Latest update to HPs servers include 16 cores!

This is old news really but either way HP have updated a number of server models to include the new AMD Opteron 62xx processor series.
The beefiest of all being the Opteron 6282SE which comes with 16 cores each packing 2.6ghz of clock speed. Naturally this kind of speed comes at a high TDP (in this case 140W) especially when compared to the highly conservative Opteron 6128HE (8 core 2.0ghz) which chews through a TDP of just 85W.

So what is the need for all this processing power you might ask?

Well the number 1 option certainly is vitalization and in my mind VDI – the more cores you have with the highest clock speed possible the more VDIs you can fit onto a single server – plain and simple.

How does this translate into reduced data centre floor space?

Higher core density naturally means less space used to get the same amount of processing power. So lets do some maths and see how these new 16 core processors come into play in the real world.

So a server rack of 42U can have 42 1U 2P servers (in this case we are looking at the DL165 G7); in old money the biggest core count you could get in that server would be 24 cores (2x12core processors) – now that is up to 32 cores. With the 12 core processors in that rack you would get 1008 cores, with 16 core processors that is now up to 1344 cores – an increase of 25%.

This increase of 25% could also be seen as taking out 1 rack out of every 4 while keeping the same number of cores running.

Which lines have been updated?

So far the following lines have been updated to include the new 16 core processors-

• HP ProLiant DL165 G7 (Rack/2P/1U)
• HP ProLiant DL385 G7 (Rack/2P/2U)
• HP ProLiant DL585 G7 (Rack/4P/4U)
• HP ProLiant BL465c G7 (Blade/2P/Half Height)
• HP ProLiant BL685c G7 (Blade/4P/Full Height)

We are still yet to see the HP SL series (cookie sheet) servers get the update however I would imagine HP are working on that (maybe a slow down due to the unique design of the cooling of these kinds of servers).