Dell PowerEdge R750xa Review — Gen 15 Quad GPU AI Server
Purpose-Built for AI, HPC, and Every GPU-Accelerated Workload
AI/ML and Deep Learning Training — The R750xa is engineered end-to-end for AI and deep learning model training; up to four NVIDIA A100 (80 GB or 40 GB HBM2e) or A40 double-wide GPUs with 600 GB/s NVLink interconnects enable multi-GPU tensor parallelism at production scale; multi-instance GPU (MIG) on A100 lets a single GPU run up to seven isolated GPU instances simultaneously, maximizing GPU utilization across mixed training and inferencing workloads
AI Inferencing — Low-latency inference pipelines benefit from up to six single-wide NVIDIA A10, T4, or A30 GPUs installed across the R750xa's flexible riser configuration; A10 GPUs deliver up to 250 TOPS Tensor performance in a 150 W single-slot form factor — ideal for FP32/FP16/INT8 inference serving without the power footprint of an A100
High-Performance Computing (HPC) — Simulation modeling, computational fluid dynamics, genomics pipelines, and financial Monte Carlo workloads leverage 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs (up to 40 cores per socket, 80 per system) combined with GPU co-processing; AMD MI100 GPU support targets FP64 double-precision HPC codes natively; PCIe Gen 4 at 64 lanes per socket provides the low-latency interconnect bandwidth required for tight CPU-GPU data exchange
VDI with GPU — GPU-accelerated Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) deployments using NVIDIA A10 in MIG or vGPU mode; the R750xa supports up to 6 single-wide GPUs, enabling dozens of hardware-accelerated concurrent virtual desktops per host at significantly higher graphics quality than software rendering nodes
Database Analytics — GPU-accelerated database engines (RAPIDS cuDF, OmniSci, Kinetica) exploit 600 GB/s bi-directional GPU memory bandwidth for in-GPU-memory OLAP; 32 DDR4 DIMM slots with up to 4 TB LRDIMM capacity provide the host-side memory needed to stage large working datasets before GPU acceleration
Rendering and Media & Entertainment — GPU rendering (Blender Cycles, V-Ray RT, Redshift) and video transcoding workflows use up to four NVIDIA A40 48 GB GPUs for real-time or offline rendering; NVIDIA NVLink bridges between A40 pairs enable NVLink pooled memory, effectively doubling accessible GPU VRAM for scenes that exceed a single GPU's 48 GB frame buffer
AI / ML / DL
HPC / Simulation
GPU VDI
Database Analytics
Rendering / M&E
Inferencing
3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable — Up to 40 Cores and 270 W TDP
Dual-Socket Platform — Two 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable (Ice Lake-SP) sockets provide up to 80 physical cores and 160 threads per server node; this dual-socket bandwidth is essential for feeding multiple high-bandwidth GPUs with training data and inference requests simultaneously
Up to 40 Cores Per Processor — The flagship Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 delivers 40 cores at 2.3 GHz base (Turbo enabled) with 60 MB L3 cache and 270 W TDP — the highest core count available in the R750xa platform; for GPU-dense builds, the Xeon Gold 6342 (24 cores, 230 W) or Xeon Silver 4316 (20 cores, 150 W) offer cost-optimized CPU headroom while prioritizing GPU budget
PCIe Gen 4 at 64 Lanes Per Socket — Each Ice Lake-SP socket exposes 64 native PCIe 4.0 lanes at 16 GT/s; with both sockets active the R750xa provides 128 total PCIe 4.0 lanes — the raw bus bandwidth required to sustain all four GPU risers at full PCIe x16 speed without contention
Intel Ultra Path Interconnect (UPI) — Up to three UPI links per socket at 11.2 GT/s (Gold/Platinum) or 10.4 GT/s (Silver/Bronze) provide low-latency CPU-to-CPU memory coherency; critical for GPU workloads that access memory pinned to the remote NUMA node
Up to 270 W TDP Supported — Full-height extended heatsinks accommodate the R750xa's maximum CPU TDP of 270 W per socket; the thermal subsystem supports all 270 W CPUs across all four GPU configurations at 35 °C ambient
8-Channel DDR4 Memory Controller — Each socket drives eight DDR4 memory channels at up to 3200 MT/s; with two sockets populated, 16 channels of memory bandwidth feed both the CPUs and the GPU interconnect fabric simultaneously
Broad Processor Range — Platform supports Intel Xeon Platinum (8380 down to 8352M), Gold (6342, 6338, 6334, 6330, 6326), and Silver/Bronze tiers (5320, 5318S, 5317, 4316, 4314, 4310, 4309Y) — from 8 cores / 105 W entry to 40 cores / 270 W performance
32 DDR4 DIMM Slots — Up to 4 TB LRDIMM + Intel Optane PMem 200 Series
32 DIMM Slots — Double the R750xs — The R750xa's accelerator-class chassis ships with 32 DDR4 DIMM slots (16 per CPU socket) versus 16 on the R750xs; this ensures that GPU-heavy workloads have sufficient host memory for data staging, model parameter caching, and OS + hypervisor overhead alongside multiple large GPU contexts
RDIMM — Up to 2 TB Max — 32 slots of DDR4 RDIMM at up to 64 GB per DIMM support a maximum of 2 TB of registered ECC memory; RDIMM is the standard choice for most AI/ML, HPC, and VDI workloads where capacity up to 2 TB is sufficient
LRDIMM — Up to 4 TB Max — Load-reduced DIMMs (LRDIMM) using a buffer chip reduce memory loading and enable higher DIMM densities; 32 × 128 GB LRDIMM = 4 TB raw capacity per system — essential for GPU database analytics and large-model in-memory training datasets
3200 MT/s DDR4 Speed — Memory runs at up to 3200 MT/s at 1 DPC (one DIMM per channel) and maintains 3200 MT/s at 2 DPC for both RDIMM and LRDIMM configurations; 8-channel architecture per socket means full 2 DPC population sustains the bandwidth GPU transfers require from host DRAM
Intel Optane Persistent Memory 200 Series (PMem) — Up to 16 PMem 200 slots (8 per socket) support 512 GB modules at speeds up to 3200 MT/s; maximum PMem capacity per system is 8 TB; configurations using PMem are rated to 30 °C ambient (vs. 35 °C for DDR4-only); supported for AI model checkpointing, large-scale in-memory databases, and persistent memory analytics
ECC Protection — All supported DIMM types (RDIMM, LRDIMM, 3DS) require registered ECC; UDIMMs are not supported; ECC provides single-bit error correction and double-bit error detection across all 32 slots — critical for long-running GPU training jobs where a single memory error can corrupt a model checkpoint
1.2 V DDR4 Standard — All DDR4 DIMMs operate at 1.2 V nominal; consistent voltage profile simplifies power budgeting alongside high-TDP GPU cards drawing 300 W each
Up to Four Double-Wide GPUs — Every PCIe GPU in the PowerEdge Portfolio
Up to 4 Double-Wide (300 W) GPUs in the Front — The R750xa's dedicated GPU riser module supports four double-wide 300 W GPUs installed in full-height slots 31, 32, 33, and 34; this is the highest double-wide GPU density available in a 2U Dell PowerEdge rack chassis
Up to 2 Additional Single-Wide (75 W) GPUs at the Rear — Two rear-accessible single-wide 75 W slots (via R2a riser positions 3 and 6) allow low-power inference GPUs or additional compute accelerators alongside the four front GPUs for a maximum of six GPU cards per system
NVIDIA A100 (80 GB HBM2e) — The flagship PCIe A100 GPU delivers 312 TFLOPS of FP16 Tensor Core performance and 80 GB of high-bandwidth HBM2e memory at 2 TB/s bandwidth; multi-instance GPU (MIG) allows up to 7 isolated GPU instances per card — enabling GPU sharing across concurrent AI workflows at hardware-enforced isolation
NVIDIA A40 (48 GB GDDR6) — The A40 targets GPU rendering, HPC visualization, and professional compute; 48 GB GDDR6 frame buffer and 150 TFLOPS FP32 Tensor performance; NVLink bridge support between two A40s enables NVLink pooled memory of up to 96 GB for large rendering and physics simulation scenes
NVIDIA A30 (24 GB HBM2) and A10 (24 GB GDDR6) — Mid-tier options for AI inferencing and VDI; the A30 (165 W) provides 165 TFLOPS FP16 performance with HBM2 memory; the A10 (150 W, single-slot) delivers 250 TOPS INT8 inference throughput — up to four A10s can fill the R750xa's front GPU slots for a cost-efficient inference node
NVIDIA T4 (16 GB GDDR6) — Low-power 70 W single-wide T4 enables GPU-accelerated VDI and lightweight inferencing; up to six T4 GPUs can be installed in the R750xa (four front + two rear) for high-density multi-tenant GPU sharing without liquid cooling requirements
AMD Instinct MI100 (32 GB HBM2) — Dell supports the AMD MI100 in the R750xa for FP64 double-precision HPC workloads targeting ROCm-compatible applications; MI100 delivers best-in-class FP64 performance for simulation codes and open-source HPC frameworks compiled against ROCm
NVIDIA NVLink Bridges — 600 GB/s GPU-to-GPU Interconnect
NVLink Bridge Support for A100 and A40 — The R750xa supports NVIDIA NVLink bridges that directly connect paired A100 or A40 GPUs; NVLink provides 600 GB/s of bidirectional bandwidth between each GPU pair — up to 20× the bandwidth of PCIe Gen 4 x16; this eliminates the PCIe bottleneck for GPU-to-GPU data transfers in multi-GPU training jobs
Large-Dataset Training at Scale — NVLink's peer-to-peer memory access allows gradient synchronization between two A100 GPUs without CPU intermediation; for models too large to fit in a single A100's 80 GB HBM2e, NVLink pooling effectively creates a 160 GB shared GPU memory space across two bridged A100s — enabling larger batch sizes and higher-precision numerics
NVLink Sponges for Gap Filling — Dell-supplied NVLink sponge components fill the gap between GPU cards and bridge connectors, ensuring reliable NVLink signals in the R750xa chassis; proper gap management prevents mechanical flex that could intermittently break the high-speed NVLink electrical path
Two Independent NVLink Pairs per Server — With four A100 or A40 GPUs installed, the R750xa can support two NVLink bridge pairs: GPUs in slots 31+32 bridge together, and GPUs in slots 33+34 bridge together; each pair shares 600 GB/s bidirectional bandwidth independently, enabling tensor-parallel or pipeline-parallel training topologies across all four GPUs
Paddle Cards for Flexible GPU Riser Routing — R1, R3, and R4 paddle cards route PCIe signals from the system mainboard to the GPU riser module; these compact interposer boards ensure full PCIe Gen 4 x16 signal integrity to each GPU slot regardless of chassis depth, and are required for all double-wide GPU configurations
Versus C4140 NVLink Board — Generation Upgrade — The predecessor PowerEdge C4140 used a passive NVLink board at 300 GB/s between V100 GPUs; the R750xa doubles this to 600 GB/s with A100/A40 NVLink bridges while simultaneously adding flexible GPU selection — the C4140 was limited to fixed V100 and V100S configurations only
Up to 8 PCIe Gen 4 Slots — Dedicated GPU Riser with 6 × x16 Slots
8 × PCIe Gen 4 Slots Total — The R750xa provides up to 8 PCIe 4.0 slots with a mix of up to 6 × x16 and 2 × x8 lanes; PCIe 4.0 doubles per-lane bandwidth to 2 GB/s vs PCIe 3.0, essential for sustaining GPU-to-CPU data transfers without bottlenecking the four-GPU configuration
GPU Riser Left (Slots 31/32) and GPU Riser Right (Slots 33/34) — The dedicated GPU riser module splits into left and right assemblies; left riser (DPN: RHJNM) hosts GPU slots 31 and 32 (both PCIe x16, CPU2-attached); right riser (DPN: 3YJ8R) hosts GPU slots 33 and 34 (both PCIe x16, CPU1-attached); this balanced topology distributes GPU PCIe load evenly across both CPU NUMA nodes
RSR2A Riser (Slots 3/4/5) — Standard I/O — The RSR2A standard riser (DPN: 3FJFH) provides PCIe slot 3 (LP x16) and slots 4 and 5 (FH x8 each); slot 3 hosts the fPERC front RAID controller; slots 4 and 5 are available for networking adapters, HBAs, or single-wide GPUs
RSR3B Riser (Slots 6) — Additional Expansion — The RSR3B riser (DPN: 5HC7T) provides PCIe slot 6 (LP x16); when a T4 rear GPU card is installed at slot 6, it is described as "rear lower" in the configuration matrix
R1, R3, and R4 Paddle Cards — Paddle card R1 (DPN: 29CH8) routes CPU1 PCIe Gen 4 lanes to slots 33/34 in the right GPU riser; R3 (DPN: PFYP2) provides additional CPU2 routing; R4 (DPN: MDVFJ) routes CPU2 lanes to the GPU riser left slots 31/32; these interposer boards maintain Gen 4 signal integrity across the full chassis depth for all double-wide GPU cards
NVMe Direct Attach via Riser Slot — For the 4x NVMe direct-attach configuration, R3 paddle + R4 paddle replaces the standard GPU riser left to route four additional direct-attach NVMe drives via PCIe Gen 4 — allowing NVMe storage density alongside front GPU accelerators when storage I/O is also a priority
OCP 3.0 Slot (x8 PCIe Gen 4) — One OCP 3.0 mezzanine slot backed by PCIe Gen 4 x8 lanes provides high-bandwidth networking without consuming a standard PCIe expansion slot; supports up to 100 GbE OCP 3.0 cards for GPU cluster fabric connectivity
Up to 8 × 2.5-Inch SAS/SATA/NVMe or 6 × Direct-Attach NVMe
Up to 8 × 2.5-Inch Front Bays (SAS/SATA/NVMe) — The standard configuration supports up to eight 2.5-inch hot-swap bays accepting SAS 12 Gb/s SSDs, SATA 6 Gb/s SSDs, or U.2 NVMe SSDs with maximum raw capacity of 122.88 TB (8 × 15.36 TB NVMe); as an accelerator-class server, storage capacity is intentionally secondary to GPU compute density
Up to 6 × 2.5-Inch NVMe Direct-Attach — The alternative 6-bay direct-attach NVMe configuration bypasses PERC and routes each drive directly to the CPU over PCIe Gen 4; max raw capacity is 92.1 TB (6 × 15.36 TB); best suited for AI training pipelines that require maximum NVMe throughput for dataset ingestion directly into GPU memory via GPUDirect Storage
Four Storage Configurations Supported — (1) Up to 8× SAS/SATA SSD RAID; (2) Up to 8× NVMe RAID; (3) Up to 6× NVMe direct-attach; (4) Up to 4× SAS/SATA SSD RAID + 4× NVMe direct-attach — flexibility to balance RAID protection and raw NVMe speed within the same chassis
SAS 12 Gb/s SSD Capacities — Supported SAS SSD sizes: 400 GB, 480 GB, 800 GB, 960 GB, 1.6 TB, 1.92 TB, 3.2 TB, 3.84 TB, 6.4 TB, 7.68 TB, 12.8 TB, 15.36 TB, 30.72 TB
U.2 NVMe SSD Capacities — Supported NVMe U.2 sizes: 960 GB, 1.6 TB, 1.92 TB, 3.2 TB, 3.84 TB, 6.4 TB, 7.68 TB, 12.8 TB, 15.36 TB
External Storage Connectivity — Supports connection to 12 Gb MD14xx and ME484 JBOD enclosures via external HBA; USB external tape; and NAS/IDM appliance software stacks for broad external storage ecosystem compatibility
Drive Backplane Cover — In GPU-dense configurations where all four GPU slots are populated and fewer than 8 drives are installed, a drive backplane cover fills unused bays to maintain proper chassis airflow pressure and GPU cooling performance
PERC H755 / H745 RAID Controllers and BOSS-S2 M.2 Boot Module
PERC H755 — Premium Performance RAID — The Harpoon-chip-based PERC H755 (Value Performance tier) provides PCIe 3.0 x8 connectivity, dual A15 1.2 GHz CPUs, and 8 GB DDR4 NV cache; the H755N variant enables NVMe RAID (RAID0/1/5/6/10) for direct NVMe RAID configurations — the top PERC option for I/O-intensive AI training data pipelines
PERC H745 — High-Performance SAS/SATA RAID — The PERC H745 handles SAS 12 Gb/s and SATA 6 Gb/s RAID; supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60; paired with a battery backup unit (BBU) for write-back cache protection in enterprise RAID configurations
HBA355i — Pass-Through Mode — The HBA355i allows OS-managed storage without RAID overhead; necessary for Ceph OSD, vSAN direct disk management, and software-defined storage configurations where RAID is handled by a distributed software layer
PERC H345 / S150 — Entry RAID Options — H345 provides value-tier hardware RAID for cost-optimized builds; S150 provides software RAID (SATA + NVMe) managed by the CPU without a dedicated RAID controller card — ideal when storage is secondary to GPU compute and controller PCIe slots are reserved for networking or additional GPUs
BOSS-S2 Boot Module — The Boot Optimized Storage Subsystem (BOSS-S2) provides hardware RAID 1 (mirror) across two M.2 SATA SSDs (240 GB or 480 GB each) as dedicated OS boot media; operates entirely independently of the front PERC controller, freeing all drive bays for data or GPU training dataset storage
fPERC (Front PERC) Architecture — The R750xa uses a dedicated front PERC module that does not consume a standard PCIe expansion slot; this slot-less design preserves all 8 PCIe slots for GPU cards, networking adapters, and fabric HBAs instead of devoting a riser slot to RAID
External RAID — PERC H840 and HBA355E — The PERC H840 (external) and HBA355E provide RAID and pass-through connectivity for external JBOD enclosures; supports connection to up to 240 drives via MD14xx or ME484 JBODs for large-scale GPU training dataset storage
OCP 3.0 with PCIe Gen 4 × 8 + 2 × 1 GbE LOM — GPU Cluster–Ready Fabric
OCP 3.0 Mezzanine Slot (x8 PCIe Gen 4) — One OCP 3.0 mezzanine slot backed by PCIe Gen 4 x8 lanes supports high-speed small-form-factor network adapters without sacrificing any of the standard PCIe riser slots; supports up to 100 GbE or 200 GbE OCP 3.0 NICs for InfiniBand-replaced AI cluster fabrics and RDMA-over-Converged-Ethernet (RoCE) workloads
2 × 1 GbE LOM (BCM5720) — Two integrated 1 GbE LOM ports served by Broadcom BCM5720 provide dedicated management and out-of-band iDRAC access without consuming any PCIe or OCP slots; these ports are shared with iDRAC9 for remote management — no external NIC required for basic server management
OCP 3.0 vs. OCP 2.0 (rNDC) Comparison — OCP 3.0 delivers Gen 4 PCIe vs. Gen 3 for rNDC; both support shared LOM (iDRAC redirect) and auxiliary power; the smaller SFF form factor of OCP 3.0 leaves more chassis volume for GPU airflow compared to full-height rNDC cards
SNAP I/O Mellanox Socket Direct — For dual-socket GPU servers, SNAP I/O technology allows a single Mellanox OCP adapter to connect directly to both CPU sockets via the Mellanox socket direct interface; this eliminates the UPI inter-socket hop for remote NUMA GPU transfers, reducing latency and freeing UPI bandwidth for intra-server CPU-to-CPU communication critical for NVLink-bridged GPU pairs
Supported OCP 3.0 Cards — Validated OCP 3.0 adapters span 10 GbE dual-port to 100 GbE single/dual-port Ethernet (Mellanox, Broadcom, Intel, Chelsio, Marvell) and 100 Gb InfiniBand HDR100 adapters — the full Dell Server Adapter Matrix covers all confirmed combinations for the R750xa
Dell IDSDM Module (Internal) — An optional Internal Dual SD Module (IDSDM) installs in the internal USB slot for dual-redundant microSD OS boot; 16 GB, 32 GB, or 64 GB capacity; available as an alternative to the BOSS-S2 M.2 RAID module for hypervisor hosts (ESXi, Hyper-V) that boot from SD
1400 W to 2800 W Hot-Swap PSUs — Platinum and Titanium Efficiency
Four PSU Wattage Options — The R750xa supports four hot-swap PSU options: 1400 W Platinum AC/240 V mixed mode, 1800 W Titanium HLAC/240 V mixed mode, 2400 W Platinum AC/240 V mixed mode, and 2800 W Titanium HLAC/240 V mixed mode; the 2800 W Titanium option is the standard choice for configurations with four 300 W double-wide GPUs and two high-TDP CPUs
Maximum System Draw — 4 × 300 W GPU + 2 × 270 W CPU — A fully loaded R750xa with four NVIDIA A100/A40 300 W GPUs, two Xeon Platinum 8380 270 W CPUs, 32 DIMMs, and eight drives can exceed 2,000 W sustained; the 2400 W Platinum or 2800 W Titanium PSU handles this configuration with headroom for PSU efficiency curves and burst loads
1 + 1 Redundant PSU with Auto-Switching — Dual PSUs support 1+1 hot-swap redundancy with autosensing and auto-switching; if one PSU fails, the second immediately takes over the full load without any service interruption — critical for GPU training jobs that can run for days or weeks
Titanium Efficiency — Up to 96% at 50% Load — The 1800 W and 2800 W Titanium PSUs achieve: 90% at 10%, 94% at 20%, 96% at 50%, and 94% at 100% load; Titanium-rated PSUs minimize heat dissipation inside the chassis, which directly reduces the GPU thermal load and fan noise
Platinum Efficiency — Up to 94% at 50% Load — The 1400 W and 2400 W Platinum PSUs achieve: 89% at 10%, 93% at 20%, 94% at 50%, 91.5% at 100% load; both are 80 PLUS Platinum certified
86 mm New PSU Form Factor — The 2400 W and 2800 W PSUs use the new 86 mm 15th Gen form factor versus the 60 mm form factor of the smaller wattage options; the higher-wattage 86 mm PSUs are native to the Gen 15 design and are not interchangeable with 14th Gen PSU bays
iDRAC Power Management — iDRAC9 Enterprise provides per-component power monitoring at 1% accuracy (vs. the industry standard of 5%); server-level power capping sets hard limits on system draw; OpenManage Power Center extends group power management to the rack, row, and data center level — essential for GPU data center power planning
Air Cooling + Optional Processor Liquid Cooling Module for High-TDP GPU Loads
Air Cooling — Up to Six Hot-Plug Fans — The R750xa uses high-performance GOLD fans (60 × 76 mm, DPN: FD00R) in a six-fan hot-plug array; all six fans operating simultaneously deliver the airflow required to cool four 300 W double-wide GPUs and two 270 W CPUs simultaneously in a 35 °C ambient data center environment
Optional Processor Liquid Cooling Module (LCM) — An optional liquid cooling module for the processors is available for GPU-dense deployments in thermally constrained facilities or when processor TDP exceeds what available airflow can support alone; the R750xa's depth (894.8 mm / 35.22 inches without bezel) accommodates LCM hardware internally; liquid cooling offloads CPU thermal dissipation to the facility's coolant loop, freeing airflow exclusively for GPU card cooling
35 °C Standard Operating Ambient (ASHRAE A2) — All configurations including 270 W CPUs and 300 W GPUs are supported at 35 °C ambient under standard ASHRAE A2 conditions; Intel Optane Persistent Memory 200 Series configurations are limited to 30 °C ambient
GPU TDP Range Supported — Thermal system covers minimum GPU configurations of 70 W single-wide cards up to maximum of four 300 W double-wide cards simultaneously; the extended heatsink (2U XP Full HSK, DPN: 8F34X) is required for 205 W CPUs and above in GPU-dense configurations
Acoustic Profile — Typical 53 dB(A) at 25 °C — In a typical configuration with four 300 W GPUs (H755 RAID, dual-port 10 GbE, 2400 W PSU, 24 × 16 GB RDIMMs) the R750xa measures 6.2 B(A) / 53 dB(A) idle and 53 dB(A) operating at 25 °C ambient; this rises to 6.7 B / 55 dB at 28 °C and 9.0 B / 79 dB at maximum load in 35 °C ambient — within typical data center noise tolerance for GPU rack enclosures
iDRAC9 Thermal Telemetry Streaming — Built-in thermal telemetry streaming via iDRAC9 provides real-time per-component temperature visibility including per-GPU inlet and exhaust temperatures; automatic fan speed adjustment responds to GPU workload ramp-up within seconds to prevent thermal throttling and sustain peak GPU compute throughput
Liquid Cooling Rear I/O Variant — In the liquid cooling configuration, the rear I/O panel is modified: VGA is optional (instead of standard), maintaining the same USB 3.0, USB 2.0, and RJ-45 management port layout; the `r750xa-internal-diagramLC.jpg` internal chassis view illustrates the LCM hardware routing within the GPU chassis
Front, Rear, and Internal Ports — iDRAC Direct, USB 3.0, and Dual RJ-45
Front Ports — 1 × dedicated iDRAC Direct micro-USB (for direct laptop management without network access), 1 × USB 2.0 (for bootable USB drives and diagnostics), 1 × VGA (console connection during OS installation or recovery); the front panel is intentionally minimal to support high-density rack deployments where front I/O access is limited
Rear Ports — Standard I/O — 1 × USB 2.0, 1 × USB 3.0, 2 × RJ-45 (1 GbE LOM for data; the second LOM port is shared with iDRAC as a dedicated management redirect port), 1 × VGA, 1 × Serial (optional); serial is optional and can be ordered for out-of-band console access in environments that do not use iDRAC9 for all serial console functions
Rear Ports — Liquid Cooling Configuration — With the optional LCM installed, the rear I/O layout is modified: VGA is optional instead of standard; USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports and both RJ-45 management ports remain unchanged; reference the `r750xa-rear-diagram.jpg` for visual port locations
Internal USB 3.0 Port — One internal USB 3.0 port is dedicated to the IDSDM dual-SD module or an internal USB dongle (40 × 16 × 8 mm max); this internal USB enables OS boot from SD media for VMware ESXi, Citrix Hypervisor, or Windows Server Core without occupying an external port
iDRAC Direct (Micro-USB) — The front micro-USB port provides direct laptop-to-iDRAC point-to-point management; enables iDRAC GUI access and RACADM commands even when the server is not connected to a management network — ideal for initial provisioning, BIOS configuration, and GPU driver installation during rack staging
Quick Sync 2 Wireless Module — An optional Quick Sync 2 NFC/BLE module enables short-range wireless iDRAC access from the OpenManage Mobile app; the QR label on the server front panel links to the per-service-tag configuration page with the unique iDRAC password and GPU configuration details
Two RJ-45 1 GbE LOM Ports — Both LOM ports (BCM5720) are bonded-capable for active-passive failover at the 1 GbE management plane; in iDRAC Shared LOM mode, management traffic is multiplexed onto one of the LOM ports alongside normal data traffic, reducing dedicated management NIC requirements for cost-optimized GPU deployments
Silicon Root of Trust — Secure from Silicon to Retirement
Silicon Root of Trust — The R750xa boots from a cryptographically anchored silicon root of trust built into the dedicated iDRAC security chip; every firmware component in the boot chain (iDRAC firmware, BIOS, PERC, GPU firmware) is verified against a silicon-anchored certificate chain before executing — preventing persistent malware from surviving server reboots even if BIOS/UEFI is compromised
Cryptographically Signed Firmware — All Dell firmware packages are digitally signed; iDRAC9 rejects any firmware image that fails signature verification before installation; this prevents unauthorized or tampered firmware from being applied to GPU training nodes where a firmware compromise could exfiltrate model weights or training data
Secure Boot (UEFI) — UEFI Secure Boot validates OS boot loaders and kernel modules against an allow-list of trusted keys before execution; prevents bootkits and rootkits from loading at the hypervisor or OS level on GPU servers running sensitive AI model intellectual property
System Lockdown Mode — iDRAC9 Enterprise or Datacenter license enables System Lockdown, which prevents any configuration changes (BIOS, firmware, hardware inventory) during a lockdown period; essential for production GPU training clusters where configuration drift must be eliminated during long-running training runs
Secure Erase — Cryptographic wipe of all storage media including SSDs, HDDs, and system memory upon decommission; ensures training datasets, model weights, and credentials stored during GPU workload execution cannot be recovered from drives after the server is retired or returned
TPM 1.2 / 2.0 — Trusted Platform Module options: FIPS-certified TPM 2.0, CC-TCG certified, and TPM 2.0 China NationZ for region-specific compliance; TPM stores BitLocker/LUKS encryption keys for encrypted OS boot volumes and GPU driver signing attestation
iDRAC9 Lifecycle Controller — Integrated lifecycle management records every configuration change, firmware update, and hardware event in a tamper-evident iDRAC system event log; provides a complete audit trail for security compliance frameworks (NIST, SOC2, ISO 27001) governing GPU training infrastructure
iDRAC9 — Intelligent Automation and Telemetry Streaming for GPU Infrastructure
iDRAC9 Out-of-Band Management — iDRAC9 provides always-on out-of-band management independent of the host OS and GPU workloads; access the server remotely via browser, RACADM CLI, or RESTful API with Redfish even when the host OS has crashed or is running a GPU training job with exclusive GPU access locked
Built-In Telemetry Streaming — iDRAC9 streams real-time per-GPU temperature, power consumption, PCIe link speed, and fan speed data via Redfish Telemetry; telemetry data can be pushed to SIEM tools, OpenTelemetry collectors, or GPU cluster orchestration systems for automated thermal and performance alerts on long-running training jobs
RESTful API with Redfish — Full Redfish 1.x compliance enables Infrastructure-as-Code management of the R750xa; Ansible Dell OpenManage Modules and Python scripts can automate BIOS settings, GPU firmware updates, RAID configuration, power capping, and OS deployment without manual console access — essential for managing large-scale GPU cluster deployments
iDRAC Service Module (iSM) — The in-band iDRAC Service Module provides OS-level hardware inventory, real-time health monitoring, and iDRAC crash video capture from within the running OS; iSM bridges iDRAC9 out-of-band data with OS-level GPU performance metrics for unified GPU telemetry correlated with hardware health events
iDRAC Direct and Quick Sync 2 — iDRAC Direct via front micro-USB enables zero-network provisioning at the rack; Quick Sync 2 NFC/BLE wireless provides iDRAC access from the OpenManage Mobile app for infrastructure teams that do not carry laptops during rack maintenance; both options complement SSH/browser remote access
OpenManage Enterprise Integration — The one-to-many OpenManage Enterprise (OME) console manages fleets of R750xa GPU servers from a single pane; OME Power Manager monitors GPU-server power consumption at the group level and sets power caps across an entire AI cluster; OME SupportAssist automates predictive failure detection and Dell support case creation before a GPU node goes offline
Third-Party Management Integrations — iDRAC9 and OpenManage support native integrations with VMware vCenter (OMIVV), Microsoft System Center (OMIMSSC), Red Hat Ansible, ServiceNow (OMISNOW), and BMC TrueSight; third-party connections include IBM Tivoli, Nagios Core/XI, and Micro Focus Operations Manager — enabling R750xa GPU servers to fit into any existing enterprise ITSM workflow
Certified for RHEL, Ubuntu, VMware ESXi, Windows Server, and SUSE
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) — Dell-certified RHEL support includes NVIDIA driver stack validation via RHEL's GPU driver repositories; RHEL is the dominant production OS for AI/ML workloads using CUDA, NCCL, and cuDNN; Dell ProSupport provides collaborative HW+OS support for RHEL-based GPU training environments
Canonical Ubuntu Server LTS — Ubuntu LTS is widely used for NVIDIA CUDA deep learning frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch, JAX) and AMD ROCm (for MI100); Ubuntu's GPU driver PPAs provide fast access to latest CUDA and ROCm releases; Dell validates LTS releases (22.04, 20.04) on the R750xa for GPU CUDA workflow certification
VMware ESXi — GPU pass-through (vDGA) and vGPU (NVIDIA vPC/vCS/vWS) on ESXi enable virtualized GPU workloads; NVIDIA vGPU software multiplexes A10 or A30 GPU resources across multiple VMs for GPU-accelerated VDI or multi-tenant AI inferencing deployments on a single R750xa host
Microsoft Windows Server with Hyper-V — Windows Server supports NVIDIA GPU pass-through via Hyper-V Discrete Device Assignment (DDA) for GPU-accelerated Windows VMs; Windows Server runs DirectML/CUDA GPU workloads via WSL2 or CUDA for Windows in bare-metal configurations
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) — SLES with NVIDIA driver support is certified for HPC environments using OpenMPI and MPI-enabled GPU simulation frameworks; SUSE's kernel live patching keeps GPU nodes online during security updates without rebooting active training jobs
Citrix Hypervisor — Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer) supports NVIDIA vGPU for GPU-accelerated VDI desktops; the R750xa's multi-GPU support allows higher vGPU profile density per host than single-GPU platforms
Dell.com/OSsupport Certification Matrix — The full OS version certification matrix, Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) portal, and hypervisor-specific driver requirements are maintained at Dell.com/OSsupport — always consult this matrix for specific kernel and driver version combinations before deploying GPU workloads on the R750xa
Slim Static and Sliding Rails — 19-Inch EIA-310-E Standard Rack Compatible
Slim Rail Design for Wide Chassis — The R750xa ships with a slim rail design that accommodates the server's wider-than-standard 482 mm chassis (driven by four-GPU width); the slim profile ensures 1U of inter-chassis clearance above and below the R750xa for cable management and airflow in dense GPU rack environments
Static Rails — Broad Rack Compatibility — Ready Rails Static Rails support 4-post and 2-post 19-inch EIA-310-E compliant racks including all generations of Dell racks; tool-less installation in square or unthreaded round-hole 4-post racks; tooled installation in threaded-hole 4-post and 2-post racks; stab-in chassis installation method for rapid rack deployment
Sliding Rails — Service Access in the Rack — Sliding rail option allows the R750xa to extend out of the rack for GPU card service, drive replacement, or PSU hot-swap without full chassis removal; critical for GPU farms where frequent GPU card maintenance (NVLink bridge replacement, GPU swap) must not disrupt adjacent servers
Chassis Dimensions (Racking Reference) — Height: 86.8 mm (3.41 in) / 2U; Width: 482 mm (18.97 in); Depth: 894.8 mm without bezel (35.22 in) / 908.64 mm with bezel (35.77 in); maximum system weight with 8 × 2.5-inch SSD configuration: 34.9 kg; 6 × 2.5-inch SSD configuration: 29.0 kg
Cable Arm (CMA) Compatibility — The sliding rails are compatible with a cable management arm that organizes GPU power cables (8-pin PCIe power × 4 GPU + PSU cables) at the rear of the rack; critical for maintaining GPU cooling airflow at the rear of the chassis in high-density deployments
Maximum System Weight — Rack Shelf Planning — The maximum fully loaded weight of 34.9 kg (77 lb) must be accounted for in rack load calculations when specifying floor loading for GPU-dense racks; four R750xa systems in a 4U portion of a 42U rack contribute up to 140 kg of server weight before including PDUs, cables, and switch equipment
R750xa vs. PowerEdge C4140 — Gen 15 vs. Gen 14 GPU Platform Comparison
CPU Generation — Ice Lake vs. Cascade Lake — The R750xa uses 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable (Ice Lake-SP, up to 40 cores, 270 W) versus the C4140's 2nd Gen (Cascade Lake-SP); Ice Lake doubles PCIe bandwidth from PCIe 3.0 to PCIe Gen 4, providing 2× the GPU-to-CPU bus bandwidth per slot for GPU training data pipelines
GPU Flexibility — Full Portfolio vs. Fixed V100 — The C4140 supported only NVIDIA V100 and V100S GPUs in a fixed 4x double-wide configuration; the R750xa supports the full Dell PowerEdge GPU portfolio: A100, A40, A30, A10, T4 (NVIDIA) and MI100 (AMD) — any mix of SW and DW GPUs across the riser slots
NVLink Speed — 600 GB/s vs. 300 GB/s — NVLink bridges for A100/A40 on the R750xa deliver 600 GB/s bidirectional bandwidth between GPU pairs; the C4140's passive NVLink board was limited to 300 GB/s for V100 — doubling the GPU interconnect bandwidth for large-model gradient synchronization
Memory — 32 DIMMs + PMem vs. 24 DIMMs — The R750xa provides 32 DDR4 DIMM slots (up to 4 TB LRDIMM + 8 TB Intel Optane PMem 200 Series) versus 24 DIMM slots and no PMem support on the C4140; higher host memory better supports large training datasets and GPU swap buffers
Memory Speed — 3200 MT/s vs. 2667 MT/s — R750xa DDR4 runs at 3200 MT/s (up to 20% higher bandwidth than C4140's 2667 MT/s maximum); faster host memory reduces CPU-side data staging bottlenecks during GPU training data loading
Storage — Full SAS/SATA/NVMe vs. None — The C4140 had no internal storage controller or drive bays; the R750xa adds up to 8 × 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe drives with PERC H755 RAID, enabling local NVMe training dataset storage without an external storage array
OCP 3.0 Networking — New in Gen 15 — The R750xa adds an OCP 3.0 mezzanine slot (PCIe Gen 4 x8) not available on the C4140; combined with 2 × 1 GbE LOM, this enables high-bandwidth cluster fabrics (100 GbE RoCE, InfiniBand HDR100) for GPU cluster communication without consuming a PCIe expansion slot
| Feature | PowerEdge R750xa (Gen 15) | PowerEdge C4140 (Gen 14) |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 2× 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable (up to 40 cores) | 2× 2nd Gen Xeon Scalable |
| PCIe Generation | PCIe Gen 4 (up to 8 slots, 6× x16) | PCIe Gen 3 (up to 7 slots, 4× x16) |
| GPU Support | A100, A40, A30, A10, T4, MI100 — flexible config | V100 / V100S only — fixed 4× DW |
| NVLink Speed | 600 GB/s (A100, A40) | 300 GB/s (V100) |
| Memory Slots | 32 DDR4 + 16 PMem 200 Series | 24 DDR4 RDIMM / LRDIMM |
| Memory Speed | Up to 3200 MT/s | Up to 2667 MT/s |
| Storage | Up to 8× 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe + BOSS-S2 | None |
| PSU Range | 1400 W – 2800 W (Platinum & Titanium) | 1400 W – 2400 W (Platinum AC/DC) |
| Networking | 2× 1 GbE LOM + 1× OCP 3.0 (PCIe Gen 4) | None (no LOM, no OCP) |
| Form Factor | 2U rack | 1U rack |
ProSupport, ProDeploy, and Managed Services for GPU Infrastructure
Dell ProSupport Plus — Recommended for AI/HPC — ProSupport Plus is Dell's highest-tier support service tailored for business-critical GPU systems; includes an assigned Services Account Manager, predictive SupportAssist monitoring with automated case creation, on-demand analytics reporting via TechDirect, and proactive recommendations based on fleet-wide failure data — preventing GPU training job interruptions before they occur
ProSupport for HPC — Specialized HPC support tier providing access to senior HPC engineers with advanced cluster assistance covering performance tuning, GPU interoperability, and MPI/NCCL configuration; remote pre-support engagement with HPC Specialists during ProDeploy implementations — the right support model for GPU clusters of ten or more R750xa nodes
ProDeploy Plus — Expert GPU Deployment — ProDeploy Plus engineers handle factory-to-production deployment including site readiness review, GPU firmware validation, BIOS/RAID configuration, OS and hypervisor installation, NVIDIA driver and CUDA toolkit setup, and post-deployment GPU performance benchmarking and knowledge transfer
Dell Technologies Consulting — Consulting services for AI/ML infrastructure transformation, GPU cluster architecture design, data center modernization, and multi-cloud GPU strategy; Dell consulting teams provide prescriptive architecture guidance for scaling from proof-of-concept GPU systems to production AI platforms
Dell SupportAssist — Predictive, Automated Support — SupportAssist provides always-on predictive monitoring, automated hardware failure detection, and case creation; for GPU servers running long training jobs, SupportAssist can detect early drive, PSU, or fan degradation and dispatch a replacement part before the component fails during an active training run
Dell Technologies on Demand — Flexible consumption and as-a-Service options for GPU infrastructure; pay-per-use GPU compute through Dell APEX services provides a path to scale AI capacity without capital expenditure when training workloads are bursty or unpredictable
Dell EMC Residency and Managed Services — On-site or remote Dell experts available on a time-controlled residency basis for post-deployment GPU cluster management, ROCm/CUDA ecosystem updates, and GPU driver lifecycle management; Managed Services provides ongoing day-to-day operational management with guaranteed service levels for teams focused on AI model development rather than infrastructure operations
Frequently Asked Questions — Dell PowerEdge R750xa
The Dell PowerEdge R750xa supports up to four double-width 300 W GPUs (e.g. NVIDIA A100, A40) or up to four single-width 150 W GPUs (e.g. NVIDIA A10, A30) in the front GPU risers, plus two additional single-width 75 W GPUs at the rear — for up to six single-wide GPUs total. Paired A100 or A40 GPUs can be connected with NVLink bridges for 600 GB/s GPU-to-GPU bandwidth, enabling large-model training that exceeds a single GPU’s VRAM. AMD MI100 GPUs are also supported for FP64 HPC workloads.
The Dell PowerEdge R750xa has 32 DDR4 DIMM slots supporting up to 2 TB with RDIMMs or up to 4 TB with 128 GB LRDIMMs at speeds up to 3200 MT/s across 8 memory channels per CPU. In addition, up to 16 Intel Optane Persistent Memory 200 Series slots add up to 8 TB of byte-addressable persistent memory — giving the system a combined memory + PMem ceiling of around 12 TB for large-dataset AI/HPC workloads. Configure your R750xa memory at ECS.
Yes. The Dell PowerEdge R750xa supports NVIDIA NVLink bridges connecting pairs of A100 or A40 GPUs at 600 GB/s bidirectional bandwidth — more than double the 300 GB/s NVLink speed of the previous-generation C4140. NVLink pooling effectively combines the VRAM of paired GPUs (e.g. two 80 GB A100s appear as a single 160 GB pool), enabling training of large language models and diffusion models that exceed a single card’s memory. NVIDIA A100 also supports Multi-Instance GPU (MIG), slicing one physical GPU into up to 7 isolated virtual GPU instances for concurrent inference workloads.
Yes. Express Computer Systems stocks professionally reconditioned refurbished Dell PowerEdge R750xa servers tested, cleaned, and configured to your exact GPU, memory, and storage specifications — ready to deploy for AI, HPC, or VDI workloads at significant cost savings versus new. Shop refurbished Dell R750xa servers at ECS.
The Dell PowerEdge R750xa (Gen 15) replaces the C4140 (Gen 14) with 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors vs 2nd Gen, a flexible GPU configuration (up to 4 DW or 6 SW GPUs vs a fixed 4 DW-only layout with V100/V100S only), NVLink at 600 GB/s vs 300 GB/s, 32 DIMM slots vs 24 with added Intel Optane PMem 200 Series support, up to 8 × 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe front drives (C4140 had no internal storage), PCIe Gen 4 with up to 8 slots vs PCIe Gen 3 with 7 slots, dual 1 GbE LOM (C4140 had none), and OCP 3.0 replacing no OCP slot at all — while maintaining the same 2U chassis depth.
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