With the launch of Intel’s Ice Lake Xeon Scalable platform comes a brand new socket and a variety of options that distributors like Supermicro need to design for. The server and enterprise market is so huge that each design can are available in a variety of configurations and settings, nonetheless one of many key parts is managing compute density with reminiscence and accelerator assist. The SYS-120U-TNR we’re testing at the moment is a dense system with numerous trimmings all inside a 1U, to which Supermicro is aiming at virtualization workloads, HPC, Cloud, Software Defined Storage, and 5G. This system will be geared up with upwards of 80 cores, 12 TB of DRAM, and 4 PCIe 4.zero accelerators, defining a high-end resolution from Supermicro.
Servers: General Purpose or Hyper Focused?
Due to the best way the server and enterprise market is each expansive and optimized, distributors like Supermicro need to determine how one can partition their server and enterprise choices. Smaller distributors would possibly select to focus on one specific buyer, or go for a basic objective design, whereas the bigger distributors can have a large portfolio of methods for various verticals. Supermicro falls into this latter class, designing focused methods with massive prospects, but additionally enabling ‘standard’ methods that may do a little bit of the whole lot however nonetheless supply good whole value of possession (TCO) over the lifetime of the system.
Server dimension in comparison with a typical 2.5-inch SATA SSD
When contemplating a ‘standard’ enterprise system, prior to now we have now sometimes noticed a twin socket design in a 2U (3.5-inch, 8.9cm peak) chassis, which permits for a ample cooling design together with a variety of add-in accelerators equivalent to GPUs or enhanced networking, or house on the entrance panel for storage or further cooling. The system we’re testing at the moment, the SYS-120U-TNR, actually fields this ‘standard’ definition, though Supermicro does the extra step of optimizing for density by cramming the whole lot right into a 1U chassis.
With only one.75-inches (4.4cm) vertical clearance on supply, cooling turns into a precedence, which implies substantial sufficient heatsinks and fast-paced airflow backed by Eight highly effective 56mm followers, that are working at as much as 30ok RPM with PWM management. The SYS-120U-TNR we’re testing has assist for two Ice Lake Xeon processors at as much as 40 cores and 270 W every, in addition to further add-in accelerators (one twin slot full peak + two single slot full peak), and comes geared up with twin 1200W Titanium or twin 800W Titanium energy provides, indicating that it’s suited up ought to a buyer need to fill it with loads of {hardware}. You can see within the picture above and on the proper of the picture under, Supermicro makes use of plastic baffles to make sure that airflow by way of the heatsink and reminiscence is as laminar as potential.
LGA-4189 Socket with 1U Heatsink and 16 DDR4 slots
Even with the 1U type issue, Supermicro has enabled full reminiscence assist for Ice Lake Xeon, permitting each processors sixteen DDR4-3200 reminiscence slots, able to supporting a complete of 12 TB of reminiscence with Intel’s Optane DCPMM 200-series.
At the entrance are 12 2.5-inch SATA/NVMe PCIe 4.zero x4 scorching swappable drive bays, with six apiece coming from every processor. If we begin wanting into the place all of the PCIe lanes from every processor go, it will get a bit complicated in a short time:
By default the system comes with out community connectivity, solely with a BMC connection for admin management. Network choices requires an Ultra add-in riser card for twin 10GBase-T (X710-AT2), or twin 10GBase-T plus twin 10GbE SFP+ (X710-TM4). With the PCIe connectors, every other networking choice may be configured, however Supermicro additionally lists the entire no-NIC choice for air-gapped methods. The system additionally has three USB 3.zero ports (2 rear, 1 entrance), a rear VGA…
