Dell iDRAC 10 Management
One of the biggest reasons to use Dell servers is for the iDRAC management. The new generation is iDRAC 10. Here is the controller board.
We are not going to go into iDRAC 10 since we just did in the Dell PowerEdge R770 Review. There is a ton of information available to management software and for those who have used previous generations of iDRAC, this version simply has more.
Next, let us discuss the performance.
Dell PowerEdge R6715 Performance
In this server, we had the AMD EPYC 9845. This is a 160-core Zen 5c CPU. For many upgrading from 1st and 2nd gen Intel Xeon Scalable platforms, this is enough that in a single socket you should find enough performance to replace 3-4 reasonably high-spec’d servers with a single socket new server. Of course, we wanted to test that out.
We decided to take the CPU and compare it to a reference air-cooled 2U server with the same AMD EPYC 9845 processor.
Performance is relatively similar. To be clear, this is actually an expected and good result. First off, we are comparing an air cooled 2U server to a liquid cooled 1U server. Second, modern processors will perform about the same given adequate power and cooling. The big difference here is that the system is half the height of the comparison platform and is using less power.
Next, let us discuss the power consumption.
I think I saw the reference in this post, but it might have been somewhere else. I don’t understand why people still test Linux with Ubuntu or Debian – or VMs with Promox – and not Fedora. Fedora is the cutting edge of mainstream operating systems, using the latest kernel, adding new tech asap, retiring obsolete tech asap. Fedora server is dead easy to use. Its package system IMO is superior to everything else. I can setup one of these MinisForum minipcs from box to customised server in less than an hour. From what I understand, getting Ubuntu or Proxmox to work with the latest kernel one needs to perform the operating system equipment of a root canal. What’s the point of having the latest and greatest hardware if the operating system doesn’t exploit the technology. Even with Fedora, there is a few months wait unless one wants to play with rawhide.
One more thing… Fedora is developed by IBM. What did they used to say about using IBM?
@Mike: Because Ubuntu and Debian have well tested stable versions, and most people running servers want reliability above all else (hence the redundant power supplies, redundant Ethernet, etc.) If you want bleeding edge hardware support and you can tolerate the occasional kernel crash that’s when you go with something that keeps packages more up to date, although Fedora is a bit of an odd choice for that as it still lags behind other distros like Arch or Gentoo that are typically only a day or so behind upstream kernel releases.
But I do question why you need the latest kernel on a server since they usually don’t get new hardware added to them very often, they typically come with slightly older well tested hardware that already has good driver support, and most server admins don’t like using their machines as guinea pigs either, especially when a kernel bug could easily take the machine out and prevent it from booting at all. It sounds more like something relevant to a workstation or gaming PC where you’re regularly upgrading parts, and you don’t need redundant PSUs etc. because uptime isn’t a primary concern.
Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distribution for servers. Usually, Red Hat and Ubuntu are the two pre-installed Linux distributions that almost every server OEM has options for. If you want to do NVIDIA AI, then you’re using Ubuntu for the best support. RHEL is maybe second.
If you’ve got to pick a distribution, you’d either have to go RHEL or Ubuntu-Debian. I don’t see others as even relevant, other than for lab environments.
If STH were a RHEL shop, I’d understand, as that’s a valid option. Ubuntu is the big distribution that’s out there, so that’s the right option. They just happened to use Ubuntu since before it was the biggest. I’d say a long time ago when they started using Ubuntu it was valid to ask Ubuntu or CentOS, but they’ve made the right choice in hindsight even though at the time I thought they were dumb for not using CentOS. CentOS is gone so that’s how that turned out.
fantastic !! The AMD Risen a proposition better than Intel pricewise it may surpass the Intel performance in the long run ..
you never mentioned how you cooled this server…. it has hoses…. to hook to what?
In the Dell R6715 technical guide, they publish memory speeds at 5200MT/s even though the server (air cooled) uses 6400 MT/s DIMM’s. Does the liquid cooled version of the R6715 also down shift the memory speed?
The memory speed is not a liquid v. air. It is a challenge with the additional trace lengths of moving from 12 DIMM to 24 DIMM configurations placed on the motherboard.
Patrick, I understand that the second bank always creates a reduced memory bandwidth. What I don’t understand is why is the R6715 documentation indicating a 5200 MT/s for the memory bandwidth when running 6400 MT/s DIMM’s. The HPE DL325 has the same published numbers in their documentation. Why aren’t these servers achieving full bandwidth on 6400 MT/s DIMM’s when running a single, fully populated bank?