Home Enterprise Gigabyte Releases 1U & 2U Cavium ThunderX2 Arm Servers

Gigabyte Releases 1U & 2U Cavium ThunderX2 Arm Servers

by Michael Rink

GIGABYTE Technology announced from Taipei, Taiwan that they are adding 2 new state of the art models to their existing ARM server lineup. The 1U dual socket R181-T90, and the 2U dual socket R281-T91, both run on Cavium's ThunderX2 arm CPUs and both are part of GIGABYTE’s R-Series general purpose rack server product family.


GIGABYTE Technology announced from Taipei, Taiwan that they are adding 2 new state of the art models to their existing ARM server lineup. The 1U dual socket R181-T90, and the 2U dual socket R281-T91, both run on Cavium's ThunderX2 arm CPUs and both are part of GIGABYTE’s R-Series general purpose rack server product family.

Cavium ThunderX2

The ThunderX2 is a 64-bit ARM CPU with a completely new architecture to the ThunderX, Cavium’s previous CPU offering. Both of GIGABYTE's newest servers run on dual BGA socket ThunderX2 CN9975-2000 processors. GIGABYTE is also hoping to offer models with higher end ThunderX2 CN9980-2200 (32 cores, 2.2 GHz clock speed) and CN9975-2200 (28 cores, 2.2 GHz clock speed) once customer demand has reached the threshold for production. Key specs include:

  • 28 fully out-of-order cores
  • 2.0GHz in nominal mode, up to 3GHz in Turbo mode 
  • Simultaneous multithreading – Up to 4 per physical core 
  • up to 8 channels of DDR4 memory per chip
  • 24 x DIMM slots
  • 32 KB L1 instruction and data cache, 256KB L2 per core
  • 32 MB distributed L3 cache 

GIGABYTE 1U R181-T90

The smaller of GIGABYTE's new servers the R181-T90 fits in a 1U rack slot and is a reasonable choice for smaller companies or those looking to test out ARM servers without a major commitment. Naturally, it also comes with many of GIGABYTE's standard features like tool-less rail kits. Key specs include:

  • 2 x Cavium ThunderX2 CN9975 28-core ARM processors
  • 8-Channel RDIMM DDR4, 24 x DIMMs
  • Dual 10Gb/s LAN ports (QLogic QL41102)
  • 1 x Dedicated management port
  • Onboard Broadcom SAS3008 controller
  • 8 x SAS or 10 x 2.5" SATAIII hot-swappable HDD/SSD bays
  • 3 x PCIe Gen3 expansion slots
  • 2 x OCP Gen3 x16 mezzanine slots
  • Aspeed AST2500 remote management controller
  • Dual 1200W 80 PLUS Platinum 1 + 1 redundant power supply
  • a row of 8 x (40 x 40mm) easy swap fans

GIGABYTE 2U R281-T91

GIGABYTE's 2U unit is largely the same as its smaller cousin. The main differences being fewer but much larger fans and more than twice as many SATA bays. It also has 8 PCI slots to its smaller cousin’s 3. The backside also more clearance and thus likely better airflow. Key specs include:

  • 2 x Cavium ThunderX2 CN9975 28-core ARM processors
  • 8-Channel RDIMM DDR4, 24 x DIMMs
  • Dual 10Gb/s LAN ports (QLogic QL41102)
  • 1 x Dedicated management port
  • Onboard Broadcom SAS3008 controller
  • 2 x 2.5" SATA in rear side, 24 x SAS/SATA hot-swappable HDD/SSD bays
  • SAS expander with 12Gb/s transfer speed
  • 8 x PCIe Gen3 expansion slots
  • 2 x OCP Gen3 x16 mezzanine slots
  • Aspeed AST2500 remote management controller
  • Dual 1200W 80 PLUS Platinum 1 + 1 redundant power supply
  • 4 x (80 x 80mm) hot swap fans

Availability

Right now.

GIGABYTE

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