IPC2U Group: Industrial ATX MB IMBA-X9654 CORE2QUAD, CORE2DUO

IMBA-X9654 Core 2 Quad LGA 775 Motherboard: High-Powered Industrial Workstation

-Intel LGA775 Platform -Intel® Core 2 Quad / Duo, Pentium 4/D, Celeron D Ready -Intel® Q965 / ICH8 DO, Intel® Active Management Technology -Intel® GMA 3000 graphics engine offers adequate display quality via VGA interface -Dual-channel DDR2 533/667/800 MHz SDRAM support up to 8GB -6 x SATA II with Intel Matrix Storage Manager support -PLX PCIe switch for 3 x PCIe x4 add on Cards -TPM V1.2 hardware security function supported

Introduction

IPC2U Group and IEI Technology, one of the top industrial PC manufacturers, introduces its first high-powered industrial workstation motherboard to support a desktop processor. The IMBA-X9654, with its high powered features, can support "server grade” performance, providing excellent expansion capabilities suitable for server room applications with extended PCIe x4 slots by a PLX switch chip. The IMBA-X9654 is IEI’s pioneering Intel® Core™2 Duo industrial motherboard offering space for no less than four LAN cards. This industrial grade motherboard is dedicated to providing long-term support and increased reliability with its comprehensive quality assurance testing.

.

Feature Overview

The IMBA-X9654 is the latest ATX form factor motherboard from IPC2U Group with the Intel Q965 chipset, which provides advancement in manageability, graphics, stability, data protection and optimizations to support the most advanced business operating systems and supports Intel®Core™2Quad, Core™2Duo, Pentium®D, Pentium®4 and Celeron® D processors in Intel’s LGA775 package. It features 1066/800/533 MHz (FSB), dual-channel DDR2 800/667/533 MHz SDRAM up to 8GB. However, the main difference between this motherboard and previous industrial motherboards is the new PCI Express switching chip, giving the IMBA-X9654 motherboard more expandability. Typical demands for a motherboardboard are system stability and that it should be equipped with enough ports and connectors to cover almost any application use. An Intel® ICH8DO chipset provides support for eight USB 2.0 and six SATA II ports. Software support for SATA RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 ensures reliable storage and system protection. A Trusted Platform Module (TPM) on the motherboard is specifically designed to enhance platform security above-and-beyond the capabilities of software security solutions.

With the popular ATX form factor, IPC2U Group industrial motherboards provide an ideal solution for customers who are using commercial grade products but require industrial grade features such as longevity, reliability and manageability.

.

PCI express slots The IMBA-X9654 with Intel’s Q965 chipset provides a PCI Express x16 graphics interface supporting the latest high performance graphics cards. Apart from the x16 slot, IEI uses a PCI Express switch for enhanced expandability. New processors support a PCIe interface, allowing high speed interconnections to endpoints or slots/connectors for expansion modules. However, most CPUs do not provide multiple PCIe ports, hence limiting connectivity to the endpoints and expansion slots. Looking at the motherboard, there is a group of PCI-Express x4 slots. The manufacturer has made this possible by adding a PLX 8518 PCI-Express switch to the motherboard. This chip regulates the shared usage of four PCI-Express lanes between three slots. The three slots connected through the PLX-chip take turns in using the four lanes.

How does allocation of the PCI-Express lanes take place? The PCIe switch will in turn allocate the lanes to slots 2, 3 and 4. The first slot is controlled by the Q965 north bridge and has to use sixteen PCIe lanes. In essence what this comes down to is a configuration of x16/ x4/ x4/ x4 lanes. The implementation will have three PCIe x8 connectors on three wired PCIe x4 slots. This means that the slots will accept PCIe x8 cards, but run at x4 speeds. The board connectors come in one of three types: PCI, PCIe x4 (Compatible with PCIe x8) and PCIe x16 in order to meet different peak bandwidth requirements. Three PCIe x4 slots can be used for multi display graphics cards, optical GbE LAN, SCSI and RAID card applications.

The Intel Q965 Express Chipset offers full support for graphic based PCI Express x16 lanes. IEI provides the most cost effective dual display solution with a customized BIOS, achieved by using a PCIe x16 interface SDVO add on card.

.

TPM Ready IMBA-X9654 TPM provides hardware security with the most cost effective solution to build up the best value system for financial banking, healthcare, or military applications. Hackers will never get data through a network and all operations will keep records for tracking. To meet different level target market needs, IEI fully support three kinds of TPM solutions: SINOSUN, INFINEON and WINBOND. Whether considering price or functionality, IPC2U and IEI TPM options give the most economic and convenient alternatives.

RAID Solution In additon to the on-board IDE and Compact Flash (CF-II) connectors, the IMBA-X9654 also has six SATA II connectors for HDD and optical storage devices. The Intel ICH8DO chipsets incorporates six Serial ATA connectors with high performance RAID arrays in RAID levels 0, 1, 5 and 10 that protects against data loss from hard drive failure. The rear panel external SATA port provides smart setup and hot-plug functions. Easily backup photos, videos and other entertainment content on external devices.

.

When looking for a system designed for digital data protection, be sure to look for an Intel chipset with Intel Matrix Storage Technology. The IMBA-X9654 is the ideal solution to enhance hard disk performance and data back up protection without the cost of add-on cards.

.

PCIe x4 Slots Performance Test Results

The IMBA X 9654 has three PCI-E x4 slots. It is possible to install up to three dual port SysKonnect 9E22 Gigabit Ethernet adapterswith up to 6 Lan ports operating at the same time. We were curious to test if the IMBA X9654 could properly handle three LAN cards simultaneously.

.

The table below shows the results of three PCIe x4 Lan cards tests:

.

In practically all of the tests: when two LAN cards are installed ,the bandwidth is a bit lags behind one LAN card installed at 99.96% bandwidth achievement. When three LAN cards are installed , the bandwidth is still a bit lags behind one LAN card at 89.17%.

.

Specifications

Conclusion

IMBA-X9654 ATX motherboard is designed specifically for industrial high-end computer and workstation users with three PCI slots, one PCIe x16 slot, and three PCIe x4 slots, allowing additional multi display graphics card, optical GbE LAN, SCSI and RAID card applications. The IMBA-X9654 supports a TPM (purchased separately), providing enhanced data protection, security via high-level encryption/decryption and platform integrity for a more secure working environment. The IMBA-X9654 supports all currently sold Intel processors in the LGA775 package: Intel® Core™ 2 Quad/ Intel® Core™ 2 Duo/Intel® Pentium® D/Intel® Pentium® 4/Intel® Celeron® D. With the ability to connect three dual port LAN cards combined with an Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor and 8GB DDR2 memory, the IMBA-X9654 can be a very powerful system.

.

Please contact IPC2U Sales-Team sales@ipc2u.de or our representatives for information or quote.