The XE8640 is Dell’s 4U two-socket HGX server: one NVIDIA HGX H100 board with four 700 W SXM5 GPUs joined by NVLink, a closed liquid-assisted loop that cools them without facility water, and 4th or 5th Gen Xeon Scalable hosts. This page maps everything Dell documents for it, from the four Gen5 fabric slots to the C22-inlet 2800 W supplies.
4U Rack2 sockets4th Gen Xeon Scalable5th Gen Xeon ScalableiDRAC9
1Left control panel: health, system ID and status LEDs
28 × 2.5-inch U.2 bays (8 × E3.S is the alternative front)
3Right control panel: power button, USB 2.0, VGA, iDRAC Direct micro-AB
4Five hot-swap HPR Gold GPU fans
5GPU fan release button
6Express Service Tag
Image: Dell Technologies
Form factor
4U Rack · 2 sockets
Processors
4th Gen Xeon · 5th Gen Xeon
Memory
32 × DDR5 RDIMM · up to 4 TB
Drive bays
Up to 8 · 3 drive-bay layouts
Expansion
4 × PCIe · 1 × OCP 3.0
GPUs
Up to 4 · 1 listed
Boot
BOSS-N1 (2 x M.2 NVMe, HW RAID 1)
Management
iDRAC9
01 — Overview
The XE8640 at a glance
Our read of Dell’s documentation: where the XE8640 is strong, and the limits worth knowing before you spec one.
Strengths
+Four H100 SXM5 GPUs at 700 W each share one HGX board, and Dell quotes up to 900 GB/s of NVLink bandwidth between them.
+The GPU loop is closed inside the chassis, so the rack needs no facility water, and Dell rates every documented configuration for a 35°C inlet.
+Four Gen5 x16 slots, two per processor, take up to four InfiniBand or 100/200Gb adapters for the cluster fabric, alongside an OCP 3.0 slot and a 2 × 1GbE LOM.
+Fifteen host processors across two Xeon Scalable generations, 185 W to 350 W, on standard CPU heat sinks, with Dell’s thermal note covering every configuration at 35°C.
+Front storage flexes between eight U.2 NVMe, eight SAS/SATA SSD and eight E3.S bays, with a front PERC H965i that does not use up a PCIe slot.
Watch-outs
!The accelerator is fixed: the HGX H100 4-GPU board is the only GPU Dell documents here, and no PCIe GPU cards are listed.
!The 2800 W supplies have C22 inlets, so ordinary C19/C20 leads will not fit; Dell specifies C21-to-C20 jumper cords to the PDU.
!Dell advises leaving the iDRAC power cap off: it governs only CPU power, most of the draw is GPU, and capping drops the processors to their lowest frequency.
!The guide’s operating-system chapter names only Ubuntu Server LTS, RHEL and SLES (the spec sheet only the first two), and RHEL 9.2 does not support three of the listed network cards.
!At 61.4 kg fully populated, it falls in the server-lift band of Dell’s handling table, and Dell’s only riser configuration rules out rear storage.
Processors15 SKUs
Cores / CPU24–64
DIMM slots32
Drive layouts3
Max bays8
GPUsup to 4
PSU options2 · to 3,200 W
02 — Processors
15 supported processors, mapped
Fifteen Xeon Scalable processors from two generations: nine 4th Gen models with 24 to 56 cores and six 5th Gen models with 24 to 64 cores, from the 185 W Gold 5418Y to 350 W Platinum parts. Both sockets are always filled, because Dell’s only riser layout assumes two processors. Each option appears in the chart by cores and thermal design power.
Processor landscape — cores × TDP
15 SKUs · 2 families
4th Gen Xeon Scalable 95th Gen Xeon Scalable 6Bubble size = L3 cache · hover a bubble for the full SKU
Processor explorer
filter · sort · compare
Processor
Cores / threads
Base
L3 cache
TDP
W / core
Memory
Intel Xeon Platinum 8592+
64 / 128
1.9 GHz
320 MB
350 W
5.5
DDR5-5600
Intel Xeon Platinum 8580
60 / 120
2 GHz
300 MB
350 W
5.8
DDR5-5600
Intel Xeon Platinum 8480+
56 / 112
2 GHz
105 MB
350 W
6.3
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon Platinum 8470
52 / 104
2 GHz
98 MB
350 W
6.7
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon Platinum 8468
48 / 96
2.1 GHz
90 MB
350 W
7.3
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon Platinum 8568Y+
48 / 96
2.3 GHz
300 MB
350 W
7.3
DDR5-5600
Intel Xeon Platinum 8460Y+
40 / 80
2 GHz
75 MB
300 W
7.5
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon Platinum 8452Y
36 / 72
2 GHz
67.5 MB
300 W
8.3
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon Platinum 8462Y+
32 / 64
2.8 GHz
60 MB
300 W
9.4
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon Gold 6448Y
32 / 64
2.2 GHz
60 MB
225 W
7.0
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon Platinum 8562Y+
32 / 64
2.8 GHz
60 MB
300 W
9.4
DDR5-5600
Intel Xeon Gold 6548Y+
32 / 64
2.5 GHz
60 MB
250 W
7.8
DDR5-5200
Intel Xeon Gold 6442Y
24 / 48
2.6 GHz
45 MB
225 W
9.4
DDR5-4800
Intel Xeon Gold 5418Y
24 / 48
2 GHz
45 MB
185 W
7.7
DDR5-4400
Intel Xeon Gold 6542Y
24 / 48
2.9 GHz
60 MB
250 W
10.4
DDR5-5200
Dell’s processor table gives UPI at 16 GT/s for the 4th Gen parts and 20 GT/s for the 5th Gen parts, although the guide’s feature list, written for the 5th Gen chips, says up to 16 GT/s; this page follows the table.
Memory speed follows the processor: 5600 MT/s on the 5th Gen Platinum models, 5200 MT/s on the 6548Y+ and 6542Y, 4800 MT/s on 4th Gen and 4400 MT/s on the 5418Y.
Dell’s thermal matrix clears the nine 4th Gen processors at 35°C with a standard CPU heat sink and HPR Gold fans in all three front layouts. The 5th Gen parts are missing from that table, but a note beneath it says every configuration supports 35°C.
Turbo is recorded only as present, without frequencies. The memory-capacity column reads 6 TB for most 4th Gen parts and 4 TB for the 5418Y and all 5th Gen parts.
The platform controller hub is Intel’s C741 chipset.
03 — Memory
32 DIMM slots, 16 per processor
The XE8640 has 32 DDR5 RDIMM slots, two per channel on each processor’s eight channels. The spec sheet’s 4 TB ceiling means 128 GB 3DS modules in every slot, and populating two DIMMs per channel runs them at 4400 MT/s.
Capacity with every slot filled
by DIMM size
Operating speed
per Dell memory tables
Processor
1 DIMM / channel
2 DIMMs / channel
DDR5-5600 RDIMMs (32, 64, 96, 128 GB)
5600 MT/s
4400 MT/s
DDR5-4800 RDIMMs (32, 64, 128 GB)
4800 MT/s
4400 MT/s
Sixteen 128 GB modules, one per channel, hold 2 TB at full speed; reaching 4 TB takes all 32 slots at 4400 MT/s.
Dell permits an odd number of DIMMs per processor, but both processors must be populated identically.
Bus speed also depends on the BIOS system profile, and mixed-speed modules all run at the rate of the slowest.
The memory thermal table clears the 4800 MT/s 32, 64 and 128 GB modules at 35°C, with the 128 GB part drawing 13.8 W at one DIMM per channel and 10.7 W at two.
04 — Storage
3 drive-bay layouts, up to 8 bays
Three front layouts of eight bays: 2.5-inch U.2 NVMe, 2.5-inch SAS/SATA SSD, or E3.S NVMe. The spec sheet gives 122.88 TB as the maximum for either the 2.5-inch or the E3.S front, and Dell’s only riser configuration allows no rear storage.
Headline layouts
front panel view
Front panel
8 × EDSFF NVMe at the front — 8 bays in total.
SAS/SATANVMeSAS/SATA + NVMe
Controllers & boot
PERC H965i — RAID. Premium Performance tier, front PERC (fPERC), Gen4; cache size not stated in the guide
Hardware RAID comes from the front PERC H965i, which uses its own board connector instead of a PCIe slot; S160 software RAID is the entry option.
The operating system boots from a rear BOSS-N1 module carrying two M.2 NVMe SSDs in hardware RAID 1.
The guide’s drive section names NVMe for both form factors, while its comparison and thermal tables add SAS/SATA SSDs for the 2.5-inch front. No hard disks are listed.
The spec sheet lists support for NVIDIA GPUDirect Storage, which Dell describes as a direct DMA path between storage and GPU memory.
Every documented layout
3 with drive bays
2.5-inch3.5-inchEDSFF (E1.S / E3.S)
05 — Accelerators & I/O
GPUs, PCIe and networking
Rather than a row of cards, the XE8640 carries a single NVIDIA HGX H100 baseboard: four H100 SXM5 GPUs with 80 GB each, rated at 700 W and fully connected by NVLink. Dell’s spec sheet calls the GPUs SXM5, while the guide’s slot-priority table labels the same baseboard SXM4. It sits in internal slots 21–24 on Gen5 links, and its GPUs are cooled by a closed liquid-assisted air-cooling (LAAC) loop while the processors stay on air. 4 × H100 SXM5, 80 GB and 700 W each, with NVLink at up to 900 GB/s GPU-to-GPU and MIG for sharing between tenants (spec sheet).
Each processor supplies up to 80 PCIe 5.0 lanes. Dell lists one riser layout, R1A plus R4A, giving four full-height, half-length Gen5 x16 slots, two per processor, which is where the cluster adapters go.
Network adapters Dell lists
18 options
Adapter
Ports
Form
Intel 2 x 25GbE SFP28 OCP 3.0 (61X09)
2 × 25GbE
OCP 3.0
Broadcom 4 x 25GbE SFP28 OCP 3.0 (3Y64D)
4 × 25GbE
OCP 3.0
Intel 4 x 10GbE BASE-T OCP 3.0 (50RV4)
4 × 10GbE
OCP 3.0
Broadcom 4 x 10GbE BASE-T OCP 3.0 (W5HC8)
4 × 10GbE
OCP 3.0
Broadcom 2 x 25GbE SFP28 OCP 3.0 (24FG6)
2 × 25GbE
OCP 3.0
Intel 4 x 25GbE SFP28 OCP 3.0 (R1KTR)
4 × 25GbE
OCP 3.0
Intel 4 x 25GbE SFP28 OCP 3.0 (Y4VV5)
4 × 25GbE
OCP 3.0
Intel 2 x 100GbE SFP28 PCIe (85F8F)
2 × 100GbE
PCIe
Intel 2 x 25GbE SFP28 PCIe (CD16M)
2 × 25GbE
PCIe
Broadcom 2 x 100GbE QSFP PCIe (FPM6F)
2 × 100GbE
PCIe
Mellanox 1 x 200GbE OSFP PCIe (K84XJ)
1 × 200GbE
PCIe
Mellanox 2 x 100GbE QSFP56 PCIe (8P2T2)
2 × 100GbE
PCIe
Broadcom 2 x 25GbE SFP PCIe (H3T3V)
2 × 25GbE
PCIe
Broadcom 4 x 25GbE SFP28 PCIe (J3D14)
4 × 25GbE
PCIe
Intel 4 x 25GbE SFP28 PCIe (VK88G)
4 × 25GbE
PCIe
Mellanox 1 x 100GbE QSFP56 PCIe (Y1T43)
1 × 100GbE
PCIe
Mellanox 1 x 200GbE QSFP56 PCIe (1GK7G)
1 × 200GbE
PCIe
LOM 2 x 1GbE
2 × 1GbE
LOM
Network cards are fitted in the order 1, 3, 2, 4, alternating between processors, to a maximum of four; Mellanox InfiniBand adapters follow the same order at Gen4 or Gen5.
Listed PCIe NICs range from 25GbE to single-port 200Gb in QSFP56 or OSFP, while the OCP cards are 10GbE or 25GbE with up to four ports.
RHEL 9.2 does not support the 3Y64D OCP card or the Y1T43 and H3T3V PCIe adapters.
Beyond the rear VGA, USB 2.0, USB 3.0 and dedicated iDRAC port, Dell lists an optional serial port and a front VGA connector.
06 — Power & cooling
2 power supplies, 2,800–3,200 W
Four hot-plug 86 mm supplies, either 2800 W Titanium units for 200–240 V AC (also 240 V DC) or 3200 W Titanium units for 277 V AC (also 336 V DC). Dell pairs them 3+1 as standard and also lists a 2+2 fault-tolerant mode and A/B grid, though the last cannot be set from the iDRAC power page.
AC277 VAC / HVDC
The 2800 W unit draws 15.6 A at 200–240 V AC and peaks at 4760 W. Dell lists no low-line rating for it.
Its C22 inlet accepts a C21 plug, so the rack PDU connection needs a C21-to-C20 jumper cord; C19 and C20 leads cannot be inserted.
The 3200 W unit is rated at 13 A on 277 V AC or 11.5 A on 336 V DC and takes an APP 2006G1 cord; the spec sheet quotes a 260–400 V DC input range.
Supplies from different vendors must not be mixed. At 240 V AC the 2800 W supply is rated 90, 94, 96 and 94% efficient at 10, 20, 50 and 100% load.
07 — Management, security & OS
Run it, secure it, choose the OS
Management
iDRAC9 with Lifecycle Controller (Enterprise and Datacenter upgrades)
iDRAC Direct (front micro-AB USB)
iDRAC RESTful API with Redfish
iDRAC Service Module
Zero-Touch Provisioning (iDRAC Enterprise)
OpenManage Enterprise with Power Manager and Update Manager plug-ins
CloudIQ
Security
Silicon Root of Trust
Cryptographically signed firmware
Secure Boot
Secured Component Verification
Secure Enterprise Key Management
Data at Rest Encryption (SEDs, local or external key management)
System Lockdown (iDRAC9 Enterprise or Datacenter)
Secure Erase
TPM 2.0 FIPS, CC-TCG certified · TPM 2.0 China NationZ
Operating systems
Canonical Ubuntu Server LTS
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (technical guide; not on the spec sheet)
08 — Compare
XE8545 → XE8640
Dell’s XE8640 guide includes a generational comparison with the AMD-based XE8545, the earlier four-GPU HGX system. The rows below follow that table.
AMD · HGX A100PowerEdge XE8545
Intel · HGX H100PowerEdge XE8640
Processors
2 × AMD Milan (SP3), xGMI2
2 × 4th Gen Xeon Scalable (to 56 cores) or 5th Gen (to 64 cores)
GPUs
HGX A100 4-GPU, NVLink · 40 GB / 400 W or 80 GB / 500 W
HGX H100 4-GPU, NVLink · 80 GB / 700 W
Memory
32 × DDR4 RDIMM, to 3200 MT/s
32 × DDR5 RDIMM, to 5600 MT/s
Drives
10 × 2.5" SAS/SATA SSD, up to 8 NVMe
8 × 2.5" U.2 NVMe or SAS/SATA SSD · 8 × E3.S NVMe
Controllers
BOSS-S1.5 · PERC H745, H755
BOSS-N1 · PERC H965i
PCIe
Up to 4 × Gen4 (3 × x16, or 2 × x16 + 2 × x8)
Up to 4 × Gen5 x16
Networking
2 × 1GbE LOM · 1 × OCP 3.0
2 × 1GbE LOM · 1 × OCP 3.0 (x8)
Power
2400 W Platinum (100–240 V AC) · 2800 W Titanium AC · 2800 W 240 V DC
2800 W Titanium (200–240 V AC / 240 V DC) · 3200 W Titanium (277 V AC / 336 V DC)
Source: Dell PowerEdge XE8640 Technical Guide (Rev. A05, December 2024), Table 2 (features comparison, XE8545 and XE8640).
The XE8640 family side by side
The XE8640 is the four-GPU SXM system in Dell’s XE line. For eight SXM GPUs, Dell’s range includes the 6U air-cooled XE9680 and the 4U liquid-cooled XE9680L and XE9685L. For PCIe cards, the 4U XE7740 and XE7745 take up to eight double-wide GPUs, and the 2U R760xa up to four.
This modelSiblings and successorEach value from that model’s own verified spec file · bars scale per column
Four ways to spec the XE8640 around its fixed HGX H100 board. The part IDs come from the configurator’s list for this model, so each build loads straight into it for changes.
AI training
Four-GPU fine-tuning node
Two 64-core 8592+ processors, the largest 5th Gen parts listed, feed the four H100s, and one 128 GB module per channel keeps 2 TB of DDR5 at 5600 MT/s. Eight U.2 NVMe drives stage datasets and checkpoints locally, while a 200Gb adapter joins the training fabric.
2 × Xeon Platinum 8592+ — 64 cores @ 1.9 GHz, 350 W each
1 × NVIDIA HGX H100 4-GPU board — four 80 GB SXM5 GPUs on NVLink
16 × 128 GB DDR5-5600 3DS RDIMM — 2 TB, one per channel
8 × 7.68 TB U.2 NVMe — 61.44 TB raw
BOSS-N1 boot pair (2 × M.2 NVMe, RAID 1)
Mellanox 1 × 200Gb QSFP56 PCIe adapter
4 × 2800 W Titanium (3+1)
Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS
The 2800 W supplies need C21-to-C20 jumper cords to the PDU. More fabric adapters go in slots 3, 2 and 4, in that order, up to four in total.
The 32-core 8562Y+ runs at a 2.8 GHz base with 20 GT/s UPI, and sixteen 64 GB modules give 1 TB of DDR5-5600 at one DIMM per channel. Four E3.S NVMe drives act as local scratch with four bays to spare, and an OSFP 200Gb card links the node into the cluster.
2 × Xeon Platinum 8562Y+ — 32 cores @ 2.8 GHz, 300 W each
1 × NVIDIA HGX H100 4-GPU board
16 × 64 GB DDR5-5600 RDIMM — 1 TB at full speed
4 × 7.68 TB E3.S NVMe — 30.72 TB raw
BOSS-N1 boot pair (RAID 1)
Mellanox 1 × 200GbE OSFP PCIe adapter
4 × 2800 W Titanium (3+1)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
RHEL 9.2 does not support the 3Y64D, Y1T43 or H3T3V network cards, so we check the minor release against the adapter when we quote.
Dell’s spec sheet points to NVIDIA Multi-Instance GPU for splitting the four H100s between tenants. Two 56-core 8480+ processors and 2 TB of DDR5 run the surrounding services, eight SATA SSDs sit behind the front PERC H965i, and the 3200 W supplies suit halls wired for 277 V AC or HVDC.
2 × Xeon Platinum 8480+ — 56 cores @ 2 GHz, 350 W each
A lighter host for development and smaller fine-tuning runs: two 24-core Gold 6442Y processors at 225 W and a 2.6 GHz base, 512 GB of DDR5 and four U.2 NVMe drives. Four bays and all four PCIe slots stay free for later growth.
2 × Xeon Gold 6442Y — 24 cores @ 2.6 GHz, 225 W each
1 × NVIDIA HGX H100 4-GPU board
16 × 32 GB DDR5-4800 RDIMM — 512 GB, one per channel
OCP 3.0 SFF, Gen4 x8 (x16 with an additional cable) · 10GbE or 25GbE cards
PCIe adapters
25GbE, 100GbE and 200Gb NICs · Mellanox InfiniBand (Gen4/Gen5) · up to four
Power
Supplies
Four hot-plug, 86 mm · 3+1 (full redundancy) or 2+2 (fault-tolerant) · A/B grid
AC
2800 W Titanium, 200–240 V AC or 240 V DC · C22 inlet
277 V AC / HVDC
3200 W Titanium, 277 V AC or 336 V DC · APP 2006G1 cord
Ports & video
Front
USB 2.0 · iDRAC Direct micro-AB USB · VGA
Rear
USB 2.0 · USB 3.0 · VGA · dedicated iDRAC port · optional serial
Video
Integrated Matrox G200, 16 MB
Environment & acoustics
Operating range
ASHRAE A2, 10–35°C · all configurations to 35°C without performance loss
Sound power (GPU-rich build)
6.4 B idle and 8.7 B at 100% GPU load (25°C) · 10 B at maximum load (35°C)
11 — FAQ
XE8640 questions, answered from the documentation
What is the maximum memory of the Dell PowerEdge XE8640?
Dell’s spec sheet sets the ceiling at 4 TB across 32 DDR5 RDIMM slots, which means a 128 GB 3DS module in every slot. With two DIMMs per channel, memory runs at 4400 MT/s. Sixteen modules, one per channel, keep DDR5-5600 at full speed and give 2 TB with 128 GB parts.
Which GPUs does the XE8640 support?
One NVIDIA HGX H100 4-GPU baseboard: four H100 SXM5 GPUs with 80 GB each, rated at 700 W and fully connected by NVLink. Dell’s guide lists no other accelerator and no PCIe GPU cards.
Does the XE8640 need liquid cooling in the data centre?
No facility water is required. The GPUs use Liquid Assisted Air Cooling, a closed loop inside the chassis, while the processors are air-cooled with standard heat sinks, and the design tolerates one fan or pump failure. Dell rates all configurations for a 35°C inlet.
Which processors does the XE8640 support?
Fifteen models: nine 4th Gen Xeon Scalable processors with 24 to 56 cores and six 5th Gen with 24 to 64 cores, from 185 W to 350 W. Both sockets must be populated, and only the 5th Gen Platinum parts run memory at 5600 MT/s.
How many PCIe slots and network ports does the XE8640 have?
Four PCIe Gen5 x16 full-height, half-length slots, two per processor, plus an OCP 3.0 slot (Gen4 x8) and a 2 × 1GbE LOM. Up to four network or Mellanox InfiniBand adapters can be fitted, filled in the order 1, 3, 2, 4.
What power supplies does the XE8640 use?
Four hot-plug units, all of one type: a 2800 W Titanium supply taking 200–240 V AC and 240 V DC, or a 277 V AC / 336 V DC Titanium supply rated at 3200 W. Redundancy is 3+1 as standard, or 2+2 fault-tolerant. The 2800 W unit has a C22 inlet and needs a C21-to-C20 jumper cord to the PDU.
How big and heavy is the XE8640?
It is a 4U chassis, 174.3 mm high and 481.91 mm wide, measuring 865.54 mm from the rack ear to the PSU handle and 901.4 mm deep with the bezel according to the spec sheet. Fully populated it weighs 61.4 kg (135.36 lb), which is in the server-lift band of Dell’s handling table.
How does the XE8640 differ from the XE7740 and XE7745?
The XE8640 carries four SXM GPUs at 700 W on an NVLink baseboard, cooled by a closed liquid-assisted loop. The XE7740 (Xeon 6) and XE7745 (EPYC 9005) instead take as many as eight double-wide PCIe cards of up to 600 W each, or sixteen single-width ones, and are air-cooled only.
What changed from the XE8545 to the XE8640?
Dell’s comparison moves the host from AMD Milan to 4th or 5th Gen Xeon Scalable, the GPUs from HGX A100 at 400 W or 500 W to HGX H100 at 700 W, memory from DDR4-3200 to DDR5-5600, and the four PCIe slots from Gen4 to Gen5 x16. The drive count falls from ten 2.5-inch bays to eight, with an E3.S option added.
Is the Dell PowerEdge XE8640 end of life?
Dell’s XE8640 technical guide (Rev. A05, December 2024) gives no end-of-sale or end-of-support date for the model. Our end-of-life checker records Dell’s dates once they are published, and we can advise on support cover for existing systems.
Dell PowerEdge XE8640 Specification Sheet (June 2024) — GPU description (SXM5, NVLink bandwidth, MIG, GPUDirect Storage), 4 TB memory and 122.88 TB drive maxima, cooling options, fan counts, depth with bezel, bezels, operating systems and security.
Specifications are extracted from Dell’s published documents and independently re-checked line by line. Configurations are quote-based; availability and exact options are confirmed at quotation. Last reviewed 2026-09-11.
