Stefan Mileschin

GIGABYTE's server division has started sales of its first servers based on Cavium’s ThunderX2 processors with up to 32 cores. Being among the primary companies to begin selling machines powered by these CPUs, GIGABYTE offers a lineup of two servers designed for cloud and HPC applications.

GIGABYTE’s family of ThunderX2 servers currently includes two machines: the 1U R181-T90 and the 2U R281-T91. Both servers are based on Cavium’s ThunderX2 CN9975 processor featuring 28 cores running at 2.0 GHz as well as GIGABYTE’s MT91-FS1 motherboard (offered with slightly different configurations). The manufacturer promises that it will release other versions of the ThunderX2 machines based on faster 28-core and 32-core processors shortly, but does not elaborate. The platform has 28 DIMM slots supporting up to 1536 GB of DDR4 memory per box (792 GB of octa-channel memory per socket). The 1U server can support up to 10 2.5-inch drivers, whereas the 2U machine can connect up to 26 2.5-inch storage devices.


When it comes to expansion capabilities, the 1U R181-T90 supports two PCIe 3.0 x16/OCP slots, one PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, and two PCIe 3.0 x8 slots. The bigger 2U R281-T91 can naturally attach considerably more add-on components as it features two PCIe 3.0 x16/OCP slots, three PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, and five PCIe 3.0 x8 slots (check exact configurations in the table below). As for network connectivity, both machines are outfitted with two 10GbE QLogic QL41102 controllers as well as one GbE port for management.


GIGABYTE’s R181-T90 and the R281-T91 machines are equipped with dual redundant 1200-W 80Plus Platinum PSUs, so end-users and system integrators will have enough power to configure the servers according to their requirements.

GIGABYTE’s R181-T90 and R281-T91 servers are exclusively available from PhoenicsElectronics in Europe and the U.S. MSPRs are unknown, which is not surprising as machines will be configured differently for different applications.

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