User Guide

Features
The expansion blades have the following features:
Support for a high-performance NVIDIA adapter in each expansion blade
The expansion blade comes with NVIDIA Tesla M2070, NVIDIA Tesla M2070Q, NVIDIA Tesla M2075,
or NVIDIA Tesla M2090 adapter card. The use of these expansion blades enables the use of the
specialized adapters that would not otherwise be available to BladeCenter customers.
Ability to stack up to four expansion blades on a single base blade
You can attach up to four expansion blades, thereby maintaining the BladeCenter density advantage
while still having the ability to access the power of these high-performance GPUs as needed without
the need for additional server blades and the added complexity and cost that brings. The first
expansion blade connects to the server blade using the CFFh expansion slot of the server blade. The
second expansion blade attaches to the CFFh connector on the first expansion blade, and so on.
Note: You cannot attach an IBM BladeCenter PCI Express Gen 2 Expansion Blade or PCI Express
Gen 2 Expansion Blade II to the same stack as GPU Expansion Blades.
CFFh slot still available
The CFFh expansion connector is accessible on the top-most expansion blade (see Figure 3), even
with four expansion blades attached. This lets you maintain the integrated networking capabilities of
the blade server when installed in a BladeCenter H or BladeCenter HT chassis.
Figure 3 shows the layout of the expansion blade.
Figure 3. Layout of the expansion blade
Specifications
IBM BladeCenter GPU Expansion Blade and GPU Expansion Blade II (withdrawn product) 5