Behind AnandTech - Upgrading the Server Farm

DB Servers also love memory

With the requirements for our new Forums box growing we tacked on another stipulation, the dual processor setup must have at least 1GB of SDRAM, preferably more.  Our previous Forums DB box had 1GB of PC100 SDRAM and it was already running low, so ideally 2 - 4GB was what we wanted.  With no Socket-370 boards featuring more than 4 SDRAM sockets we had to find 512MB or 1GB PC133 SDRAM modules.  But even before that, the quest for the perfect motherboard was under way. 

With the i815E chipset limited to single processors and no more than 512MB of PC133 SDRAM it was immediately thrown out as an option.  The BX/GX chipsets could support more than 512MB of SDRAM however they were both limited to a 100MHz FSB and PC100 SDRAM, which would be sufficient however it wasn't ideal. 

Luckily there was another option available from a company that's rarely talked about in our community, ServerWorks (just recently acquired by Broadcom).  The ServerWorks line consists of three chipsets, the ServerSet III LE, WS and HE.  For our needs, the ServerSet III LE chipset was perfect.  While the III LE does not support AGP, for a server that won't be running any 3D applications there isn't really a need for it; the WS and HE versions of the chipset do support AGP if you are interested. 

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Other features of the ServerSet III LE chipset are its 64-bit PCI bus and ATA/66 support.  The chipset itself is composed of a very large 576-pin Northbridge and a sizeable 352-pin Southbridge.

The ServerSet III LE's dual processor support and ability to accept as much as 4GB of PC133 SDRAM made it the most well rounded solution we could find.  The only stipulation to that 4GB SDRAM limit is that the chipset only supports registered DIMMs.  Mushkin was able to provide us with a total of 2GB of PC133 SDRAM in the form of 4 registered DIMMs.  We did encounter an interesting issue with one of the four modules, which we will talk about later. 

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There are quite a few motherboards available that make use of the ServerSet III LE chipset and the first one we decided to use was the Intel STL2.  But as we soon discovered, the STL2 would have to be replaced as our motherboard of choice.