Introduction 1-1

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Dell Precision™ 610 systems are high-speed, upgradable workstations designed
around In tel® Pentium® II Xeon™ processors. These DeIl® systems support the high-
performance Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus and the accelerated
graphics port (A GP) bus. Each system also has an Industry-Standard Arc hitecture (ISA)
design with one IS A slo t that a llo ws y ou to confi gur e the comp uter sy stem to yo ur ini-
tial requirements and then upgrade it as necessary.
This chapter describes the major ha rdware and software features of the system and
provides information you will need to reinstall the operating system, if necessary. It
also provides information about the indicators and controls on the computer’s front
panel and discusses connecting external devices to the computer.

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The system offers the following features:
An Intel Pentium II Xeon processor. The following processor option is available:
— Single or dual Intel Pentium II Xeon processor(s) with an internal speed of
400 MHz and an external speed of 100 MHz
The Intel Pentium II Xeon processor includes MMX™ technology designed to han-
dle complex multimedia and communications software. Th is proces sor
incorporates new instructions and da ta types as well as a technique called single
instruc tion, multiple data (SIMD). SIMD allows the process or to process m ultiple
data elements in parallel, thereby impro v ing system performanc e when you are
r unning applic ation programs written to take adv antage of MMX technology.
The Intel Pentium II Xeon p rocesso r has a 16-kilob yte (KB) in ternal data ca c he an d
a 16-KB internal instruction cache, an inte rnal math coproces sor, and other
advanced in ternal logic.
A seconda ry cache of 512 KB or 1 megab y te (MB) of static rando m-a cc es s mem -
ory (SRAM) integrated in the Slot 2 single-edge contact (Slot 2 SEC) cartridge.
The secondary cache also pro v id es error c h ecking and correction (ECC) ca pa bil ity.
Dual-pro cessor capabil ity. The system allows the install a tion of a secon d Slot 2
SEC cartridg e (operating at the same fre quency as the installed processor), whic h
can be purchased as a kit from Dell. Dual processing improves performance