Introducing the PowerEdge T360 & R360: Gain up to Double the Performance with Intel® Xeon® E-Series Processors
Download PDF
Summary
The launch of the PowerEdge T360 and R360 is a prominent addition to the Dell Technologies PowerEdge portfolio. These cost-effective 1-socket servers deliver powerful performance with the latest Intel® Xeon® E-series processors, added GPU support, DDR5 memory, and PCIe Gen 5 I/O slots. They are designed to meet evolving compute demands in Small and Medium Businesses (SMB), Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO) and Near-Edge deployments.
Both the T360 and R360 boost compute performance up to 108% compared to the prior generation servers. Consequently, customers gain up to 1.8x the performance per every dollar spent on the new E-series CPUs [1]. The rest of this document covers key product features and differentiators, as well as the details behind the performance testing conducted in our labs.
Feature Additions and Upgrades
We break down the new features that are common across both the rack and tower form factors as shown in the table below. Perhaps the most salient upgrades over the prior generation servers – the PowerEdge T350 and R350 – are the significantly more performant CPUs, added entry GPU support, and up to nearly 1.4x faster memory.
- T360 and R360 key feature additions
| Prior-Gen PowerEdge T350, R350 | New PowerEdge T360, R360 |
CPU | 1x Intel Xeon E-2300 Processor, up to 8 cores | 1x Intel Xeon E-2400 Processor, up to 8 cores |
Memory | 4x UDDR4, up to 3200 MT/s DIMM speed | 4x UDDR5, up to 4400 MT/s DIMM speed |
Storage | Hot Plug SATA BOSS S-2 | Hot Plug NVMe BOSS N-1 |
GPU | Not supported | 1 x NVIDIA A2 entry GPU |
- From left to right, PowerEdge R360 and T360
Entry GPU Support
We have seen a growing demand for video and audio computing particularly in retail, manufacturing, and logistics industries.To meet this demand, the PowerEdge T360 and R360 now supports 1 NVIDIA A2 entry datacenter GPU that accelerates these media intensive workloads, as well as emerging AI inferencing workloads. The A2 is a single-width GPU stacked with 16GB of GPU memory and 40-60W configurable thermal design power (TDP). Read more about the A2 GPU’s up to 20x inference speedup and features here: A2 Tensor Core GPU | NVIDIA.
This upgrade could not come at a more apropos time for businesses looking to scale up and explore entry AI use cases. In fact, IDC projects $154 billion in global AI spending this year, with retail and banking topping the industries with the greatest AI investment. For example, a retailer could leverage the power of the A2 GPU and latest CPUs to stream video of store aisles for inventory management and customer behavior analytics.
Product Differentiation – Rack vs Tower Form Factor
The biggest differentiator between T360 and R360 is their form factors. The T360 is a tower server that can fit under a desk or even in a storage closet, while maintaining office-friendly acoustics. The R360 is a traditional 1U rack server. The table below further details the differences in the product specifications. Namely, the PowerEdge T360 has greater drive capacity for customers with data-intensive workloads or those who anticipate growing storage demand.
2. T360 and R360 differentiators
| PowerEdge R360 | PowerEdge T360 |
Storage | Up to 4 x 3.5'' or 8 x 2.5'' SATA/SAS, max 64GB | Up to 8 x 3.5'' or 8 x 2.5'' SATA/SAS, max 128G |
PCIe Slots | 2 x PCIe Gen 5 (QNS) or 2 x PCIe Gen4 | 3x PCIe Gen 4 + 1x PCIe Gen 5 |
Dimensions & Form Factor | H x W x D: 1U x 17.08 in x 22.18 in 1U Rack Server | H x W x D: 14.54 in x 6.88 in x 22.06 in 4.5U Tower Server |
Processor Performance Testing
The Dell Solutions Performance Analysis Lab (SPA) ran the SPEC CPU® 2017 benchmark on both the PowerEdge T360 and R360 servers with the latest Intel Xeon E-2400 series processors. SPEC CPU is an industry-standard benchmark that measures compute performance for both floating point (FP) and integer operations. We compare these new results with the prior-generation PowerEdge T350 and R350 servers that have Intel Xeon E-2300 series processors.
The following gen-over-gen comparisons represent common Intel CPU configurations for R350/T350 and R360/T360 customers, respectively:
3. Selected CPUs for T/R350 vs T/R360 comparison
Comparison # | PowerEdge R350/T350 | PowerEdge R360/T360 |
1 | E-2388G, 8 cores, 3.2 GHz base frequency | E-2488, 8 cores, 3.2 GHz base frequency |
2 | E-2374G, 4 cores, 3.7 GHz base frequency | E-2456, 6 cores, 3.3 GHz base frequency |
3 | E-2334, 4 cores, 3.4 GHz base frequency | E-2434, 4 cores, 3.4 GHz base frequency |
4 | E-2324G, 4 cores, 3.1 GHz base frequency | E-2414, 4 cores, 2.6 GHz base frequency
|
5 | E-2314, 4 cores, 2.8 GHz base frequency |
Results
We report SPEC CPU’s FP rate metric and integer rate metric which measures throughput in terms of work per unit of time (so higher results are better).[1] Across all CPU comparisons and for both FP and Int rates, there was a 20% or greater uplift in performance gen-over-gen. Overall, customers can expect up to 108% better CPU performance when upgrading from the PowerEdge T/R350 to the T/R360.[2] Below Figure 1 displays the results for the FP base metric, and Table 4 details results for integer rates and FP peak metric.
Figure 1. SPEC CPU results gen-over-gen
4. Results for each CPU comparison
Comparison # | Processor | Int Rate (Base) | Int Rate (Peak) | FP Rate (Base) | FP Rate (Peak) |
1 | E-2388G | 68.1 | 71.2 | 55.9 | 60.3 |
E-2488 | 95.1 | 99.2 | 110 | 110 | |
% Increase | 39.65% | 39.33% | 96.78% | 82.42% | |
2 | E-2374G | 42.3 | 43.8 | 43.2 | 45.3 |
E-2456 | 68.3 | 71.1 | 90.1 | 90.3 | |
% Increase | 61.47% | 62.33% | 108.56% | 99.34% | |
3 | E-2334 | 39.8 | 41.2 | 41.5 | 43.4 |
E-2434 | 50.8 | 52.6 | 68.7 | 68.9 | |
% Increase | 27.64% | 27.67% | 65.54% | 58.76% | |
4 | E-2324G | 33 | 34 | 40.9 | 41.4 |
E-2414 | 39.7 | 41.1 | 65.2 | 65.7 | |
% Increase | 20.30% | 20.88% | 59.41% | 58.70% | |
5 | E-2314 | 29.4 | 30.2 | 38.6 | 39 |
E-2414 | 39.7 | 41.1 | 65.2 | 65.7 | |
% Increase | 35.03% | 36.09% | 68.91% | 68.46% |
In addition to better performance, Figure 2 below illustrates the high return on investment associated with these new Intel Xeon E-2400 series processors. Specifically, customers gain up to 1.8x the performance per every dollar spent on CPUs [1]. We calculated performance by dollar by dividing the FP base results reported in Table 4 by the US list price for the corresponding CPU. Please note that pricing varies by region and is subject to change.
Figure 2. Performance per Dollar gen-over-gen
Conclusion
The PowerEdge T360 and R360 are impressive upgrades from the prior-generation servers, especially considering the performance gains with the latest Intel Xeon E-series CPUs and added GPU support. These highly cost-effective servers empower businesses to accelerate their traditional use cases while exploring the realm of emerging AI workloads.
References
- A2 Tensor Core GPU | NVIDIA
- Worldwide Spending on AI-Centric Systems Forecast to Reach $154 Billion in 2023, According to IDC
- Overview - CPU 2017 (spec.org)
Legal Disclosures
[1] Based on SPEC CPU® 2017 benchmarking of the E-2456 and E-2374G Intel Xeon E-series processors in the PowerEdge R360 and R350, respectively. Testing was conducted by Dell Performance Analysis Labs in October 2023, available on spec.org/cpu2017/. Actual results will vary. Pricing is based on Dell US list prices for Intel Xeon E-series processors and varies by region. Please contact your local sales representative for more information.