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The HPE Proliant DL20 G9 is a very compact 1U system that can fit 64GB DDR4 UDIMMs in a 4x16GB configuration and can accept a wide range of processors including LGA 1151 Pentium, i3 or E3 1200 v5/v6's. This system can fit 2 3.5" hard drives or 4 2.5" SSD's or SFF hard drives. There have not been any updates that significantly change the compatibility of core components. When equipped with the correct options it may be installed with a GPU. HPE currently offers NVIDIA M2000 support. It features two PCIe slots. One is half height half length while the other is half length full height. It comes with 2 storage controller options. Entry Models feature a HPE Dynamic Smart Array B140i Controller, Base Models: HPE Dynamic Smart Array B140i Controller and Performance Models: HPE H240 FIO Smart Host Bus Adapter. The B140i provides support for 4 SATA drives at 6Gb/s and RAID 0,1 and 5 while the H240 supports 4 SAS/SATA drives at 12Gb/s with RAID 0, 1, and 5 also supported. It comes standard with a 290W FIO power supply or 900W AC 240V redundant power supply. Redundant power supplies only support in the (2.5")SFF configuration.

A configuration with an E3-1220 v5, 16GB DDR4, 1 X 300GB 15K 3.5" hard drive, NVIDIA K2200 and the 900W power supply options pulls 47.65W at idle and 186.4W at max load. This would cost roughly $42 to idle 24/7 at the national average of 10.02 cents per Kilowatthour or $163 to run at full load.

Both the Dell PowerEdge R720 and the Dell PowerEdge R720XD are 2U rackmount servers. These rackmount servers have the capability of running Intel Xeon E5-2600 series and Intel Xeon E5-2600v2 processors *You must have BIOS revision 2.0.19 update or later installed to use the v2 processors. These rackmount servers also offer twenty-four DDR3 slots for RDIMMS, LRDIMMs, and UDIMMs.

The R720XD weighs in at just a few pounds more than the R720 due to its significant increase in Hard Drive Bays. The R720XD has a few different options for hard drive bays and can hold a staggering twenty-four two and a half inch hard drives or twelve three and a half inch hard drives while the R720 can only hold a maximum of sixteen two and a half inch or alternatively eight three and a half inch hard drives.

For v1 processors, BIOS revision 1.4.8 upped the maximum frequency supported to 1600MHz for both RDIMMs and UDIMMs when using one or two channels at either 1.5V or 1.35V. BIOS update 1.4.8 also upped the maximum default frequency to 1333MHz on a three DIMMs per channel layout for both RDIMMs and LRDIMMs.

While moving up the BIOS update chain, if you are using BIOS update 2.0.19 you will be able to use the Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2 processors and also the LRDIMM will support 64GB because in a patch released before the v2 processors were even compatible they released an update (BIOS update 2.1.2) that made that possible. In a later update (BIOS update 2.4.3) LRDIMMs at two DIMMs per channel will have its max supported memory speed upped to 1866MT/s for 32GB.

Here is a chart I have created that will function as a quick cheat sheet for people to look through and determine processors that may be compatible with their motherboard based on which chipset it uses. Just click on your motherboard's chipset and it will drop down with the associated Code Name, which processors are potentially supported and which type of memory it uses.  Note that this is not an absolute guarantee that a certain processor will be compatible. There are simply too many variations to guarantee compatibility for anything but it is a good place to start. Please check your manufacturer's website to confirm any compatibility issues if you are uncertain. If you find any errors or think I should add anything to the chart you can leave a comment below or email me at Ryan@ITConnected.tech. I will be looking to add more individualized looks at each chipset in the near future.

DELL T7600 Workstation

The Dell Precision T7600 is a workstation featuring an EATX motherboard with dual LGA 2011 Sockets. These only currently support the E5-2600 first generation processors, but it has the same chipset as the T7610 which received support for the second generation processors so it seems they may soon get support if Dell puts out a BIOS update. The system has 16 DDR3 slots with support for up to 16GB RDIMMs or 32GB LRDIMMs. The T7610 received support for 64GB LRDIMMs so it seems that if the T7600 does get the update for the second generation E5 processors then the 64GB LRDIMM support may come with that update as well. The workstation features 4 hot-swappable bays that can easily accommodate either 3.5" or 2.5" drives of either SAS/SATA. The system comes standard with a PERC H310 RAID controller to handle the hardware RAID configuration.

The Precision T7600 has 5 PCIe slots available if you are only utilizing a one-processor configuration but adds two more PCIe slots if you add in a second processor. All slots are full-height, full-width, but the first and the third slot under the processors only operate at x4 speed instead of the full x16. The workstation features dual gigabit networking ports with Intel adapters: 82574L and 82579LM. The maximum capacity of a single processor configuration with RDIMMs is 128GB and with LRDIMMs 256GB. In a dual processor configuration, the maximum addressable capacity is 256GB with RDIMMs and 512GB with LRDIMMs.  Maximum single stick capacity is 16GB RDIMMs or 32GB LRDIMMs.

The Precision T7600 has a few known issues that have been addressed with BIOS updates:

Revision A07 fixed several major issues including:

- Non-bootable SAS drive/RAID when LSI 9265 is installed - Hang during POST when two K5000 cards are installed. 5. - RAID ONE BSOD issue.

Revision A04 Fixed an issue with the diagnostic LEDs

For additional info on this product visit https://www.itconnected.tech/support/dell/dell-precision-t7600.html