Intel Announces PAE Upgrade for Enhanced Performance of Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit Server Adapter - Product Announcement

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, August 30, 1999

Intel Corporation Monday announced a driver upgrade that adds performance-enhancing Physical Address Extension (PAE) technology to the Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit Server Adapter.

The upgrade will coincide with the upcoming release of Windows 2000 Server Edition, which also supports Intel's PAE. Together, they help enable faster processing for memory-intensive applications such as enterprise resource planning, where very large databases must be queried.

Upgraded with the PAE-enabled driver, the Intel PRO/1000 Server Adapter allows a network to directly access up to 64 Gigabytes of a server's RAM with all the speed the adapter can deliver. Without the upgrade, the network can directly access data only within the first 4 Gigabytes of RAM on the server. Data residing in the other 60 Gigabytes of memory must first be swapped into the directly accessible portion of RAM, thus decreasing overall server performance. Deploying the Intel PRO/1000 Server Adapter with the PAE-enabled driver will increase server performance by making this movement of memory unnecessary.

Already included in all Intel Pentium II and Intel Pentium III processors, Intel's PAE expand the number of bits that can be used to address physical memory in PCI systems from 32 to 36. This provides a 16-fold increase in the amount of RAM that can be directly accessed. To fully benefit from the extensions, however, support must also be provided in the network adapter and the host operating system. Microsoft's soon to be released Windows 2000 Server Edition is the first OS to offer this support, while the Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit Server Adapter is the first NIC to support Intel PAE.

"Mission critical servers must provide high-performance access to ever-increasing amounts of data for businesses to keep up in today's competitive global economy," said Greg Lang, vice president of Intel's Network Communications Group and general manager of the Network Interface Division. "With the addition of PAE, customers and product developers will be able to remove memory bottlenecks and help maximize the performance of their high-speed servers."

"Microsoft and Intel worked closely to deliver the benefits of the Intel PAE to customers who require advanced performance for network and memory intensive applications" said Jawad Khaki, general manager of Microsoft Networking and Communications. "The ability of the PRO/1000 Gigabit Adapter to directly access more memory in Windows 2000 improves scalability and reduces costs by letting customers consolidate workloads on high-end servers."

The adapter software upgrade will be available for downloading from Intel's web site in the 4th quarter of this year.

More information on Intel's networking products is available at www.intel.com/network or 800/538-3373 in North America.