IBM's e325 Server: IBM Champs at The 64 Bit: Page 4 of 5

The 325's motherboard is based on an AMD 8111/8131 chipset that allows for single- or dual-processor operation, and most services are integrated to save space and PCI-X slots. Inside you'll find an on-board Broadcom NetXtreme Ethernet controller, an ATA-100 IDE controller, an ATI Rage XL PCI display adapter and a single-channel LSI Logic SCSI controller with integrated RAID-1 support.

I found it odd that the 325 provides physical room for only 6 GB of memory per processor, considering the Opteron's potential to address as much as 256 TB of 64-bit memory space. But to its advantage, the memory bus of the Opteron runs at the processor's clock speed of 1.4 to 2.0 GHz, rather than at a fractional front-side bus speed like the Itanium and Xeon. And because memory is controlled by the processor, adding a second Opteron to your system means you're adding another memory controller and another 128-bit memory bus, providing a two-way memory bandwidth of 10.6 GBps.

For systems administration, the motherboard has a socketed, Integrated System Management Processor module that provides access to advanced server-management features, including secure remote power control, unattended install, and text console redirect via serial or LAN. The module is designed to work with Director 4.1, IBM's server-management software, which lets IT admins view and track the hardware configuration of remote systems in detail and monitor the usage and performance of critical components.

New 64-Bit Player

There's nothing new about 64-bit computing; but making it affordable and accessible to the Intel-dominated market is. The undeniable benefits of huge memory addressing and bandwidth, massive computational speed, and seamless I/O that 64-bit platforms provide are countered by the challenges posed in the transition path. As usual, AMD and Intel have opposing views on a solution--Intel has developed its Itanium 64-bit processor using EPIC technology and a new instruction set, while AMD has based its Opteron processor on a 64-bit superset of the massively popular x86 instruction set.