GIGABYTE today announced its latest generation of servers based on Intel's Skylake Purley architecture. This new generation brings a wealth of new options in scalability - across compute, network and storage - to deliver solutions for any application, from the enterprise to the data center to HPC. (Jump ahead to system introductions).

This server series adopts Intel's new product family - officially named the 'Intel Xeon Scalable family' and utilizes its ability to meet the increasingly diverse requirements of the industry, from entry-level HPC to large scale clusters.. The major development in this platform is around the improved features and functionality at both the host and fabric levels. These enable performance improvements - both natively on chip and for future extensibility through compute, network and storage peripherals. In practical terms, these new CPUs will offer up to 28 cores, and 48 PCIe lanes per socket.GIGABYTE's new product offerings take advantage of the performance benefits that Intel has built in to target a range of segments. In particular, these target enterprise and cloud applications, with extensibility for advanced future HPC applications:

• Increased Memory Bandwidth
• The CPU architecture allows for up to 6 memory channels per socket (and 50% generation-on-generation increase) and a bandwidth of up to 2666MT/s. The architecture is also future-ready with the potential to support Apache Pass DIMM in 2018 - opening up potential memory bandwidth of 2933MT/s (1DP) on certain SKUs.
• Increased Memory Capacity
• Memory capacity is also increased with up to available 1.5TB per socket, which represents a 2x gen-on-gen increase. This is supported by new AVX-512 to boost performance.
• Innovative New Storage and Networking Options

This CPU family is designed to enable:

• innovative storage through Intel's Optane low-latency, non-volatile storage
• integrated QAT for improved compression and security
• improved networking through Omni-Path interconnect fabric as a CPU-integrated or standalone device

This also means that the 10% increase in I/O is not compromised by the fabric and can be used for additional storage or accelerators.GIGABYTE's R281-NO0 2U Flagship All-Flash Server

GIGABYTE's experienced design team has developed a series of systems incorporating both the advancements of Intel's Xeon Scalable family and the unique design features that GIGABYTE is recognised for.

What's New?

Optimized for high TDP - these systems are thermally designed with the highest rated bins in mind so that performance is impressive whichever Xeon Scalable CPU you choose. All systems in this series are supplied with stereo holes. They are also powered by 80+ Platinum (or above) PSUs to ensure over 90% power supply efficiency.

High Density Add-On Slots - GIGABYTE brings you the most options in terms of Full-Height, Half-Length/Low-profile/OCP slots for Intel Xeon Scalable systems in the market.

Modularised Backplanes - all systems have a uniform backplane that is able to support exchangable expanders offering both SAS and U.2 (or a combination) to allow for custom expanders to meet different customer needs.

Environmental Compliance - immediate adherence to new RoHS regulations introduced in July 2017

In addition, GIGABYTE's systems continue to ship with:

• Tool-less design for ease of installation and management
• IPMI and Redfish compatibility designed in

"GIGABYTE is excited to build on our close co-operation with Intel and act as an early supplier of this new scalable architecture", said Etay Lee, GM, GIGABYTE. "We look forward to working with Intel to address new market segments with this innovative and extensible platform".

Initially, GIGABYTE will offer 4 new 1U-form factor, and 4 new 2U-form factor systems, as well as 2 motherboard SKUs that support the Intel Xeon Scalable series. These offer a range of options for storage and expansion slots.