Dell PowerEdge R770 Topology
In our 2TB configuration we have a lot going on. First off, we have P-core CPUs. The R770 supports both the Intel Xeon 6700P and 6700E series.
We see our components were almost entirely connected to CPU 0. There is a lot more going into this platform than what we have installed. Also, it should be noted that the server supports CXL memory as well.
Next, let us get to management.
Dell PowerEdge R770 iDRAC Management
Most folks are likely familiar with Dell iDRAC. The PowerEdge R770 utilizes iDRAC 10 which feels much like an extension of older generations.
It feels like there is more of a focus now on acceleration, and Dell has a lot more info easily available in its management interface than many other server vendors.
There is an inventory feature down to a low level of detail as well as a HTML5 iKVM feature which we have become accustomed to.
Dell also has a lot of sensors in its system that allows it to tune its cooling for specific use cases which is important when there is a system as flexible as this one.
Dell has many resources that deep dive into iDRAC for those who are unfamilar, but this is one of the longest running and most widely used remote management solutions out there.
Next, let us get to the performance.
Dell PowerEdge R770 Performance
In our system, we have dual Intel Xeon 6760P processors. These are 64 cores, 128 threads each with 320MB of cache. There are many options out there covering both P-core and E-core processors.
Just running the system through our tests, here is what we got:
Overall, that is fairly good performance. The 1U heastinks do not appear to be hurting performance here. Also, just to be clear, we test in 1DPC mode for all servers so we pulled out half the memory and tested with a 1TB configuration for this. Otherwise we would have gotten higher virtualization results.
Since we had a NVIDIA H100 NVL installed, we wanted to check this card’s performance in the 2U server. The H100 NVL is a neat card because it is a 94GB HBM3 card, which is a notable upgrade over the original H100 offering just shy of 4TB/s of memory bandwidth.
We have been testing a few systems with the H100 NVL, so we wanted to ensure that even at 400W it was being cooled as well as in a GPU-centric system.
Overall, these results are within test variances, so that means the PowerEdge R770 is doing well on the cooling front. The H100 NVL also has configurable power consumption down to 200W, but ideally folks want to run them at or near full power to get the most performance from what is usually the single most costly component in the server.
Next, let us get to the power consumption.
If only there was some fluid in there for cooling.
Indeed, I had assumed this was a review of one of the liquid-cooled models.
With all the dust the word “fluid” doesn’t come to mind.
Our hopes for a review of a liquid cooled server evaporated as we drank in the first paragraph. Like the bursting of a dam our hopes washed away, until we were somewhat buoyed by the review’s inclusion of E3.S SSDs instead of 2.5″ SSDs (but the option to use them, for those that have them, was refreshing).
So offering help, try: “adaptive”, “versatile” or “highly configurable”.