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Intel® Server Board SE7320SP2 & Intel Server Board SE7525GP2 TPS Functional Architecture
Revision 2.0
32
3.2 E7320 Chipset
The architecture of the Intel Server Board SE7320SP2 is designed around the Intel
®
E7320
chipset. The Intel Server Board SE7525GP2 is designed around the Intel
®
E7525 chipset and
will be discussed in the next section. The Intel E7320 chipset is a subset of the Intel E7520
chipset and consists of two components which together are responsible for providing the
interface between all major sub-systems found on the server board including the processor,
memory, and I/O sub-systems. These components are the:
• Memory Controller Hub (MCH)
• I/O Controller Hub (Intel 6300ESB)
The following sub-sections will provide an overview describing the primary functions and
supported features of each chipset component. Later sections will discuss how these features
are implemented on the server board SE7320SP2 in greater detail.
3.2.1 Memory Controller Hub (MCH)
The MCH integrates four functions into a single 1077-ball FC-BGA package:
• Front Side Bus
• Memory Controller
• PCI-Express Controller
• Hub Link Interface
3.2.1.1 Front Side Bus (FSB)
The Intel E7320 MCH supports either single or dual processor configurations using Intel Xeon
processors designed for the 800MHz system bus. The MCH supports a base system bus
frequency of 200MHz. The address and request interface is double pumped to 400MHz while
the 64-bit data interface (+ parity) is quad pumped to 800MHz. This provides a matched system
bus address and data bandwidths of 6.4 GB/s.
3.2.1.2 MCH Memory Sub-System Overview
The Intel E7320 MCH provides an integrated memory controller for direct connection to two
channels of registered DDR266, DDR333 or DDR2-400 memory (stacked or unstacked). Peak
theoretical memory data bandwidth using DDR266 technology is 4.26 GB/s and 5.33 GB/s for
DDR333 technology. For DDR2-400 technology, this increases to 6.4 GB/s.
When both DDR channels are populated and operating, they function in lock-step mode. For the
Intel E7320 MCH, the maximum supported memory size at DDR266, DDR333 or DDR2-400
memory configuration is 12GB. On the server board SE7320SP2, the maximum supported
memory size at DDR266 or DDR333 is 8GB. DDR2-400 memory is not supported on server
board SE7320SP2.