Dell PowerEdge R750xs - Intel Xeon Silver 4310 2.1Ghz 12 Cores

Server Dell PowerEdge R750xs - Intel Xeon Silver 4310 2.1Ghz 12 Cores

The Dell PowerEdge R750xs server is one of the new 15th generation Dell PowerEdge servers. It offers hybrid data storage and several other modern features. This system replaced Dell's previous generation R740 server. It supports scalable 3rd generation Intel Xeon processors with up to 40 physical cores in a standard 2U package. It may look very similar to the previous version, but inside, a lot has changed to make this system stronger, faster and better.

There are three things we like about this platform. First, all NVMe U.2 drives as an option on the front. Second, dual hot-swappable M.2 drive bays are accessible from the rear of the chassis. Third, Dell's Network Daughter Card, or NDC, is now securely replaced with an OCP card for flexible I/O. I/O from NDC was flexible, but now there are more options using OCP. I forgot to mention the 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor, which should probably be at the top of the list. Oh, and PCIe 4.0 compatibility. Although maybe it shouldn't have been limited to three things... There are four chassis options for this platform.

Intel Xeon CPUs

The new "Ice Lake" processors have up to 40 physical cores and 80 threads, as well as more PCIe lanes - 64 lanes compared to 48 lanes per processor in the previous Intel Xeon Scalable 2nd generation processors. We may have already mentioned it in one of the sections above, but PCIe 4.0! This means double the bandwidth compared to PCIe 3.0. Not to mention 128x PCIe lanes with both CPUs installed, so all NVMe drives are supported directly on the motherboard. This particular chassis comes in a minimalist configuration with two processors, one 480GB SATA3 solid state drive in the front, and two 16GB 2400MHz memory modules, one for each processor.

The Intel Xeon Scalable Gold 6348 processors operate at a base frequency of 2.6 GHz with a maximum boost of up to 3.5 GHz. Each processor has 28 physical cores and 56 virtual threads, as well as a significantly larger amount of cache memory (42 MB) compared to the top Gold 2nd generation processors.

Memory

These processors also support more memory, including Data Center Persistent Memory Modules (DCPMM) or an even shorter abbreviation for Intel Optane 200 Series Persistent Memory - PMem. Memory speed up to 3200 MHz is also supported, compared to 2933 MHz previously. At maximum capacity, this system will support up to 12 TB of memory, using a combination of 8 TB of persistent Optane memory paired with 4 TB of reduced load memory modules.

LOM, OCP, I/O

The OCP board sits right in the middle of the chassis, flanked by two other removable boards, the LOM board and the I/O board. The LOM board has a dedicated 1Gb Ethernet management port to access the Dell Embedded Remote Access Controller (iDRAC). The LOM board can also be disabled to support a liquid-cooled I/O board. There is also an I/O board that includes several network card ports. These removable boards provide the flexibility to upgrade I/O and control functions, quickly and easily!

Conclusion
The Dell PowerEdge R750xs server exceeded our performance expectations. It's great to see the new generation of Intel-based servers finally coming out and showing the world what they're capable of. Although the number of cores is still lower than the competition, Intel's 3rd generation Xeon Scalable processors have advantages in PMEM support and other areas. Not only does the server have high performance, but it also features a fantastic design, especially in terms of airflow and NVMe RAID array. New BOSS drives and the legendary iDRAC control system also appeared.