IBM System x3850 X5 Implementation Guide

394 IBM eX5 Implementation Guide
Figure 8-28 Complex scale toggle for stand-alone mode
8.4.4 Speed Burst Card reinstallation
In the event that you decide to split a 2-node complex permanently in order to use the blades
independently, always reinstall the Speed Burst Card for performance reasons.
The Speed Burst Card takes the QPI links that are used for scaling two HX5 2-socket blades
and routes them back to the processors on the same blade. Without the Speed Burst Card,
there is only one QPI link between processor 1 and 2 for exchanging memory information.
The Speed Burst Card increases the number of QPI links from 1 to 3, which will significantly
increase the bandwidth of data that can be exchanged between the memory of the two
processors. For solutions that use intensive memory, the performance boost will be
measurable. See the block diagram in Figure 8-29 on page 395.

IBM System x3850 X5 Specifications

General

Processor Cores	Up to 10 cores per processor
Chipset	Intel 7500
Hard Drive Interface	SAS/SATA
Processor	Intel Xeon E7-4800 series, Intel Xeon E7-8800 series
Memory Slots	64 DIMM slots
Storage	Up to 16 x 2.5" hot-swap SAS/SATA HDDs or SSDs
RAID Support	RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10
Network Interface	Integrated Gigabit Ethernet
Operating System Support	Microsoft Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, VMware vSphere
Form Factor	4U Rack