The 10 Coolest New Servers With Intel Processors In 2021
From Cisco and Dell Technologies to Lenovo and Inspur, here’s ten of the coolest servers launched in 2021 with Intel’s brand-new Xeon Scalable processors inside.
10 Top-Notch New Servers With Intel 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable Processors
Backed by Intel’s brand-new Xeon Scalable processors, global server leaders Cisco, Dell Technologies, Inspur, Lenovo and Supermicro launched several new servers in 2021 that channel partners and customers need to know about.
This month, CPU giant Intel launched its long anticipated third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs, code name Ice Lake, featuring dedicated acceleration for artificial intelligence and cryptography. Intel’s new Ice Lake processors brings Xeon’s maximum core count to 40, up from 28. Intel said the processor will be made available in more than 250 server designs as competition between Intel and AMD heats up.
CRN breaks down ten of the coolest servers launched this year with Intel’s new CPUs inside by market leaders Cisco, Dell, Inspur, Lenovo’s new Infrastructure Solutions Group and Supermicro.
Cisco UCS B200 M6
Backed by two third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, Cisco’s new UCS B200 M6 Blade Server delivers top level performance, versatility and density without compromise for workloads ranging from web infrastructure to distributed databases. The Cisco UCS B200 M6 Blade Server can quickly deploy stateless physical and virtual workloads with the programmability provided by Cisco UCS Manager and Cisco Intersight Managed Mode (IMM).
Intel’s new Xeon Scalable CPUs offer up to 40 percent more performance with 43 percent more cores than Cisco’s M5 generation server, with up to 8 TB of memory. Memory jumps to 12TB when combined with Intel Optane. Cisco’s new blade server offers up to two Intel Xeon Scalable Processors at 40 cores per socket along with 32 DIMM slots.
Dell’s Ruggedized Edge XR11 And XR12
Dell Technologies’ highly ruggedized XR11 and RX12 servers were built to thrive in remote and harsh environments, aiming to bring enterprise performance and security to the edge. With a hardened chassis, minimal footprint and support for multiple accelerators, the Intel-based XR11 and XR12 short-depth servers are built for the growing demands of edge-based workloads.
Dell’s new servers include Intel’s third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors along with multi-accelerator support. Targeting emerging 5G and edge opportunities, the XR11 and XR12 are operational in extreme temperature ranges, dusty environments and NEBS Level 3 compliant for communications.
Lenovo ThinkSystem SR670 V2
One of the most powerful Intel-based server launches Lenovo did this month was releasing the Lenovo ThinkSystem SR670 V2 server. The 3U rack-mount server platform with three modules is designed for high performance computing (HPC) and AI training workloads, supporting the vast NVIDIA Ampere datacenter GPU portfolio. The ThinkSystem SR670 V2 has up to two third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors per node, with up to 2-TB of memory.
With six base configurations that support up to eight small or large form factor GPUs, the SR670 V2 allows customers the flexibility to configure PCIe or SXM form factors. One of those configurations features a Lenovo Neptune liquid to air heat exchanger that provides the benefits of liquid cooling without the adding plumbing.
Inspur NF5280M6
Inspur’s new NF5280M6 is a 2U dual-socket high-end rackmount server with top-notch computing performance, compatibility and scalability. The company’s new M6 server family features key products designed in line with open computing standards with the NF5280M6 embracing open software protocols, such as OpenBMC and Redfish, as well as a open standard components like OCP3.0 network and E1.S storage.
Backed by Intel’s third-generation Xeon Scalable processors, the Inspur NF5280M6 focuses on application scenarios around AI, edge computing and multi-cloud. Inspur said the NF5280M6 server provides industry-leading deployment density, performance, hardware decoupling and quality, improving performance by 46 percent compared with Inspur’s previous server generation.
Supermicro X12 Hyper-E
Specifically optimized for 5G and the telecommunications market, Supermicro’s new X12 Hyper-E has dual third-generation Intel Xeon processors up to 270W and 32 DIMM slots for maximum memory capacity. The high performance 1U and 2U server has rear I/O and front I/O configurations to meet the modern data center requirements of today.
The Supermicro X12 Hyper-E server has top-notch storage capabilities with the latest generation PCI-E 4.0 NVMe SSDs and networking flexibility with AIOM NIC support. With full memory encryption, Supermicro’s X12 portfolio is more secure than any previous generation. The new server’s toolless design features are intended to simplify field serviceability and lower maintenance time.
Cisco UCS C240
Cisco’s new UCS C240 M6 rack server is suited for a wide range of storage and I/O-intensive applications such as big data analytics, databases, collaboration, virtualization and HPC in a two-socket, 2U form factor. The new server includes up to two of Intel’s new Xeon Scalable Processors supporting more than 43 percent more cores per socket and 33 percent more memory when compared with Cisco’s previous M6 server generation.
Customers can deploy the new UCS rack server as standalone servers or as part of the Cisco Unified Computing System managed by Cisco Intersight, Cisco UCS Manager or Intersight Managed Mode that reduces total cost of ownership. Cisco’s UCS C240 M6 rack server has 32 DIMM slots, 3200 MHz DDR4 of memory and up to eight PCIe 4.0 slots.
Lenovo ThinkSystem SD650-N V2
A rack of Lenovo ThinkSystem SD650-N V2 delivers enough compute performance to place in the top 300 of the TOP500 list of supercomputers, said Lenovo. A single rack of Lenovo ThinkSystem SD650-N V2 provides up to 2.8 PetaFLOPS of high-performance computing or 45 PetaFLOPS of artificial intelligence at peak performance.
Lenovo’s SD650-N V2 server combines two 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors with four Nvidia A100 GPUs and Nvidia InfiniBand networking to deliver maximum performance in a dense 1U package. The new server supports NVIDIA NGC, providing pre-trained models, training scripts, optimized framework containers and inference engines for popular deep learning models. The new ThinkSystem server includes Lenovo’s intelligent systems management Lenovo xClarity software and Lenovo Intelligent Computing Orchestration (LiCO), to enable organizations to easily administer IT infrastructure from anywhere in the world.
Dell PowerEdge 750xa
The dual socket 2U Dell EMC PowerEdge R750xa is a top of the line server that delivers accelerator-optimized performance to help companies tackle their most data-intensive workloads.
The Dell EMC PowerEdge R750xa is purpose-built to boost acceleration performance, delivers GPU-dense performance for machine learning training, inferencing and AI with support for the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software suite exclusively available for VMware vSphere 7 Update 2. The server is powered by the 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors and supports up to four double-wide GPUs and six single-wide GPUs
Supermicro X12 BigTwin
Supermicro’s new X12 BigTwin is a highly configurable 2U 4-node and 2U 2-node server. It has Intel’s new Xeon Scalable processors, 2 per node, with up to 270W TDP. The new Intel-backed server has up to 12 NVMe drives per node, 16 DIMMs and PCI-E 4.0 AIOM networking per node.
Supermicro’s X12 BigTwin includes water cooled configurations for high power CPUs in high-density systems in HPC installations with a direct liquid cooling option to remove the limitations of traditional air-cooling for heat dissipation to lower overall data center operating costs. The new X12 support Intel‘s Software Guard Extensions, which provide enclaves of protected memory to run applications and their data. Supermicro’s SuperCloud Composer also monitors and manages the broad portfolio of multi-generation servers and third-party systems through its data center lifecycle management feature.