Today Gigabyte is refreshing its AMD EPYC server lineup. The new Gigabyte AMD EPYC servers are all dual socket models designed for different applications. Gigabyte was one of the early AMD EPYC single socket platforms, and we have used their platform, for example, in our AMD EPYC 7251 Linux Benchmarks and Review. Now the Gigabyte Server division is expanding its footprint in the AMD EPYC marketplace with a slew of new dual-socket designs.
Five new Gigabyte AMD EPYC Dual CPU Servers
Here is a nice overview table that Gigabyte sent us on the new EPYC 7000 series servers. You can see that they vary from two models with all U.2 NVMe drives to one with only SATA/ SAS and two machines with a mix.
There are three new 1U models along with two 2U models. Most of which are offering extensive expansion along with storage options that take advantage of the platform’s high PCIe lane count.
Product Highlight: Gigabyte R181-Z92
A design that caught our eye is the Gigabyte R181-Z92. This is a 1U server that has 10x 2.5″ U.2 drives.
Beyond those 10x 2.5″ U.2 NVMe drives, a popular form factor for this generation, there are the two AMD EPYC sockets surrounded by 16 DIMM slots each. That means you can use up to 32 DIMMs and 4TB of RAM. That is more than Intel Skylake dual socket parts can handle.
Another benefit is that you get two low profile PCIe slots along with two OCP Gen 3 x16 Mezzanine slots. That really shows off the PCIe capabilities of EPYC since it has 80 PCIe lanes being used for front I/O yet it still has plenty of room for networking and other AIC configuration.
We have the Intel Xeon Scalable version of this in the STH test lab for an upcoming review.
Final Words
It is great to see Gigabyte add new servers. Gigabyte’s server division is growing in prominence and is building new an innovative products. We recently reviewed the Gigabyte MA10-ST0 and found it to be a unique platform. We also have Gigabyte EPYC (single socket), Gigabyte Xeon Scalable (dual socket), and even Gigabyte Cavium ThunderX1/2 servers in the STH test lab. You can see that Gigabyte’s line has been expanding over the years and their product quality is going up alongside. For AMD, this is yet another AMD EPYC 7000 series momentum boost that comes about 10 months after EPYC’s milestone release.
Looking good. Are the NVMe hot swap and hot plug?
Just 2x1Gbit NICs? Isn’t it a bit unbalanced especially considering power of dual Epyc and speed of storage solution put into the boxes?
Most assume you will be using OCP or add-in NICs for networking.
It would be interesting to see the block diagrams on those U.2 models, to see where those OCP mezzes connect up.