Tyan Transport FT65TB8050 B8050F65TV8E2H-N Server Tower Review
August 6, 2024The Tyan Transport FT65TB8050 B8050F65TV8E2H-N Server Tower (SHOP HERE) is based off the FT65TB8050 chassis and there are two other models that are remarkably similar. In a nutshell, they all support a 4th generation AMD EPYC CPU, codename Genoa, DDR5 memory modules, and PCIe 5.0.
Is it a workstation or is it a server? This would be more of a networked HPC server that can be used for workstation support. That said, there is some potential for a stand-alone workstation. It can be used as a tower in an office setting or rack-mounted with a rail kit to install in a server enclosure. Supported on this platform are not only the standard 4thgeneration AMD EPYC Genoa but also the fairly new Genoa X and Bergamo CPUs. Those last are still regarded as 4thgeneration AMD EPYC CPUs. As a refresher the Genoa X which are 9004 series processors have an “X” on the end still top out at 96 cores but have a higher L3 cache at up to 1,152MB compared to the standard Genoa CPUs at up to 384MB of L3 Cache. To be clear there is only one of those Genoa X CPUs that does support 1152MB of L3 cache and that would be the 9684X CPU.
That one boasts 96 cores, 192 virtual threads, a base frequency of 2550MHz boosting up to 3700MHz, and a TDP of 400W. It fits the same SP5 socket as standard Genoa CPUs. Those with 3D v-Cache are used for highly technical applications that benefit from a higher data queuing at the CPU like fluid dynamics, databases, electronic design automation, and structural analysis to name a few. Also great for fast rendering and AEC applications.
These CPUs represent the second generation of AMD’s EPYC 3D V-Cache technology, first introduced during the Milan, or 3rdgeneration era, but with significantly more cache at 11152MB compared to 768MB on the first generation.
Ahhh Bergamo. Just North-East of Milan and boasting a population of over 200K. This city is perhaps a little less known that say Naples, Rome, Milan or Genoa. Bergamo—it still fits in nicely with AMD’s journey through Italy. The processor on the other hand, new as of June 13, is designed for Cloud Native computing. Cloud native, in a nut shell just means a software approach to building, deploying, and managing applications in the cloud. Theoretically no time-consuming hardware provisioning, and no hard questions on future upgrades and whatnot. It takes the emphasis off of the hardware side, supposedly. The hardware, CPUs and an actual server. These have a product SKU also in the 9004-series range, and support up to 128 cores instead of up to 96 cores like standard Genoa. Siena, also another AMD EPYC variant that was just released is not supported, those would be the 8004 series processors you may have heard about. We’ll leave that for another time but those are for Telco and intelligent Edge computing, specifically.
Bergamo features less cache than standard Genoa, to make room for more cores. They are denoted by 97X4 because there are only 3 CPUs in this family—Just like Genoa X. The chiplet architecture is different too with Zen 4c instead of Z4 cores. Also, instead of 12x 8-core CCDs which we’ll call chiplets for simplicities sake, there are 8x 16-core chiplets. All of that to create more cores and up to 256 virtual threads on one of those CPUs. Another in this same Bergamo family, the 9754S, has just single threaded cores so 128 physical cores and 128 virtual threads. Probably what that “S” suffix means. All have 256MB of L3 cache. Keep in mind, these are different than the 3D v-Cache CPUs or Genoa X.
Up front there are 8x 3.5-inch storage bays with 2x more 2.5-inch storage bays above. Those 2.5-inch bays above can be outfitted with SATA, SAS or NVMe U.2 hot-swap drives. If you do install SAS drives, you will need a discrete SAS HD/RAID controller. Those 3.5-inch drives below support SAS and SATA with a backplane that connects to onboard SATA connections by default. SAS is supported with a discrete SAS HBA RAID controller.
That control panel at the top of the Tyan Transport B8050F65TV8E2H-N chassis has the power ON button a few tell-tale lights for LANs 3, 2, 1, corresponding to the RJ45 ports on the back of the system. Below those more LEDs for the integrated platform management interface or IPMI, Hard drives, and that last one, an ID LED if this system is rack mounted at some point. Next to those, a Reset button, Non-Maskable Interrupt, and ID button, then 2x USB 3.1 ports. There is an optical drive bay blank right below that where an optical drive can be installed. Aside from mentioning reserved space for 2.5-inch HDD trays for that media bay, there is not any more information available on a possible storage kit for that area, yet.
The back of the system has an ID button so you can activate that ID LED on the front panel, a dedicated RJ45 port for management of the system (LAN 3), and 2x USB 3.1 ports below that. Next to those a VGA port on top and COM port below. The 2x stacked RJ45 ports are for LAN 2 (top) on top and LAN 1 below, both 1GbE. Then there is a single fixed power supply on top, either a 1500W or 2000W ATX, Platinum or Gold, respectively. On the lower portion, there is a block of dual fans to help vent the system of the GPU scented hot air.
Although with that auxiliary fan bracket, it does cover the PCIe access slots for potential Display Ports where you might connect monitors, but not really surprising this is presented as a pedestal server, not a workstation.
With that dedicated management port on the back of the system this platform can be managed remotely. It has a 1Gb interface and connects to the ASPEED AST2600 Baseboard management controller. IPMI 2.0 compliant, it supports storage over IP and remote platform flash. Tyan offers TSM+ 2.0 (Tyan Server Management Plus 2.0) software to manage the system. This is the next generation of Tyan’s Server Management software for remote access, monitoring, and management either in-band or out-of-band. It supports Tyan servers that support Intel Xeon Scalable and AMD EPYCs from the 3rd generation on. Supported on most browsers, it delivers an intuitive web-based user interface and can help manage one to many servers. You also get server discovery, asset tracking, alerts, firmware updates, event logs, and it can manage several servers simultaneously. There is a free version that you can trial for 30 days for up to 3 servers and a paid version. With a 30-day trial, it seems like you can get a real feel for the management software using the free version before committing to a paid version.
Inside the Tyan Transport B8050F65TV8E2H-N chassis, there is a row of 3x large fans, which are consistent with all three configurations of this system. The lower portion has the 8x 3.5-inch drive bays with SAS, SATA Backplane and 2x slim SAS connectors for connecting 4x drives each. Above that, the 2x 2.5-inch drive bays with a small SAS, SATA, NVME backplane with dual SATA cable connectors and a single SlimSAS cable connector.
On the other side of the fans, you can see the motherboard with the single socket supporting a CPU with a configurable TDP of 320W. However, conditional support for other CPUs is mentioned. That conditional support might entail a high-performance heat sink or perhaps liquid cooling. Included in the CPU list for this system is the 9684X, that Genoa X CPU with a 400W TDP and 3D V-Cache at 1152MB. That would be the top of the stack for TDP so you can safely assume, contingencies met, this system will support the full range of 4th generation AMD EPYC CPUs, Genoa, GenoaX and those with 3D V-Cache.
With 4x memory modules slots to either side of the CPU there are 8x memory module slots total. Supported memory includes Registered or Load Reduced DIMMs plus 3DS versions offering greater DRAM density for higher memory capacities of up to up to 2TB of memory at capacity using 256GB modules in all slots. With only 8x memory modules slots, it does seem like there is a missed opportunity with 12x memory channels supported by the CPUs but what do we know?
The back of the Tyan Transport B8050F65TV8E2H-N is really the defining characteristic to the three variants of this system. Our system today with a -N on the name has 2x GbE ports and an auxiliary set of 2x fans barnacled on the back. Next the chassis with -2T-N on the back has not only those 2x 1GbE ports but also 2x 10 GbE ports, again, with the 2x auxiliary fans. Lastly the one with a -G that one has 2x GbE ports and only the three internal fans just like the other 2 chassis. That’s it! If you need passively cooled GPUs you should consider getting the -2T-N or the -N chassis like we have here. That -G server tower only takes the RTX A6000 GPUs which feature active cooling. That said it would be a candidate for potentially turning into a stand-alone workstation tower as the display ports would be accessible from the back of the chassis. The other two you could leave off the additional dual fan bracket attached to the back of the system but what’s the fun in that.
Those other two chassis, -N and -2T-N, with the extra fan bracket on the back, are designed to support passively-cooled GPUs including the NVIDIA H100 with 4th generation Tensor cores and 80GB of memory. You know, that top of the line Hopper architecture-based GPU that is ideal for AI, AI and inference, plus machine learning and Deep Learning. This GPU does not support DirectX 11 or 12 so not a gaming GPU but still 80GB of HBM2e memory. Also, 14592 shading units, 456 texture mapping units, and 24 ROPs. What are ROPs, that is the Raster Operations Pipeline that handles color compression and anti-aliasing. This card has a 16-pin power connector and a power draw of up to 350W maximum.
The PSU on this system is set up for a 16-pin power connector specifically to support two GPUs. The card features a PCIe 5.0 x16 interface. Fortunately, that is indeed what we have on this system with 5x full height, full length PCIe 5.0 x16 slots.
This system is set up to support not one but two of these high-performance graphics cards. There are no display ports on the H100 as this card is meant to support use as a networked server. One of the interesting features of the H100 is that it can be partitioned into 7 instances, AKA MIG for Multi-Instance GPU. Those instances can be secured, encrypted, and distributed to individual virtual workstations along with a few CPU cores and some of that 2TB of memory. This GPU also supports NVLink for greater performance potential of a single GPU instance when 2x installed GPUs are sharing resources.
With the Tyan Transport B8050F65TV8E2H-N Server Tower you have options for outfitting the system to meet your needs as either a stand-alone tower or something you can rack mount in an enclosure. As your business grows, perhaps it transitions from a front office tower server to a growing network of servers. With a single AMD EPCY processor, there are plenty of core to work with that can be augmented by NVIDIA’s top of the line GPU accelerators plus up to 2TB of memory and flexible storage options.
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