Gigabyte W291-Z00 AMD EPYC GPU Tower Launched

The Gigabyte W291-Z00 tower server is a single socket AMD EPYC platform designed to utilize up to four GPUs, including passive GPUs like the NVIDIA Tesla V100. This is the first AMD EPYC 7000 series tower server product we have seen on the market to harness the single socket AMD EPYC’s PCIe lanes into a usable quad GPU setup. We reviewed the Supermicro AS-4023S-TRT which was a higher-cost dual socket solution. Gigabyte designed a system going the other direction, maximizing on GPU connectivity in the tower form factor.

Gigabyte W291-Z00 AMD EPYC GPU Tower

Gigabyte has a custom tower that utilizes the Gigabyte MZ01-CE1 server motherboard. We are going to have a review soon of the MZ01-CE0 variant. The server supports 8x DIMM slots along with a single AMD EPYC CPU. Great options here include the “P” series parts such as the AMD EPYC 7351P (16-core), AMD EPYC 7401P (24-core), and AMD EPYC 7551P (32-core). We can also see users try to make a remote workstation out of the platform using the high-speed AMD EPYC 7371.

Redundant 1.6kW power supplies provide plenty of redundant power to the system. This server is targeted at the SMB segment where A+B power is less common, however, we could see the use of the server in conjunction with a large BBU.

Gigabyte has M.2 NVMe options for storage via add-in cards. The front panel storage is via four 3.5″ drive bays that one can also use 2.5″ drives in.

Overall, the case is large and designed for spacing required for four double-width GPUs such as the NVIDIA Tesla P100 and AMD Radeon Instinct MI25. The server can use actively cooled GPUs as well as passively cooled GPUs. For four passively cooled GPUs, fans need to run at full speed to cool 1kW+ of GPU plus over 150W of CPU. As a result, we do not expect that this is a server one can use desk side or in an office with four passively cooled GPUs due to noise. With redundant PSUs, perhaps it is better suited to an equipment closet.