HPE ProLiant DL145 Gen11 Review An AMD EPYC 8004 Edge Server

HPE ProLiant DL145 Gen11 Internal Overview

Inside the server, we have a compact motherboard and a straightforward layout.

By far, the big feature is the AMD EPYC 8004 “Siena” processor. The CPU is a socketed part (SP6) and is neat because you can get up to 64 cores and 128 threads in the AMD EPYC 8534P at only 200W. In today’s era of 500W TDP per socket CPUs, this is a more reasonable edge platform.

The Zen 4c-based Siena supports six DDR5 memory channels that are in the ProLiant DL145 Gen11. HPE sent the system with two RDIMMs, but we replaced the memory to expand capacity for testing.

HPE also has a nice hard plastic airflow guide. Some of these 2U edge systems have flimsy airflow guides that are hard to seat, but HPE has a nice one that is easy to install and remove.

In the front corner, we have the internal infrastructure supporting our storage bays.

HPE is not just making simple M.2 adapters, instead, the company has a fairly elaborate setup to support these swappable front M.2 SSDs.

Our system had the two 2.5″ SATA bay option. The setup supporting that is a backplane with power and data connections. You can also see there is a lot of space blanked off with this configuration.

Most of the connectivity comes from MCIO connectors flanking the CPU socket. Something interesting is that HPE puts these MCIO connectors outside of the DDR5 DIMM slots on the motherboard.

Since we do not have the 6x NVMe storage configuration, there are three of these MCIO connectors unpopulated. That is 24 PCIe lanes that are not being used in our system.

A small, but neat touch is that the MCIO cables providing connectivity to the PCIe riser slots are labeled primary and secondary. That may seem like a small feature, but it helps as the cable count rises so it is great that HPE innovates and does something like that.

On the subject of risers, HPE is doing something very different, but also fascinating. Our system has three PCIe Gen5 x16 slits on the center riser that you can see below.

Here is the same from a different angle with the NVIDIA L4 GPU installed in the bottom slot.

Most companies will just make a simple three slot riser. HPE is doing something different here by making a stackable riser.

The bottom slot plugs into the motherboard for data and power. The top two get their data feeds from the MCIO connectors we showed earlier. The advantage of HPE’s design is that it cuts down on cables. The disadvantage is that it makes additional PCIe slots an option and turns a simple riser into something more complex. This is one of those neat ideas, but also one that feels like it went a bit far on optimization.

Here is a quick shot at the riser slot on the motherboard.

Another small feature we found, is that like many consumer motherboards, ours had a system reset and power button on the motherboard itself. That might be because we have an early unit but it was neat to find.

Next, let us get to the topology, management, and performance.