Dell PowerEdge 4600

Memory Technology

The PowerEdge 4600 system utilizes PC1600 (1.6GB/s PEAK transfer rate) or DDR200 (Double Data Rate at 200MHz) memory technology.

Click on the image below to see a close-up of the Memory Riser.

NOTE: Due to the chipset architecture, both memory cards with at least two DIMMs each need to be present in the system at all times.

Part of the chipset memory subsystem resides on each memory card, and the other part of the chipset memory subsystem resides on the system board. The memory performance of the PowerEdge 4600 system is improved over the PowerEdge 4400 due to its use of DDR technology as opposed to single data rate (SDR) SDRAM.

DDR Memory

DDR (Double Data Rate) is the next generation SDRAM standard using a double data rate clocking technique to push its peak burst bandwidth to 1.6 GB/s as compared to 1 GB/s for PC133 SDRAM. This performance advantage will immediately be appreciated in high-end graphics applications and in other high performance and memory intensive deployments.

The manufacturing process for DDR-SDRAM is very similar to that of SDRAM, except for higher-speed testers, and therefore it does not require new equipment, training, or validation. This means that the price for DDR-SDRAM is very close to its SDRAM predecessor. Therefore DDR-SDRAM provides extra bandwidth at a reasonable price point.

The PowerEdge 4600 will provide PC1600 (or DDR200) memory DIMMs with 128MB, 256, 512 and 1GB capacities. In all the system configurations DIMMs must be installed in sets of four.

DIMM memory support

The Memory Card provides 6x 72-bit (168-pin) sockets for DIMM memory modules. These modules are PC1600 DDR SDRAM DIMMs. ECC is checked and generated within the chipset, and the memory system can support DRAM ChipKill. This means that if the memory system is populated exclusively with x4 or x8 DIMMs (4 bit or 8 bit DRAM devices, then the failure of any DRAM device will not cause uncorrectable data errors.

Memory Module Installation Guidelines

• Install memory modules in matched sets of four, two in each memory riser card.
• Install a pair of memory modules in socket BANK1_A and BANK1_B before installing a second pair in sockets BANK2_A and BANK2_B.

NOTE: The DIMMs need to be inserted in sets of four (there are three banks, each consisting of four interleaved DIMMs). One bank consists of two DIMMs on each memory card. The banks must be populated in order so that if only one bank is present it is Bank 1.

Sample Memory Module Configurations

Total Memory

Bank 1

Bank 2

Bank 3

In System

A

B

A

B

A

B

	512 MB	128 MB	128 MB	None	None	None	None
	1 GB	128 MB	128 MB	128 MB	128 MB	None	None
	1 GB	256 MB	256 MB	None	None	None	None
	2 GB	512 MB	512 MB	None	None	None	None
	4 GB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	None	None
	4 GB	1 GB	1 GB	None	None	None	None
	6 GB	1 GB	1 GB	512 MB	512 MB	None	None
	12 GB	1 GB	1 GB	1 GB	1 GB	1 GB	1 GB

Spare Memory Bank

There are three conditions that need to be met to enable the Spare Memory functionality with the PowerEdge 4600:

• All three banks (all 12 DIMMs) must be populated.
• All banks must be of same type and capacity (all 12 DIMMs must have the same size: 12x128MB or 12x256MB or 12x512MB or 12x1GB).
• The Memory Spare Bank feature must be enabled in the system setup. The BIOS will enable the feature only if a valid memory configuration is installed (see 1 and 2 above).