* Dell servers use 64-bit Intel Xeon MP chips
Dell recently rolled out two servers that use Intel’s Xeon MP chipset announced last week.
The four-processor PowerEdge 6800 and 6850 use Intel 64-bit Xeon MP chipsets and are targeted at database environments, server consolidation, virtualization and migration from RISC-based servers. The new servers feature DDR2-400 ECC memory and PCI Express, resulting in 32% better performance than previous four-processor servers from Dell.
These servers are optimized for application performance. Each is available in two different configurations: one with a large 8M-byte L3 cache or one with a smaller L2 cache with a faster processor clock speed. The large L3 cache is intended to speed the handling of large data blocks typical in database environments.
The servers have been tested with Oracle’s Database 10g and Oracle Database 9i, as well as with Real Application Clusters (RAC) and Microsoft’s SQL Server. They run either Microsoft Windows Server 2003 64-bit Edition or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which will be available later this year.
The PowerEdge 6800 is a 6U high box. It operates at 2 GHz, 2.2 GHz, 2.7 GHz or 3.0 GHz. It is available in a tower or rack-mounted configuration.
The PowerEdge 6850 is a more powerful machine. It is a rack-mounted 4U high box that is available at 3.0 GHz, 3.16 GHz, 3.33 GHz, or 3.66 GHz. The 6850 can ship with an optional host bus adapter for connecting to storage area networks.
Both servers have a 667-MHz front side bus, 64G bytes of memory, hot-plug memory, redundant power supplies, redundant hot-plug drives and cooling fans, and hot-plug PCI-X slots to improve availability.
The PowerEdge 6800 and 6850 are expected to be available by mid-April, starting at $4,000 and $4,900, respectively.
