AMD Opteron Coverage - Part 3: The First Servers Arrive

In order to save real estate on the motherboard, Newisys uses vertically mounted PCBs for the memory voltage regulators as you can see at the very back of this picture; the memory's VRM looks like it is stuck in a DIMM slot:

Newisys was the only manufacturer to use a non-ATI graphics controller:

If you've ever worked on a rack full of 1U servers, finding the one you want can be quite difficult. The Newisys 2100 design includes a button that will cause a LED to blink on both the front and back of the chassis, indicating which machine you're working on; this LED can also be activated remotely to direct a technician working on the rack to the appropriate server.

One thing you'll notice from the server's block diagram is the inclusion of a "Service Processor" that features a direct connection to all of the major chips on the motherboard, including both CPUs and the HT I/O Hub. What's so important about this Service Processor that it is in communication with everything on the motherboard? It is the Service Processor that separates the men from the boys, and the Newisys design from all of the other 1U Opteron servers available…