One of the many questions about AMD’s EPYC processor line related to AMD’s ability to reengage with OEMs since the Bulldozer era. Recent announcements from Microsoft Azure and Baidu have shown that at least two of the Super 7 cloud providers are on board, and today’s announcement brings Dell PowerEdge servers, powered by EPYC, into the mix.

Dell is launching three variants of the PowerEdge 14G line:

Dell PowerEdge 14G with EPYC PowerEdge

R6415 PowerEdge

R7415 PowerEdge

R7425 Size 1U 2U 2U Sockets 1 1 2 CPUs Up to EPYC 7601

32 Core / 64 Threads Up to 2x EPYC 7601

64 Core / 128 Threads DRAM < 2TB DDR4 LRDIMMs

< 1TB DDR4 RDIMMs < 4TB DDR4 LRDIMMs

< 2TB DDR4 RDIMMs NVMe Drives 10 Total

8 Front Panel 24 Total

24 Front Panel 24 Total

24 Front Panel PCIe Lanes 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16

1 x PCIe 3.0 x8 6 x PCIe 3.0 x16

(up to 8 slots total) GPU Support ? ? 3 x Dual Width PSUs Platinum 550W

Bronze 450W Titanium 750W

Platinum 495W

Platinum 750W

Platinum 1600W Titanium 750W

Platinum 495W

Platinum 750W

Platinum 1100W

Platinum 1600W

Platinum 2000W Storage Controllers PERC H330

PERC H370p

PERC H390p

PERC HBA330

PERC 9/10 PERC H330

PERC H370p

PERC H390p

PERC HBA330

PERC 9/10 PERC H330

PERC H370p

PERC H390p

PERC HBA330

PERC 9/10 Networking 2 x 1GbE or

2 x 10GbE or

2 x 10GbE SFP+ 2 x 1GbE or

2 x 10GbE or

2 x 10GbE SFP+ 4x1GbE + 2x10GbE

2x1GbE + 4x10GbE

2 x 25GbE

Users that have dealt with PowerEdge configurations will be used to the offerings: a single socket system focused on storage (R6415), a single socket system with more storage (R7415), and a dual socket system combining storage and graphics (R7425). All the systems support optional front and rear ports, including networking (dual 1GbE, dual 10GbE, or dual 10GbE SFP+), Dell’s OpenManage platform, and a series of PERC controllers.

As new EPYC based servers enter the market, it is always interesting to see how OEMs are implementing the different features. This applies not only to how OEMs will route 128 PCIe lanes, but also if further expansion is needed. In the case of the R7425, Dell is using a PCIe switch in order to provide sufficient lanes for the 24 NVMe drives while also providing up to eight PCIe slots for 64 lanes. This R7425 we were told can support three double width GPUs, however it was not divulged how these GPUs are connected – if all three are on one of the two CPUs, or it happens to be split. There are many ways to design the PCIe front-end of a server like this, and there are usually trade-offs.

If there is one thing to say about AMD’s server team, it is that they love to spread news about design wins when they can. Despite this announcement being about Dell’s latest line of PowerEdge 14G servers, it was AMD who got in touch to discuss the news from their perspective. Ultimately launches like this are building on EPYC being accepted by the bigger server providers, and feed into AMD’s narrative of working closer with OEMs through 2018.

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