Intel Itanium 9300 server processordelivering world-class reliability for uninterrupted business, Intel® Itanium® processor 9300 series is ideal for mission-critical computing and RISC replacement. With more than double the performance of the previous generation, these processors deliver up to six times more memory bandwidth, up to nine times more interconnect bandwidth, and up to eight times more memory capacity.

Enhanced Parallelism: Four multi-threaded cores per processor allow the 9300 series twice as many simultaneous software threads as its predecessor. Enhanced thread-level parallelism (TLP) improves performance and scalability for heavily threaded software code, like databases. The processor now supports thread switching between medium latency events to help boost core utilization and throughput. Instruction-Level Parallelism (ILP), the ability to process multiple instructions on each software thread, has always been a strength of Itanium and the EPIC architecture. This has been further enhanced by improvements to the first-level Data Translation Lookaside Buffer (DTLB) that helps reduce the number of misses and stall cycles.

Improvements in Scalability and Headroom: Effective communication channels within the processor are a key element to utilization and to supporting memory and I/O intensive applications. A major step forward has been made with the 9300 series by introducing the Intel® QuickPath Interconnect to the Itanium processor family. This replaces the front-side bus with a point-to-point architecture and provides peak processor-processor and processor-to-I/O communications up to 96 GB/s, or up to 9x that of the previous generation. In larger system designs solutions scale automatically since as more processors are added, system bandwidth increases. The Intel QuickPath Interconnect also provides a common chipset with Intel® Xeon® 7500 processors building economies of scale across both architectures. Two integrated memory controllers provide peak bandwidth up to 34 GB/s, a 6x improvement from the previous generation.

Better Power Efficiency: As power consumption is increasingly important in today’s data centers, the 9300 series provides better power and thermal management. An enhanced form of Demand Based Switching (DBS) modulates both voltage and frequency and Intel® Turbo Boost Technology automatically increases settings when workloads are high, fine-tuning performance versus power consumption as needed.

Dynamic Partitioning and Hot Plug Components: Partitioning helps organizations maintain uninterrupted operation in response to error events or scheduled maintenance and also assists utilization and power efficiency by responding to changing workloads. Physical (hard) partitions provide full electrical isolation and boundaries can be dynamically changed and resources managed without restarting the system or rebooting the affected operating systems. OS partitions enable multiple applications to run under a single OS while each appears to have a dedicated OS. Virtual partitions are possible using Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) software available from some vendors or ISVs. The Intel® Virtualization technology (Intel VT-i) has been upgraded on the 9300 series to Intel VT-i2 for additional hardware assistance and thereby improving performance by reducing the amount of time running VMM emulation code and minimizing the number of required transitions between the OS and the VMM.

Improved Reliability, Availability, & Serviceability (RAS): The 9300 series has been designed to handle the most mission-critical IT environments in the world. Consolidation of multiple applications per system further magnifies the potential impact of system downtime. RAS capability is therefore paramount and the 9300 series extends the mainframe-class RAS features from previous Itanium generations. Advanced Machine Check Architecture coordinates error handling across all levels, greatly reducing the likelihood of data corruption and improving the reliability of the system. Corrected Machine Check Interrupts (CMCI) for platform related errors, new on the 9300 series, enables error reporting through the local processor interface, which helps to localize errors faster and provide a foundation for building predictive error solutions.

Below is a list of most processor, memory, and Intel QuickPath Interconnect RAS features supported in the 9300 processor die itself.

Processor RAS Features:
-Error Avoidance, Detection, and Correction Across All Major Core Structures using soft error(SE) hardened latches and registers, error correcting code (ECC), parity, and Intel Cache Safe technology -Processor Hot Plug
-Advanced Machine Check Architecture

Memory RAS Features:
-DRAM Protection
-Memory Scrubbing (Patrol & Demand)
-Memory Thermal Protection
-Memory Channel Protection
-Memory Migration and DIMM Sparing
-Memory Mirroring
-Memory Channel Hot Plug

Intel QuickPath Interconnect RAS Features:
-Error Detection and Correction
-Clock Failover and Link Self-Healing
-Hot Pluggable Interconnect Links
-Intelligent Error Management