On May 22nd, Dell announced the new generation PowerEdge XL9680L server, managing to fit eight NVIDIA Blackwell B200 GPU accelerator cards into a compact 4U space, achieving a record-breaking high density.
Previously, Dell's PowerEdge XL9680 supported NVIDIA H100 or AMD MI300X accelerator cards, paired with Intel's fourth-generation Xeon processors. The new generation model, with just an added 'L' at the end, appears to be a minor revision.
Nevertheless, Dell claims a 33% increase in GPU density, a 20% increase in PCIe 5.0 channels, and a doubling of network expansion capabilities.
The power consumption of a single B200 accelerator card reaches 1000W, with eight cards totaling 8000W. In addition to the processor, memory, hard drive, and network card, air cooling is naturally insufficient, so high-efficiency water cooling is used, covering both the CPU and GPU.
For larger-scale GPU computing deployment needs, Dell also supports equipping up to 72 B200 accelerator cards in a single rack, still utilizing water cooling.
The Dell PowerEdge XE9680L server is set to be released in the second half of the year.
