Dell PowerEdge 4600

Product Overview

The PowerEdge 4600 replaces the PowerEdge 4400 as the flagship departmental server offered by Dell. The PowerEdge 4600 attains significantly improved dual processor performance over previous servers.

These performance improvements result largely from the incorporation of Intel Corporation's next generation Xeon™ dual capable processors and the ServerWorks's Grand Champion HE™ chipset that supports them. This chipset supports a 400MHz front-side bus, hot-plug PCI-X slots, and DDR memory.

The PowerEdge 4600 combines this powerful chipset with integrated support for the most recent RAID technologies and packages it in a compact, newly designed 6U chassis.

Product Features

• Performance

  Chipset
  • ServerWorks Grand Champion™ HE (GCHE) architecture for Intel based multiprocessor platforms. HE-CG architecture delivers an unprecedented 3.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth and up to 5 GB/s of I/O throughput (The PowerEdge 4600 supports up to 3.4 GB/s I/O throughput), supporting a maximum of six independent PCI-X bus segments and one traditional 32-bit PCI bus. GCHE is the industry's first platform to provide host PCI-X support.
  Processor

  • Support for dual Intel Xeon processors - starting at 1.8Ghz w/512KB full speed level 2 (L2) integrated cache and scaling upwards as faster processors are released by Intel.
  • Processors are built on a 0.13µ process and use a new 603-pin socket form factor.
  • NetBurst™ micro-architecture speeds system tasks.
  • Hyper-Threading™ functionality improves performance on multithreaded code and multitasking operations through better utilization of processor execution resources.
  • Rapid Execution Engine allows certain instructions to be performed at 2 times core frequency speed.
  • Front side bus runs at 400MHz (quad-pumped data) for faster memory performance.
  Memory

  • Double Data Rate (DDR) SDRAM doubles the rate to 1.6 GB/s by transferring data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock.
  • Two memory cards for combined support of up to 12GB 4-way interleaved memory (DIMMs installed in sets of four), which can provide a peak memory bandwidth of 3.2 GB/s.
  Storage

  • Support for an end-to-end Ultra3/LVD (2 times faster than Ultra 2/LVD) RAID solution with optional dual channel embedded U160/m RAID (PERC 3/Di) or SCSI driving internal and/or external Ultra3 SCSI drives.
  • Integrated dual channel Adaptec AIC-7899 (Ultra3/LVD) SCSI controller (used with PERC 3/Di for ROMB with 160MB/s bandwidth).
  • Integrated single channel Adaptec AIC-7890 (Ultra2/LVD) SCSI controller for connection to tape backup unit.
  I/O

  • I/O Architecture supports 6 hot-plug 64-bit/100MHz PCI-X devices.
  • Integrated Broadcom 10/100/1000 (Gbit) Ethernet controller.
  • Integrated Intel 82559 (Pro100+) 10/100 Ethernet controller.

• Availability
  • Hot plug/redundant power provided by standard Power Distribution Board (PDB).
  • Equipped with individually Hot Plug/Redundant cooling fans as standard.
  • Supports hot plug PCI-X or PCI slots (6).
  • Bays and backplane that support hot-plug hard drives when the system is equipped with a RAID controller.
  • Embedded dual channel RAID driven by Intel Zion, the next generation i960 on-board processor with 64-bit/66MHz PCI, battery backup and SDRAM DIMM socket supporting 128MB cache and (un-buffered PC100) 16MB RAID Flash.
  • Embedded Broadcom BCM5700 10/100/1000 Gb/s Ethernet and Intel 10/100 Mb/s Ethernet controller provide redundant, high-speed networking connections.
  • ChipKill™ technology and Spare Bank™ memory provide improved availability by allowing the system to operate through a memory chip failure.
  • Supports ECC protected DDR SDRAM memory
  • SCSI clustering support is standard.
  • Embedded Server Management (ESM III) hardware for easy system upgrades.
  • Support for optional Dell Remote Assistant card (DRAC3) for lights-out, out-of-band server management.
  • Easy access chassis allows removal of all components without the use of tools, simplifying repairs and maintenance.
  • LCD panel and status LEDs provide easier monitoring of critical components such as: processors, hard drives, fans and power supplies

• Scalability
• Dual processor capable, currently supports up Xeon processors of speeds up to 2.2Ghz/400MHz. Intel's NetBurst^TM architecture allows for core speed beyond 2.2Ghz in the future.
• Two memory cards provide combined support of up to 12GB 4 way interleaved memory.
• 128MB/256MB/512MB/1GB Registered DDR support (PC1600), up to 12GB of main memory may be installed.
• Internal hard drive bay to support 10 x 1.0" (8x1.0" in drive bay and 2x1.0" in media bay). Maximum internal storage capacity of 730GB (10x73GB).
• Hot-plug backplane can be split to 2x4, to segment SCSI drives.
• Two external 5.25" bays and one slim floppy drive / CD-DVD ROM combo unit.
• Optional Tape Backup Unit may be installed in external 5.25" bay.
• Supports connection to Dell PowerVault Systems.
• Highly serviceable 6U rack-mountable chassis, supporting up to seven PowerEdge 4600 servers per seven-foot (or 42U) rack.
• Total I/O throughput is 3.4GB/s.
• 7 expansion slots - All PCI slots are on peer buses (five buses architecture, each of the 6 PCI-X slot has a peak bandwidth of 800MB/s.
  • 6 hot-plug 64-bit/100MHz PCI-X or 6 hot-plug 64-bit/66MHz PCI
  • One 32bit/33MHz PCI slot (used for DRAC3 on systems so equipped)
• Other
• 8MB Flash for system BIOS, SCSI and Video BIOS, and server management.
• Dual SCSI ports for external storage.
• PS/2 compatible mouse and keyboard ports.
• Dual USB ports.
• Dual 9-pin serial ports.
• AT and PS/2 compatible parallel port.