Insert 4 TByte more RAM into server via PCIe/CXL card
PCI Express cards from Smart Modular for servers with CXL function make it possible to install several terabytes of RAM in addition to the existing RAM.
CXL expansion cards from Smart Modular for four or eight DDR5 RDIMMs.
(Image: Smart Modular)
The Compute Express Link (CXL), which is based on PCI Express (PCIe) from generation 5, is slowly picking up speed: Some new products are appearing. Smart Modular has announced the CXA-4F1W and CXA-8F2W RAM expansion cards, which can be fitted with four and eight DDR5 RDIMMs respectively. The RAM of CXL-compatible servers can thus be expanded by several terabytes of RAM, even if all DIMM slots on the mainboard are already equipped.
RAM expansion via CXL.mem
CXL uses PCIe as a physical interface, but opens up new possibilities for use. For example, CXL can connect computing accelerators in a cache-coherent manner. The CXL 3.0 specification part CXL.mem is in turn intended for the expansion of RAM via CXL. PCIe 5.0 x8 transfers just under 32 GByte/s per direction; this is around 80 percent of the maximum that a DDR 4800 memory channel can achieve (38.4 GByte/s).
This data transfer rate is also available in addition to the performance of the main memory, which the server processors connect via their integrated memory controllers. From this perspective, CXL memory modules expand both the capacity and the bandwidth of the main memory.
AMD's server CPUs have been capable of CXL since the fourth generation Epyc 9004/8004 (Zen 4 / Genoa, Bergamo), while Intel's Xeons from Xeon-SP Gen 4 (Sapphire Rapids) onwards are capable of it.
CXL memory with PCIe 5.0 x16
The CXA-4F1W smart modular card has a CXL controller with 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes and two DDR5 memory channels. Each channel accepts one or two registered ECC DIMMs of the DDR5-4800 speed class (RDIMMs). A capacity of up to 128 GByte is possible per module, i.e. a maximum of 512 GByte with four DIMMs. The maximum data transfer rate to the host is 64 GByte/s.
The CXA-8F2W card has two CXL controllers with two RAM channels each, but can also handle RDIMMs with up to 512 GB. This means that up to 4 TByte are possible per card.
Smart Modular has not yet announced prices and delivery dates.
Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt
Mit Ihrer Zustimmmung wird hier ein externer Preisvergleich (heise Preisvergleich) geladen.
Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (heise Preisvergleich) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.
(ciw)
