Gigabyte R183-Z90 Server Review
December 19, 2024We have the 1U Gigabyte R183-Z90 server (SHOP HERE). Once again, a lot of choices in this family of servers and a lot of options.
This one is only on Rev. 1.x which means support for only 4th gen AMD EPYC 9004 series processors. Dual processors that is. Once it goes to Rev. 3.x, it will support 5th gen AMD EPYC CPUs. And, yes, they do seem to skip over the Rev. 2.x from previous experience. The SKU, on the other hand, has to do with the drive support and PSU rating, at least so far.
Gigabyte used to have just revisions. That would have covered even the CPU update. However, that may have spawned a whole new problem given then you would have another set of SKUs with the system just supporting the new processor and the O.G. set supporting the older processor. Maybe we’re making this too difficult… This Gigabyte R183-Z90 server, currently, has 5x SKUs and probably more to follow. It has not been given a revision to support the 5th gen AMD EPYCs just yet but those processors are supported in the same socket and will typically only require a BIOs and Firmware update. Oh, the anticipation is killing us. Let’s get on with this!
The front of the system has 4x 3.5-inch NVMe/SATA/SAS hot swappable drive bays but only for AAD1, and AAV1. For SKUs AAD2, and AAV2, the same number of bays just support for hot-swappable SATA or SAS. We will mention, if you want SAS, they all require an SAS HD controller. The last revision LAD1 supports direct liquid cooling.
Just above HDD 0 and 1 are 2x USB 3.2 gen 1 ports and a small control panel featuring non-maskable interrupt button, reset button, an ID button, Power On button and a few tell-tale LED lights including Lan 1, Lan 2, Drive status, and general system status.
Around the back of the system, PSUs are aligning to either side of the chassis with PCIe slots 3 and 4 on top and 2x OCP card slots below. With the I/O panel squeezed in between. It features the usual suspects Mini-Display port, ID LED, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, 2x GbE ports, and a dedicated management LAN port.
We will mention that Gigabyte offers a few management utilities for this server. The Gigabyte Management Console comes pre-installed on the system and enables management of a single server or small cluster. GSM, or the Gigabyte Server Management is downloadable and offers more robust features. And no, we’re not sure why there is not an acronym for the Gigabyte Management Console. I mean it could be GMC but maybe they didn’t want it to be confused with a truck? What we do know is you get real-time health monitoring, support for standard IPMI specifications, event recording and HD control and monitoring of Broadcom MegaRAID Adapters. Same with GMC but with GMC large clusters of servers can be managed but you also get remote monitoring of the system, for both Windows and Linux operating systems and it complies with IPMI and Redfish standards. The following utilities add more value. GSM Server, GSM Command Line Interface, GSM Mobile for Android or iOS, and the GSM Plugin to sync with VMware vCenter.
Once we crack open the case, you can see all PCIe slots and OCP card connectors offer a x16 connector width, and what you can’t see, a PCIe 5.0 interface with x16 link width.
For DLC, Gigabyte has teamed with a company called CoolIT. We mention this because, if, this was the Direct Liquid Cooling version you will lose one of those PCIe slots as that would be conscripted for the liquid input/output tubes. Those tubes would connect to CoolIT’s passive cold plate loop technology featuring modified heatsinks on each of the 2x CPUs. The tubes connect to a rack manifold system, which in turn connects to a coolant distribution unit, which also functions as a heat exchanger to manage supply temperature and flow to the servers.
The liquid in this case is not water but a fluorocarbon-based liquid, kind of like a coolant used in your car but this is electrically insulating. Water on the other hand, not electrically insulating and quite good at conducting electrical current. The advantages are decreased power usage as DLC is more efficient at removing thermal excess than an air-cooled system, and better performance resulting from compatibility with CPUs offering a higher TDP. There is immersion cooling too but maybe another day, kind of looks like a square Witches caldron. Kind of has that “Double, double toil, and trouble, fire burn, and caldron bubble” vibe without the 3 crones. This system is air cooled.
As you can see, just behind the drive backplane are 8x miniature 40 x40mm fans providing cooling for the CPUs and memory module slots before blowing by the PCIe slots and out the back off the system. Storage on the Gigabyte R183-Z90 server is variable and really depends on the installed backplane for support of NVMe drives. As a networking server it could benefit from GPUs but with only two Full-height, half-length slots, limited choices. Basically, down to the NVIDIA Tesla T4, tried and true, or the NVIDIA A2 Ampere-based GPU. Neither one consumes more that the 75W provided by the PCIe slot. However, they will affect the thermals on the system so that is a consideration, especially, if you plan on installing high TDP CPUs.
Preserving those 2x PCIe slots, or maybe just one, are the OCP 3.0 card slots, also compatible with a Small Form Factor card. Those can be used to provide additional network ports, different port options, and different link speeds.
There is a large selection of CPUs to choose from including the Genoa, Genoa-x and Bergamo options. Need more cores, go Bergamo with up to 128 physical cores and 256 virtual threads each and L3 cache at 256MB. Need more cache? Genoa-X provides up to 1152MB of cache and is outfitted with AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology. And then there’s standard Genoa, which will provide up to 96 physical cores and 192 virtual cores. That one would be the 9654, which will also provide a cache of 384MB. The configurable TDP for these processors is up to 300W, which can go up to 400W under limited thermal conditions. We’re thinking DLC but also if ambient air temp is less than 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit, and your OCP cards don’t consume more that 12W of juice. That’s the small print.
We have confirmed that AMD EPYC 9005-series CPUs will be supported across all SKUs of the Gigabyte R183-Z90 server. However, it will require an update to Rev. 3.x to realize support for AMD EPYC 9005-Series CPUs and faster memory speeds of up to 6000MT/s. Without the revision, memory speed is limited to 4800MT/s, even with DDR5-6000 memory. 4800MT/s is the top memory speed provided by AMD EPYC 9004-series CPUs.
It is not clear exactly which CPUs will be supported as the TDP for 9005-series CPUs goes up to 500W but you can have up to 192 physical cores and 384 virtual threads per CPU with those. Since the CPUs do have 12-channel memory architecture and there are 24x memory module slots between the dual processors, good to go on 1 DIMM per Channel.
There are 3x M.2 slots on the system board. 2x of those can be used to support the OS in a mirror RAID and perhaps the 3rd for updates. Maybe. The first two have a PCIe3.0 x4 interface. The other has a Gen3 2.0 interface. RAID cards supported on this system include a SupremeRAID by Graid Technologies if you plan on installing all NVMe drives up front. With a Graid SupremeRAID card you would get up to 200GB/s throughput to fully utilize NVMe drive speed—and it’s plug and play. There are more traditional controllers for a SAS implementation. RAID is somewhat limited as there are only 4x drive bays up front and some RAID configurations require more than 4x drives.
And there you have it, the Gigabyte R183-Z90 server with a few permutations on the SKUs. At only 1U, it does offer some high-performance compute and is certainly adaptable for a number of different workloads. Have questions? Check out our website or contact us! We have a variety of servers, storage, workstations, and hardware that will definitely fit your needs. We also configure custom gaming systems with the latest technology.
