Long-life motherboards scale to multicore CPUs

MicroATX form factor motherboards are designed specifically for embedded applications requiring a stable revision-controlled platform, with long-term availability.

Itox has released two new motherboards supporting Intel Core2 Duo and Quad processors.

The BL330-BR and BL330-B high-performance microATX form factor boards are designed specifically for embedded applications requiring a stable revision-controlled platform, with long-term availability.

Using the Intel Q35 Express chipset, each product offers guaranteed availability through December 2014.

In addition, the LGA775 socket on both motherboards is compatible with a wide range of Embedded Intel Architecture processors, including the Intel Core2 Quad processors, Intel Core2 Duo processors and Intel Celeron 400 series processors with 800, 1067, and 1333MHz front-side bus speeds.

The Itox model BL330-BR motherboard uses an Intel ICH9R Southbridge providing RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 disk configuration using Intel Matrix Storage Technology.

Setup controls incorporated into the system BIOS allow pre-OS RAID creation, naming and deletion of disk arrays.

Full management and status reporting of the RAID array storage devices is performed using Intel Matrix Storage Manager utility software.

An auxiliary powered hardware and firmware solution incorporates Intel Active Management Technology (Intel AMT), enabling remote monitoring and control of system resources.

These features make the Itox BL330-BR ideal for applications such as ATM/POS, gaming, medical imaging, security and surveillance, interactive kiosks and additional applications requiring higher data security.

The Itox BL330-B model uses the Intel ICH9 Southbridge, and is available for applications not requiring RAID and Intel AMT support.

Both the BL330-BR and BL330-B motherboards benefit from a 50% reduction in power required by the new Intel Q35 Express chipset, compared with the Intel Q965 Express chipset.

At the same time, additional performance increases are realised through incorporation of Intel Fast Memory Access, and Intel Virtualisation Technology for Directed I/O (Intel VT-d).

Both boards are fully Windows Vista Aero compliant, providing graphics display resolution up to QXGA (2048 x 1536) via the onboard VGA connector.

Expansion is provided through one PCI Express x 16 slot, one PCI Express x4 slot and two PCI slots.

Optimised for the Intel Core2 Quad processor, the BL330-BR and BL330-B motherboards retain full compatibility with Intel Core2 Duo processors and Intel Celeron 4xx sequence processors.

Maximum performance is leveraged with up to 8Gbyte DDR2 dual-channel memory, PCI-Express Gigabit Ethernet controller and onboard Intel GMA 300 graphics accelerator.

Evaluation units of the Itox BL330-BR and BL330-B motherboards will be available in May 2008 with production units available at the end of Q2 2008.

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