Dell 277V AC & HVDC Power Supplies
Download PDFWed, 25 Oct 2023 21:40:08 -0000
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Introduction
This Direct from Development (DfD) tech note describes how mixed-mode 277V AC & HVDC (260-400V DC) power supplies are important, and how they can benefit our customers.
Data center power and high voltages
Although 208V AC is the traditional voltage used in US data centers, there has been a shift towards higher voltages in recent years. Some modern data centers are adopting 415V AC or even 480V AC 3-phase, to further enhance energy efficiency.
480V AC 3-phase is becoming increasingly popular due to its many advantages over traditional 415V AC 3-phase or 240V AC single-phase:
- Less current is needed to deliver the same amount of power as 415V or 240V. Less resistance means less energy loss in cables and electrical components.
- Reduced wiring costs: 480V allows the use of higher gauge, thinner, cheaper wires. This also means reduced installation costs.
- Increased power density: By using 480V, data centers can increase their power density, because more power can be delivered using the same amount of space.
Data centers that are getting 480V 3-phase power from the utility typically convert it to 208V/120V single-phase. To do that, they use transformers. But even with the most efficient transformer, there are power losses during the conversion (around 3%). This is where PSUs that can support voltages higher than 240V AC become relevant.
About 277V AC
To avoid transformer losses and bring single-phase high-voltage directly to the server PSU, a convenient option exists: splitting 480V AC 3-phase into 277V AC single-phase lines.
To do that, data centers typically use Line-to-Neutral Power Distribution Units (PDUs), which divide the 480V AC 3-phase power into three separate 277V AC single-phase lines, by using “Wye” (Y) wiring:
In simple words, 277V AC is derived from 480V AC. If the PSU can directly support 277V AC, there is no need for conversion and no need for a transformer.
That is the first benefit of high-voltage PSUs: they help data centers reduce their energy consumption at the power distribution level.
The advantages of 277V AC
To understand how higher voltage can bring better efficiency, we must look at the basic principle of Power transmission.
Power, measured in watts, is the rate at which energy is transferred. It is proportional to Voltage multiplied by Current:
- Power (Watts) = Electric Tension (Volts) x Current (Amps)
Therefore, if the voltage is increased, the current required to transmit a given amount of power can be reduced. For example, to transmit 10kW of power:
- at 230V AC, the current required is 10kW / 230V = 43.5A
- at 277V AC, the current required is only 10kW / 277V = 36.1A
When transmitting power at 277V AC, the energy loss due to resistance is lower than at 230V AC. Less current (Amps) is needed, resulting in higher efficiency, and potentially significant energy savings.
Less current also means we can use higher gauge (thinner) wires, which use less copper. This can help with space optimization, by either reducing the overall volume of wires or increasing the power density.
So, although 200V-240V AC is the most common voltage range in data centers nowadays, using 277V AC brings considerable advantages:
- Reduced energy losses, resulting in Opex savings
- Reduced equipment expenses and reduced copper
- Reduced space requirements and fewer cable runs in the plenum
- Fewer breakers at the Remote Power Panel (RPP)
- Increased capacity
277V AC business opportunities
Here are the most common business opportunities for 480V AC at the rack and 277V AC at the PSU:
- Large RFPs from the US Federal Government
- HPC customers (optimized power delivery to the cluster and lower energy cost)
- AI/ML customers with high-end GPU-dense platforms
- Any customer looking for more efficiency, energy savings, and carbon footprint reduction
HVDC (260V to 400V DC)
Our high-voltage mixed-mode power supplies support these two input voltages:
- 277V AC
- HVDC (High-Voltage 260-400V DC), this voltage is mostly used by Telecommunications customers.
The advantages of HVDC
High Voltage DC has many advantages over AC and -48V DC in the Telco space:
1. Higher Efficiency:
- vs AC: DC power distribution is usually more efficient than AC power distribution, and higher voltages can improve this efficiency further. Also, fewer conversion stages are needed with HVDC (typically two instead of four).
- vs -48V DC: by increasing the voltage from -48V DC to 400V DC, power losses due to electrical resistance in cables and other components can be reduced, resulting in higher overall efficiency.
2. Lower Cost:
- vs AC: Less Capex with simplified installation and gradual investments compared to traditional AC UPS. Less Opex because easier maintenance leads to lower maintenance costs. HVDC also requires less cooling than AC due to fewer conversions.
- vs -48V DC: Less Capex because 400V DC requires fewer cables (less copper) and smaller/fewer components. Less current is needed compared to -48V DC for the same amount of power, and fewer joules are lost in the distribution.
3. Smaller Footprint:
- Because 400V DC requires fewer cables and electrical components, it can be easier to install. It can also use less physical space within the data center. This can be especially advantageous in high-density environments where space is at a premium.
HVDC business opportunities
Here are the most common business opportunities for HVDC 260-400V DC power:
- Telecom customers who are modernizing their infrastructure, either at the data center level, or at the mobile network level (antennas) where -48V DC is being replaced by 400V DC.
- The adoption of 400V DC power in telecommunications is also driven by standardization efforts. Organizations such as the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have developed standards for higher-voltage DC power distribution in telecommunication applications.
- Renewable energy systems: solar photovoltaic installations, for example, can use 400V DC power.
- Electric Vehicle Charging Stations: EV charging stations can employ 400V DC power for fast charging capabilities. DC charging allows for direct power transfer to the vehicle's battery, reducing charging time and minimizing energy losses.
Conclusion
Modern workloads such as Generative AI or HPC require more and more power, but energy costs are rising at the same time. Therefore, companies all over the world must solve new technical and economic challenges, to power and cool down their infrastructure.
Different solutions are available today to reduce power consumption, such as using more efficient PSUs. For example, 80Plus Titanium PSUs can reach up to 96% efficiency, with only 4% of the electricity lost into heat. This type of PSU can significantly reduce power consumption and cooling costs.
Better efficiency is also achievable by right-sizing the PSU. Overloading and underloading will have a negative impact. A 50% load is considered optimal to get the best efficiency.
For example, when tested at 240V AC, a Dell 1100W Titanium PSU has the following efficiencies:
Dell 1100W Titanium PSU | ||||
PSU load in % | 10% | 20% | 50% | 100% |
PSU load in Watts | 110W | 220W | 550W | 1100W |
PSU efficiency at 240V AC | 90% | 94% | 96% | 91.5% |
But as we look at other ways to maximize power efficiency, we must also consider input voltages and the power distribution itself.
Data centers can achieve massive savings if:
- They can avoid using transformers to convert the high-voltage they get from the power utility, down to the traditional 208-240V AC
- The servers can directly take 277V AC or HVDC with appropriate PSUs
So, as we focus on sustainability, using higher voltages is an impactful way to achieve better power efficiency, reduce energy costs, and reduce the overall carbon footprint.
As data centers continue to grow, in size and number, the impact on the environment increases as well. Therefore, it is important for companies to consider not only the economic implications of their energy usage but also the environmental implications, and work towards more sustainable practices.
Dell is convinced that 277V AC & HVDC voltages can help customers solve some of the complex problems related to power distribution and achieve better sustainability overall.
We are expecting a growing market and infrastructure renewals to support high voltages in the upcoming years. For this reason, our plan is to expand our portfolio of 277V AC & HVDC PSUs and progressively increase the number of compatible platforms.
Related Documents
Apache Cassandra performance advantages of the new Dell PowerEdge C6620 with Dell PERC 12 RAID controller
Thu, 21 Sep 2023 23:14:16 -0000
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The PowerEdge C6620 with PERC 12 delivered lower latency and higher throughput than an HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9 server with an HPE Smart Array P440ar controller
Overview
Today’s businesses both generate and take in enormous quantities of data as part of their daily operations. Smartphones, computers, servers, and the activities of people online are the sources of some of this data, but more and more of the data also come from a wide variety of other places, such as weather sensors, streaming video cameras, wearable devices, and onboard computers in vehicles, to name just a few examples. One estimate suggests that the number of connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices will reach over 29 billion by 2030.1 With an ever-increasing mountain of data, much of it from non-traditional sources, organizations need a way to extract value from the noise. NoSQL database systems such as Apache Cassandra can help organizations store, process, and analyze this data to glean useful insights. To be most effective, however, the database system should run on a high-performing computing platform that can complete big data workloads quickly and get insights into decision makers’ hands fast. We assessed the ability of two platforms to handle Cassandra workloads. The first was the new Dell™ PowerEdge™ C6620 with Broadcom®-based Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 12, which companies might choose if they’re upgrading to new servers to better handle their big data needs. The second was the older HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9 server with an HPE Smart Array P440ar controller, which represents a server that organizations might already have in their data centers. The Dell and Broadcom solution provided higher throughput and lower latencies in our testing, meaning that it completed more big data work in the same amount of time as the older HPE solution. With a strong big data solution, businesses can put their data to work and use it to optimize processes, cut costs, improve customer experience, and grow their offerings. This report explores how and why running Apache Cassandra as a big data system on the Dell PowerEdge C6620 server with PERC 12 might be that solution for you.
About the Dell PowerEdge C6620 server Part of the Dell modular infrastructure PowerEdge C-Series, Dell says the PowerEdge C6620 is “designed for compute-intensive workloads” but also “ideal for IOPS-heavy workloads.”2 It features up to two 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, with up to 56 cores per processor; offers memory speeds of up to 4,800 MT/s; and supports up to 16 NVMe® drives for workload acceleration. Optional liquid cooling is also available.
To learn more about the Dell PowerEdge C6620, visit https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/ enterprise-products/c6620-two-socket-server-node-intel/spd/poweredge-c6620. |
Assessing Cassandra performance on the Dell PowerEdge C6620 with Broadcom-based PERC 12
Upgrading to new servers is a big decision. You know that newer, more modern technology is likely to offer performance improvements, but exactly what will those benefits look like, and how much more will the new systems be able to handle? Our testing quantifies the performance boost you might see on your Cassandra workloads by moving from HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9 servers with Smart Array P440ar controllers to new Dell PowerEdge C6620 servers with Broadcom-based PERC 12.
Our configurations
For our test environment, we installed VMware® vSphere® 8 on both servers before configuring a separate infrastructure server with VMware ESXi™ and VMware vCenter®. We used this infrastructure server to manage the servers and to host client VMs that ran our test workload against our databases. The Dell PowerEdge C6620 server with PERC 12 used two Dell U2 Gen4 NVMe® 3.84TB drives. The HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9 server with HPE Smart Array P440ar controller used six 960GB mixed-use SAS 12Gbps drives. Table 1 highlights more details of our configuration.
On each server, we created a Cassandra gold VM and cloned it five times to create a total of six VMs, which we joined in a cluster configuration. We then used the Yahoo Cloud Serving Benchmark (YCSB) to create a 100GB database across the six VMs to take advantage of the distributed database functionality of Cassandra, ran YCSB workload B for 30 minutes, and recorded the results. In the results we highlight below, we provide two perspectives on the performance of each setup: the total throughput and the average read and write latency. Both results reflect the performance across all six VMs.
Why YCSB?
YCSB is an industry-standard benchmark for NoSQL databases. In 2010, a group from Yahoo! Research created it with “the goal of facilitating performance comparisons of the new generation of cloud data serving systems.”3 It is open source, meaning that anyone can access and modify the source code. In a recent interview, contributors to the YCSB open-source community note that it “is rather largely accepted by users” and “represents a series of scenarios that can be abstracted from the real world.”4 Apache Cassandra was one of the first four databases that the YCSB creators tested with the benchmark in 2010, and YCSB remains a good fit for testing Cassandra performance today.5
YCSB functions by letting users create a database populated with synthetic data on their database system of choice. Users can then run a pre-defined or customized workload against the database to gauge system performance. YCSB offers six core workloads, each of which represents a different type of database work. Our testing used the read-intensive workload B. This workload is 95 percent reads (pulling data from a database) and 5 percent writes (adding to or changing data in a database). YCSB gives one application example as photo tagging, where a user might occasionally add a tag to a photo (write) but will mostly search a library of tagged photos (read).6 A solution that offers higher performance on YCSB workload B is likely to improve performance on other read-intensive workloads, such as data analysis. We chose this workload to focus on reading and analyzing a database.
Upgrade to the Dell PowerEdge C6620 with Broadcom-based PERC 12 for lower latencies and better throughput
In our testing with YCSB, the Dell PowerEdge C6620 with PERC 12 offered better performance on all three metrics we measured: read latency, update (or write) latency, and throughput (measured in operations per second). The improvements were significant, meaning that trading out your HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9 servers for new PowerEdge C6620 servers could enable your organization to handle substantially more Cassandra work. The first metrics we examined were read latency, which measures the delay between the application requesting a piece of data and the database system delivering it, and update latency, which measures the delay between the application changing or adding a piece of data and the database system completing the action. The Dell PowerEdge C6620 with PERC 12 was much faster on both types of latency, with the largest advantage on update latency. There, it offered 60.2 percent lower—or 1.97 milliseconds less—latency than the HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9 server with Smart Array P440ar controller. It may seem like a sub-two-millisecond delay is inconsequential; if you were loading a webpage or pulling up a video, you wouldn’t notice a two-millisecond difference. The significance of this advantage, however, is due to the enormous number of operations that the database system must perform before it can deliver usable results. For this testing in YCSB, we set the max execution time variable (or how long the benchmark should run) to 30 minutes. At a rate of 249,210 operations per second (see Figure 3), the Dell PowerEdge C6620 with Broadcom-based PERC 12 executed over 400 million operations during the 30-minute test. So, while a difference of one or two milliseconds might not mean much on a single operation, on 400 million operations, the benefit of the faster solution becomes clear.
About the Dell PERC 12 RAID controllerThe Dell PowerEdge C6620 we tested features the PERC 12, which offers a single front controller with full RAID support for both NVMe and SAS.7 It brings 3,200MHz cache memory speed and a 16-lane host bus type and supports RAID levels 0, 1, 56, 10, 50, and 60.8
The Dell PERC 12 is based on the Broadcom SAS4116W series chip. According to Broadcom, “this eighth- generation SAS RAID-on-Chip (ROC) is based on the industry-leading Fusion-MPT architecture and features Tri-Mode SerDes technology that enables a seamless operation of up to 16-wide direct-connect NVMe, SAS or SATA storage devices from any system design.…The Tri-Mode ROC device with 16-wide PCIe Gen 4.0 lanes provides SAS data transfer rates of 22.5, 12, 6Gb/s per lane and 6Gb/s SATA data transfer rates per lane. The high-port count ROC helps eliminate storage bottlenecks with support of x8, x4, x2, and x1 PCI Express® lanes and complies with the PCIe 4.0 specification, offering up to 6 million IOPS (random reads) and up to 900,000 IOPS in RAID (random writes).”9 To learn more about the Dell PERC 12, visit https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/p/ dell-poweredge-raid-controller-12/. |
With these lower latencies, a solution will be quicker to handle interactions with the Cassandra database, which might include anything from pulling up X-ray images in a hospital to analyzing a large set of data on an ecommerce business’s customer preferences.
The Dell PowerEdge C6620 also offered an enormous advantage on throughput, delivering over twice the operations per second of the HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9. Given the lower latencies we saw, this is unsurprising—because the PowerEdge C6620 could process operations faster (with lower latency), we would expect it to also be able to handle more operations in a given time. Depending on the read- intensive workloads you’re running, this increase in throughput could translate to quicker load times for your customers or faster data analysis, among other possibilities.
NoSQL databases and Cassandra in today’s business landscape
For this study, we tested with Apache Cassandra, a widely used NoSQL database system. NoSQL, or non-relational, databases are a category of database system that store and query data that do not have a traditional data structure. Traditional SQL databases organize data in a column-row format for finding or creating relationships across the data. To store data in a SQL database, all data in each table must have the same structure and fit a pre-defined schema, with every row in each table including the same columns and formats every time. NoSQL databases, however, can organize data more dynamically. They can deal with data from documents, graphs, key-values, and more. This flexibility lets people use them to analyze documents or data that don’t follow identical structuring formats. For organizations that need to store and analyze unstructured data—which may include data from Internet of Things (IoT) applications, audio, video, text files, social media posts, and more—a NoSQL database is a great option.
There are many types of NoSQL database systems; Apache Cassandra is a type of key-value and wide- column store. These databases have essentially two fields: One is the key, and the other is the value. The value can be any type of data (text, numbers, etc.). Taking our previous example, a key-value database could have some keys that correspond to a date, others that are numbers, and so on. A wide-column database, which Cassandra uses, is a two-dimensional key-value database, where instead of mapping to just one value, the keys can map to several columns of values.
Apache Cassandra is a distributed database, meaning that it can run on multiple nodes while acting as a single entity. This makes it resilient and highly scalable. Its scalability, combined with the flexibility afforded by its hybrid key-value/tabular model, allows it to handle many types of big data work very well. Cassandra is also open-source and free, a compelling benefit for organizations seeking to save on licensing fees.
The flexibility of Cassandra makes it suitable for a very large range of use cases. For example, Instagram uses Cassandra to support its content feed, Spotify uses it to store playlist metadata, and Intuit uses it as part of their largest production clusters supporting TurboTax.10,11,12 Common uses of Cassandra include:
- Analysis of customer data for personalization and recommendation, such as in ecommerce environments and content sharing or streaming websites
- Storage and analysis of IoT data, such as data gathered from mobile and wearable devices, environmental sensors, and edge devices
- Fraud detection, especially for financial organizations
- Messaging, such as for organizations’ internal messaging platforms
We chose to test with Cassandra in part because so many organizations rely on it for everyday operations. Approximately 90 percent of Fortune 100 companies use Apache Cassandra in some capacity.13 If your organization uses Cassandra or is considering doing so, to get the most value from it, you will want to ensure that the solution backing your implementation offers high performance. As our testing highlights, the Dell PowerEdge C6620 with Broadcom-based PERC 12 can deliver just that.
Dell PowerEdge servers: A proven history of strong Apache Cassandra performance In this study, we tested the Apache Cassandra performance of a new Dell PowerEdge C6620 server compared to an HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9 server, but this isn’t the first time we’ve seen strong Cassandra performance on a latest-generation Dell server. In 2019, we tested Apache Cassandra performance on a 14th generation PowerEdge C-series server, the Dell EMC PowerEdge C6420. Pitted against an older modular solution of HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9 server nodes, the PowerEdge C6420 accomplished double the amount of work in the same amount of rack space.14 Two years prior, in 2017, we assessed a different product line from the 14th generation of PowerEdge servers—the Dell EMC PowerEdge FC640 server—and found that it delivered dramatically more throughput and consistently lower latency than a legacy solution of PowerEdge R710 servers.15 |
Conclusion
Data proliferation today is rapid, and its growth shows no signs of stopping. For businesses that can take advantage of that data, there is tremendous potential value. One recent McKinsey study notes that “companies that are using data-driven B2B sales-growth engines report above-market growth and EBITDA increases in the range of 15 to 25 percent.”16 With data flooding in so quickly and in so many different forms, however, companies need high-performing big data solutions to have a chance at utilizing that data effectively.
We tested the performance of two platforms with a read-intensive Apache Cassandra database system big- data workload to assess which might be better suited to speedily deliver the insights decision makers need. Compared to an older HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9 server with an HPE Smart Array P440ar controller, the new Dell PowerEdge C6620 with Broadcom-based PERC 12 RAID controller delivered faster read and update latencies and more than twice the throughput. This improvement in performance can help you glean more value from your unstructured data more quickly. If you’re watching your stores of unstructured data grow but are still leaning on older servers for your critical Cassandra workloads, it may be time for an upgrade.
- Lionel Sujay Vailshery, “Number of Internet of Things (IoT connected devices worldwide from 2019 to 2021, in forecasts from 2022 to 2030,” accessed July 13, 2023, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1183457/iot-connect- ed-devices-worldwide/.
- “PowerEdge C6620,” accessed June 23, 2023, https://www.delltechnologies.com/asset/en-us/products/servers/ technical-support/poweredge-c6620-spec-sheet.pdf.
- Brian F. Cooper, Adam Silberstein, Erwin Tam, Raghu Ramakrishnan, Russell Sears, “Benchmarking Cloud Serving Systems with YCSB,” accessed June 23, 2023, https://courses.cs.duke.edu/fall13/compsci590.4/838-CloudPa- pers/ycsb.pdf.
- “The Ultimate YCSB Benchmark Guide (2021),” accessed June 23, 2023, https://benchant.com/blog/ycsb.
- Brian F. Cooper, Adam Silberstein, Erwin Tam, Raghu Ramakrishnan, Russell Sears, “Benchmarking Cloud Serving Systems with YCSB,” accessed June 23, 2023, https://courses.cs.duke.edu/fall13/compsci590.4/838-CloudPa- pers/ycsb.pdf.
- “brianfrankcooper/YCSB,” accessed June 23, 2023, https://github.com/brianfrankcooper/YCSB/blob/master/doc/coreworkloads.html.
- “Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 User’s Guide PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, and PERC H965i MX,” accessed June 27, 2023, https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/perc-h965i-front/perc12/dell-tech- nologies-poweredge-raid-controller-12?guid=guid-5889415d-b297-43a0-9197-113a56c33c79&lang=en-us.
- “SAS4116W 24G SAS Tri-Mode RAID-on-Chip (ROC),” accessed June 27, 2023, https://www.broadcom.com/products/storage/raid-on-chip/sas-4116w.
- “SAS4116W 24G SAS Tri-Mode RAID-on-Chip (ROC).”
- Instagram Engineering, “Open-sourcing a 10x reduction in Apache Cassandra tail latency,” accessed June 27, 2023, https://instagram-engineering.com/open-sourcing-a-10x-reduction-in-apache-cassandra-tail-latencyd- 64f86b43589.
- Kinshuk Mishra and Matt Brown, “Personalization at Spotify using Cassandra,” accessed June 27, 2023, https://engineering.atspotify.com/2015/01/personalization-at-spotify-using-cassandra/.
- Denson Pokta, “Pronto! Intuit Releases First Open Source Cassandra Cluster Manager,” accessed June 27, 2023, https://thenewstack.io/pronto-intuit-releases-first-open-source-cassandra-cluster-manager/.
- Jeff Carpenter, “How the world caught up with Apache Cassandra,” accessed June 27, 2023, https://techcrunch.com/sponsor/datastax/how-the-world-caught-up-with-apache-cassandra/.
- “Move your private cloud to Dell EMC PowerEdge C6420 server nodes and boost Apache Cassandra database analysis,” accessed June 23, 2023, https://www.principledtechnologies.com/Dell/Power-Edge-C6420-Apache- Cassandra-1019-v2.pdf.
- “Update your private cloud with 14th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge FC640 servers and do more work in less space,” accessed June 23, 2023, https://www.principledtechnologies.com/Dell/PowerEdge_FX2s_FC640_ Apache_Cassandra_1117.pdf.
- Jochen Böringer, Alexander Dierks, Isabel Huber, and Dennis Spillecke, “Insights to impact: Creating and sustain- ing data-driven commercial growth,” accessed July 13, 2023, https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growthmar- keting-and-sales/our-insights/insights-to-impact-creating-and-sustaining-data-driven-commercial-growth.
Up to 29% Higher Inference Performance: PowerEdge R750xa and NVIDIA H100 PCIe GPU
Tue, 11 Apr 2023 22:40:39 -0000
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Executive Summary - PowerEdge R750xa
The Dell PowerEdge R750xa, powered by the 3rd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, is a dual-socket/2U rack server that delivers outstanding performance for the most demanding emerging and intensive GPU workloads. It supports eight channels/CPU, and up to 32 DDR4 DIMMs @ 3200 MT/s DIMM speed. In addition, the PowerEdge R750xa supports PCIe Gen 4, and up to eight SAS/SATA SSD or NVMe drives.
Up to 29% higher inference performance PowerEdge R750xa and NVIDIA H100 PCIe GPU(1)
One platform that supports all of the PCIe GPUs in the PowerEdge portfolio makes the PowerEdge R750xa the ideal server for workloads including AI-ML/DL Training and Inferencing, High-Performance Computing, and virtualization environments. The PowerEdge R750xa includes all of the benefits of core PowerEdge: serviceability, consistent systems management with IDRAC, and the latest in extreme acceleration.
NVIDIA H100 PCIe GPU
The new NVIDIA® H100 PCIe GPU is optimal for delivering the fastest business outcomes with the latest accelerated servers in the Dell PowerEdge portfolio, starting with the R750xa. The PowerEdge R750xa boosts workloads to new performance heights with GPU and accelerator support for demanding workloads, including enterprise AI. With its enhanced, air-cooled design and support for up to four NVIDIA double-width GPUs, the PowerEdge R750xa server is purpose-built for optimal performance for the entire spectrum of HPC, AI-ML/DL training, and inferencing workloads. Learn more here.
Next-Generation GPU Performance Analysis
The Dell HPC & AI Innovation Lab compared the performance of the new NVIDIA® H100 PCIe 310W GPU to the last Gen A00 PCIe GPU in the Dell PowerEdge R750xa. They ran the popular TensorRT Inference benchmark across various batch sizes to evaluate inferencing performance.
The results are in Figure 1.
Figure 1. TensorRT
According to the industry standard TensorRT Inference Resnet50-v1.5 benchmark, the PowerEdge R750xa with NVIDIA's H100 PCIe 310W GPU processes approximately 29% more images per second than the NVIDIA A100 PCIe 300W GPU on the same server across various batch sizes. This significant improvement in image processing speed translates to higher overall throughput for inferencing workloads, making the PowerEdge R750xa with the H100 GPU an excellent choice for demanding applications.
Test Configuration
| R750xa with 4 NVIDIA H100 | R750xa with 4 NVIDIA A100 |
Server | PowerEdge R750xa | |
CPU | 2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6338 CPU | |
Memory | 512G system memory | |
Storage | 1x 3.5T SSD | |
BIOS/iDRAC | 1.9.0/6.0.0.0 | |
Benchmark version | TensorRT Inference Resnet50-v1.5 | |
Operating System | Ubuntu 20.04 LTS | |
GPU | NVIDIA H100-PCIe-80GB (310W) | NVIDIA A100-PCIe-80GB (300W) |
Driver | CUDA 11.8 | CUDA 11.8 |
Conclusion
The PowerEdge R750xa supports up to four NVIDIA H100 PCIe adaptor GPUs and is available with new orders or as a customer upgrade kit for existing deployments.
Legal Disclosure
- Based on October 2022 Dell labs testing subjecting the PowerEdge R750xa 4x NVIDIA H100 PCIe Adaptor GPU configuration and the PowerEdge R750xa 4x NVIDIA A100 PCIe adaptor GPU configuration to TensorRT Inference Resnet50-v1.5 testing. Actual results will vary.