual-channel DDR 333 architecture doubles the bandwidth of your system memory to boost system performance, eliminating bottlenecks with peak bandwidths of up to 5.3 GB/s.

Serial ATA technology

The motherboard supports the Serial ATA technology through the Serial ATA interfaces controlled by the Intel® 6300ESB and the Adaptec AIC-8130 (optional). The SATA specification allows for thinner, more flexible cables with lower pin count, reduced voltage requirement, and up to 150 MB/s data transfer rate for 6300 ESB and 300 MB/s for AIC-8130. See page 2-27 and 2-28 for details.

PCI Express™ interface

The motherboard fully supports PCI Express, the latest I/O interconnect technology that speeds up the PCI bus. PCI Express features point-to-point serial interconnections between devices and allows higher clockspeeds by carrying data in packets. This high speed interface is software compatible with existing PCI or PCI-X specifications. See page 2-18 for details.

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Chapter 1: Product introduction