Dell, Lenovo, HPE unveil new servers on Intel Xeon E5 v4 platform

Intel
Dell, Lenovo and HPE have recently announced upgraded server models – both single chip and dual-chip computers – on Intel’s Xeon E5-2600 processors.

Intel officials last week introduced the latest editions of the company’s Xeon E5 scale-out server processors at its Cloud Day event on March 31 in San Francisco, and emphasized that hybrid clouds are the future of computing by enterprises and telecom service providers.

The 14-nanometer Xeon E5-2600 v4 processors offer more cores (up to 22 versus up to 18), 44 percent better performance, improved server utilization, and better security features. The Xeon E5-2600 v4 chips are based on the Broadwell platform, which is faster than the Haswell platform that last year’s v3 chips were based on. The 27 chip variants range from 1.7GHz to 3.5GHz in speed, have 4 to 22 cores and come in 15MB to 55MB of cache, with Intel claiming that the 12-core, 3GHz, E5-2687W v4 chip is best for workstations.

Following this announcement, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) officials have announced that they are refreshing HPE’s line of ProLiant Gen9 processors, including the one- or two-socket DL380, with Intel’s new chips, alongside the company’s new Persistent Memory technology, which combines the performance of DRAM and the persistent, nonvolatile capabilities of storage to speed up such workloads as databases, data analytics and online transaction processing. The first product, the 8GB NVDIMM, will appear in the ProLiant DL360 and DL380.

HPE is also offering a larger M.2 storage drive for its Z workstations. The Z Turbo Drive connects to the motherboard via PCIe, making it up to four times faster than an SSD connected via SATA. HPE enables the user to get a 1TB version as well as the 256GB and 512GB versions offered previously.

Meanwhile, Dell has also refreshed its PowerEdge 13th generation systems with the new Intel processors, including the R730, showing 28 percent improvement in server application performance based on SAP benchmarks on the new chips, compared to performance with the Haswell server chips, which improve the system by more than 20 percent when combined with new air-cooling technology from the OEM and come with more than 12 percent enhanced memory.

Also revealed was the company’s VR Ready program with new Precision workstations 5810, 7810, 7910 and Rack 7910 that can be configured as ‘Virtual Reality-ready’ systems that include the Intel Xeon E5 chips. The new systems not only include a lot of compute power, but also powerful GPU options from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. These are specifically built to match the recommendations of Oculus for the Rift and HTC for the Vive, with already being tested with those headsets.

Lenovo upgraded a range of System x, NeXtScale and ThinkServer servers which consist of its ThinkServer RD450 with Intel’s new processors ans showed a 44 percent CPU improvement.

At the same time, Lenovo announced that it is also bringing its XClarity systems management software to all of its dual-processor systems. Lenovo’s Xeon E5 v4 refreshed servers include the two-socket 2U System x3650 M5, System x3550 M5, ThinkServer RD450, RD350, ThinkServer TD350, Flex x240 M5, and the NeXtScale nx360 M5.

The chips can be slotted into existing servers that have the Xeon E5-2600 v3 processor. Intel made the new chips socket compatible so companies wouldn’t have to purchase new servers.

The new HPE ProLiant Gen9 server options and related solutions are now available through HPE and worldwide channel partners. The HPE partner finder can be used to find authorized channel partners. Pricing will vary based on HPE ProLiant Gen9 server model and customer configurations. HPE 8GB NVDIMM will be available in May 2016 for initial support on HPE ProLiant DL360 and DL380 Gen9 servers with Intel E5-2600 v4 processors.

Dell PowerEdge 13th generation servers are available with updated Intel technology, and have its PowerEdge R730 server starting at $3,059 and its Power R730XD server, starting at $3,899.

Pricing for the Lenovo servers wasn’t immediately available.

Vina Krishnan
[email protected]