HP Professional 8000 Highly Parallel System Architecture for Compaq Profession - Page 1

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF November 1998 Compaq Computer Corporation ISSD Technology Communications CONTENTS Introduction 3 Architecture Overview.......3 Advanced SMP 3 Pentium Pro Processor ........4 Pentium II Processor ...........4 Dual Memory Buses ..........5 Dual-Peer PCI Buses .........8 Multiple Drives 8 Alternative Architectures 9 Typical NT/X86 Architecture 9 Unified Memory Architecture 9 Crossbar Switch Architecture 11 AGPset Architecture.......... 12 Conclusion 13 ... ECG066/1198 1 Highly Parallel System Architecture for Compaq Professional Workstations 5100, 6000, and 8000 As critical applications for financial analysis, computer-aided design (CAD), computeraided engineering (CAE), and digital content creation (DCC) place growing demands on system resources, increasing system bandwidth becomes a critical business issue. After evaluating available system architectures, Compaq determined that only a new, highly parallel system architecture could provide the required levels of performance, processor and I/O expandability, and bandwidth to satisfy the needs of workstation users. Compaq is therefore implementing a new architecture that delivers the greatest bandwidth available today for systems running such demanding applications under the Microsoft Windows NT operating system. This technology brief describes the new Highly Parallel System Architecture and differentiates it from other architectures used in X86 systems. Please direct comments regarding this communication to the ISSD Technology Communications Group at this Internet address: [email protected]