At HPE Discover 2025, HPE filled out more of its Gen12 portfolio. The quick summary is that the HPE ProLiant DL325 Gen12 and DL345 Gen12 add a new iLO version and 2DPC capability to the AMD EPYC servers. Still, Patrick got to see them and had some interesting conversations around them at the show so he wanted to feature them.
HPE ProLiant DL325 Gen12 at Discover 2025
Here is one of two ProLiant DL325 Gen12 systems we saw at Discover 2025. We can see this one is an 8x drive design, which is similar to what we deployed some time ago in the Gen10 era.
Something that is very different between this and the Gen11 is the memory configuration. The Gen11 was a 12 DIMMs per CPU system. This is a 24 DIMMs per socket single socket solution. The new Turin generation of AMD EPYC processors scales to 192 cores, so you can effectively consolidate to a single socket platform like this and maintain the core counts and per-core performance of multiple previous generation servers. Remember, most upgrading to this platform are likely coming from the Intel Xeon Cascade Lake era that topped out at PCIe Gen3, 6-channel DDR4, and 28 cores per socket. So having 24 DIMMs allows you to add more DIMMs into the server to hit higher memory capacities, especially for those higher core count parts.
We saw a liquid cooled server, but this one had the air cooling heatsink.
I/O expansion is neat. HPE has many different risers, but apparently there is an option for even four single-width GPUs.
On the rear, we have risers, but then we have a DC-SCM for the iLO 7 management. For networking, there are two OCP NIC 3.0 SFF slots as well as the risers above them.
We reviewed the HPE ProLiant DL325 Gen10 back in the AMD EPYC 7002 “Rome” generation. That ended up becoming a system that we bought a cluster of seven of for our load generation.
HPE ProLiant DL345 Gen12 at Discover 2025
The HPE ProLiant DL345 Gen12 is essentially the 2U version of the DL325 Gen12. The front drive bays are configurable, but there is more space for different types of drives.
Inside, we get a familiar AMD EPYC SP5 socket with 24 DIMMs. Just as a quick one here, the 24 DIMM configuration, even if you only install 12 DIMMs, actually lowers the memory clocks.
Then if you configure all 24 DIMMs, that speed decreases. It is a trade-off to have higher memory capacity.
Of course, with the larger chassis, we also get more rear customization options since there is more room for risers.
The bottom level remains the same since the DC-SCM iLO card and the two OCP NIC 3.0 SFF card slots remain in the same places.
Final Words
We started deploying single socket servers in our clusters especially around the Rome generation as we usually need more nodes for cluster robustness. Today’s single socket servers can still offer plenty of cores. The new ProLiant DL325 Gen12 and DL345 Gen12 offer both more memory capacity to augment those Zen 5 cores, but also iLO 7.
Liquid cooling seems logical for a high-core-count processor in a 1U chassis where air movement is compromised by tiny fans. One can also be thankful to not have the additional NUMA considerations as a two socket system.
It would be interesting to see an article on entry-level liquid cooling for enterprise data centers and practical solutions for home labs.
For example, what’s the minimum infrastructure needed on premise to house from two to a dozen liquid cooled servers?