The Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd comes from a heritage of popular servers that are Dell EMC’s high-powered 2U server line. At STH, we have had the servers in our data center lab for several weeks and put these servers through the most comprehensive testing around. In this thorough review, we did not just look at features, we tested the system with multiple configurations, we broke the systems down and serviced key pieces. All of our testing is done in an ex-Yahoo! data center so we also have had the opportunity to use the server in an environment like our readers operate. At the end of the process, we have our Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd review to share and can show what sets it apart from its competition.



Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd Test Configuration

Dell EMC sent a spectacular configuration. Our test system was configured with dual Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 CPUs. These are essentially the highest-end 28 core / 56 thread CPUs that Intel offers. Here is a quick summary of the configurations we used.

Server : Dell EMC PowerEdge R740 2U 24x 2.5″ Chassis

: Dell EMC PowerEdge R740 2U 24x 2.5″ Chassis CPUs : 2x Intel Xeon Platinum 8180, 2x Intel Xeon Gold 6152, 2x Intel Xeon Gold 6138, 2x Intel Xeon Gold 5119T, 2x Intel Xeon Silver 4116, 2x Intel Xeon Bronze 3106

: 2x Intel Xeon Platinum 8180, 2x Intel Xeon Gold 6152, 2x Intel Xeon Gold 6138, 2x Intel Xeon Gold 5119T, 2x Intel Xeon Silver 4116, 2x Intel Xeon Bronze 3106 RAM : 384GB in 12x 32 DDR4-2666MHz RDIMMs

: 384GB in 12x 32 DDR4-2666MHz RDIMMs Storage Controller : PERC H740P

: PERC H740P SAS3 Storage : 5x Samsung PM1635a 400GB Mixed Use SAS3 12gbps SSDs

: 5x Samsung PM1635a 400GB Mixed Use SAS3 12gbps SSDs NVMe Storage : 2x Samsung PM1725 1.6TB U.2 NVMe SSDs

: 2x Samsung PM1725 1.6TB U.2 NVMe SSDs OS Storage : BOSS controller card with 2x 120GB m.2 sticks

: BOSS controller card with 2x 120GB m.2 sticks Networking: Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx dual-port 25GbE

The Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 CPUs are absolutely awesome, however, we felt that the $10,000+ list price each CPU was not representative of what most buyers are going to purchase. Intel sent us a quad Xeon Platinum 8180 system for the Xeon Scalable launch and told us that the Platinum 8180 was not a general-purpose SKU. Instead, it expects volume to come from the Gold and Silver lines. You can read more about the Intel Xeon Scalable Processor Family: Platinum Gold Silver Bronze Naming Conventions.

Those CPUs push the price of the configuration Dell EMC sent, using standard discounts, to just over $40,000. This is well over the discounted price of a base system at just over $3,600 so there is a lot of room to scale on this platform. As is customary in this market, the list price is often discounted so we are using the discounted price we got from the web configurator.

Since this is STH, and we have all AMD EPYC and most Intel Xeon Scalable SKUs available in-house, we again went off script and expanded the CPU coverage over our Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 review. Dell has a long list of CPU options so we decided to put some sense of scale to where one can go in this platform. This is going to be unique content we can create due to STH’s scale.

First, we are going to look at the system’s hardware. We are then going to take a look at the management solution for the server. Finally, we are going to review the performance and the power consumption of the system before giving our final thoughts. Get ready as we gave our test unit what may end up being the ultimate examination you will find published online.