HP Integrity rx4640

Overview
Internals
External connectors
References
Operating systems
Benchmarks
Physical dimensions/Power

Overview

The Integrity rx4640 (rx4640-8) are second-generation Itanium servers from HP with up to four Itanium 2 processors in a 4U rack-mountable case. In contrast to the rx4610 predecessors (7U, first-generation Itanium) the rx4640 is a completely new design based on the HP zx1 Itanium chipset, with double the I/O bandwidth and three times the processor and memory bandwidth. The rx4640 features a large amount of maximum memory (128 GB) but fewer PCI slots (six) and only the same small number of two internal SCSI drives.

The rx4640 was later marketed as rx4640-8.

Time of introduction: December 2004 with prices at time of introduction starting at $15,000.

Internals

CPU

The standard rx4640 supported out of the box up to four Itanium 2 processors:

No.	CPU Type	Clock	L1 (I/D)	L2 (I/D)	L3	Other
1-4	Itanium 2 Madison	1.3 GHz	16/16 KB	256 KB	3.0 MB
1-4	Itanium 2 Madison	1.5 GHz	16/16 KB	256 KB	6.0 MB

Later rx4640 models (probably with a firmware upgrade) supported various newer processors, including dual-core Montvale CPUs and the mx2 dual-CPU modules.

No.	CPU Type	Clock	L1 (I/D)	L2 (I/D)	L3	Other
1-4	Itanium 2 Madison	1.6 GHz	16/16 KB	256 KB	6.0 MB
1-4	Itanium 2 Madison	1.6 GHz	16/16 KB	256 KB	9.0 MB
1-4	Itanium 2 Montvale dual-core (9140N)	1.6 GHz	16/16 KB	1024/256 KB	18 MB
1-4	Itanium 2 Montvale dual-core (9150N)	1.6 GHz	16/16 KB	1024/256 KB	24 MB
1-4	Itanium 2 mx2 Hondo dual-CPU module	1.1 GHz	16/16 KB	256 KB	4.0 MB	32 MB L4

Chipset

The rx4640 are based on HP’s zx1 chipset, which consists of three main components — the MIO (memory and I/O controller), the IOAs (I/O adapters) and the SMEs (scalable memory expanders):

Pluto zx1 MIO (memory and I/O controller) is the main chipset controller and connects the three central system buses:
1. Processor bus (6.4 GB/s at 200 MHz DDR)
2. Two independent memory buses (each 6.4 GB/s)
3. Eight I/O channels (aggregate 4.0 GB/s, via the IOAs, see below)
The zx1 MIO also contains both memory and cache controllers.
Six zx1 SMEs (scalable memory expanders) attach to two independent zx1 memory buses (each 6.4 GB/s with three SMEs)
Six Mercury zx1 IOAs (I/O adapters) connect the PCI-X slots and I/O devices to the zx1 MIO with an aggregate bandwidth of 4.0 GB/s on eight 0.5 GB/s channels
1. PCI-X 64/133 I/O slot on two channels — 1.0 GB/s
2. PCI-X 64/133 I/O slot on two channels — 1.0 GB/s
3. Two PCI-X 64/66 I/O slots on one channel — 0.5 GB/s
4. Two PCI-X 64/66 I/O slots on one channel — 0.5 GB/s
5. Core I/O: SCSI and Gigabit Ethernet on one channel — 0.5 GB/s
6. Core I/O: Management LAN, IDE, USB, serial and VGA on one channel — 0.5 GB/s

The rest are standard third-party I/O chips:

Gigabit Ethernet (Broadcom 5701)
Two-channel Ultra320 SCSI controller (LSI 53C1030)
Ultra ATA-100 IDE controller (PCI649)
EHCI USB controller
Serial controller, DUART (16550A-compatible)
Diva remote management processor — serial and LAN
Processor Dependent Hardware (PDH) Controller
FPGA controller for ACPI (2.0) and LPC
Baseboard Management Controller for IPMI management interface (the BMC is a ARM7 RISC processor)

Buses

Itanium 2/zx1 processor bus 6.4 GB/s at 200 MHz DDR
Two independent zx1 memory buses, 200 MHz, each 6.4 GB/s — aggregate 12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth
Eight zx1 I/O channels/buses, aggregate 4.0 GB/s
Two PCI-X 64/133 I/O buses
Two PCI-X 64/66 I/O buses
PCI-X 64/66 I/O bus (for SCSI/Gigabit Ethernet onboard)
PCI 32/33 I/O bus (for IDE/USB/management onboard devices)
Two SCSI-3 Ultra320 (LVD) storage I/O buses
UltraATA-100 IDE storage I/O bus

Memory

DDR200 CL2 registered ECC SDRAM DIMMs, 200 MHz, 184-pin 2.5 V
Takes up to 4 GB modules
16-DIMM or 32-DIMM memory carrier board
DIMMs must be installed in quads
1 GB minimum (4×256 MB)
64 GB maximum with 16-DIMM board (16×2 GB), 128 GB maximum with 32-DIMM board (32×4 GB)
12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth

Expansion

Four PCI-X 64-bit/66 MHz slots, hot-plug. 3.3 V
Two PCI-X 64-bit/133 MHz slots, hot-plug. 3.3 V

Drives

Two internal 3.5″ bays for Ultra160 SCSI SCA 80-pin hard drives, hot-plug; each drive can be configured on one separate channel — if they are on the same channel the second can be used for external SCSI devices
Slimline bay for optional IDE CD or DVD drive

External connectors

Dual-port Gigabit Ethernet, TP/RJ45
10/100 Ethernet, TP/RJ45 management network (on management processor card)
VGA graphics
Two external Ultra320 SCSI 68-pin
25-pin serial for management processor card, needs break-out cable for three serial ports
Four USB 2.0 ports
Two (three?) DB9 male RS232C serial

References

Manuals

User Service Guide HP Integrity rx4640 Server (PDF) Hewlett-Packard Development Company (August 2006, first edition, A6961-96013)

Articles

Overview of the HP Integrity rx1620, rx2620, and rx4640 Servers (PDF) Hewlett-Packard Development Company (December 2006, rev. 4, 5982-9835EN)
Overview of the HP Integrity rx1600-2, rx2600-2, and rx4640-8 servers technical whitepaper (PDF) Hewlett-Packard Development Company (April 2004, 5982-5031EN)
Overview of the HP Integrity rx2600, rx4640, and rx5670 servers technical whitepaper (PDF) Hewlett-Packard Development Company (October 2003, first edition, 5982-1595EN)

Operating systems

HP-UX 11i v2 and v3
Linux for Itanium
Windows Server 2003 64-bit
OpenVMS

Benchmarks

Model	SPEC2000, int	SPEC2000, fp	SPEC2000 rate, int	SPEC2000 rate, fp
rx4640 1.3 GHz 3.0 MB	1132	1891	13.1 2-CPU: 25.8 4-CPU: 51.4	21.9 2-CPU: 37.9 4-CPU: 57.4
rx4640 1.5 GHz 6.0 MB	1404	2161	16.3 2-CPU: 32.5 4-CPU: 64.2	25.1 2-CPU: 43.2 4-CPU: 65.6
rx4640-8 1.5 GHz 4.0? MB	1372	2502	15.9 2-CPU: 31.7 4-CPU: 62.2	29 2-CPU: 48.3 4-CPU: 70.5
rx4640-8 1.6 GHz 9 MB	1590	2712	4-CPU: 72.5	4-CPU: 77.9

Compare these with other results on the Benchmarks page.

Physical dimensions/Power

4U height, 482×690 mm width/depth
40kg net weight, 45kg fully loaded
650/1200W hot-swap power supplies (one standard, optional second)

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