Most composable GPU projects that stall do so on something mundane: a server that needs a special riser, a PDU with the wrong inlets, a chassis deeper than the rack, a GPU chassis that wants cooler air than the hall delivers. None of these appear on a product brochure. This checklist pulls them out of Liqid’s datasheets, compatibility list and support terms, so they can be settled before the hardware is ordered, not when it arrives.
Compatibility: servers and GPUs
Liqid publishes a hardware compatibility list (HCL). The revision dated 17 August 2026 has 49 server entries and 47 GPU entries, and several carry conditions in footnotes. Those footnotes are where builds go wrong.
- •1. Host model on the HCL. Dell PowerEdge has 21 entries; Cisco UCS, Fsas PRIMERGY, HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10, Lenovo SR655 and Supermicro are also listed. Dell R650, R650xs, R750 and R750xs need a special riser configuration with Dell custom BIOS; Cisco UCS C240 M5 works at PCIe Gen3 only.
- •2. GPU model on the HCL, with its enclosure condition. The H200 NVL is supported only on select Gen5 enclosures; the H100 only on the updated Gen4 10-slot enclosure; the L40S needs a firmware update on the Gen4 EX-4410.
- •3. GPU form factor. Cards must be PCIe, up to full-height, full-length and double-wide; the Gen5 EX-5410P supports 600 W devices.
- •4. For Liqid’s current Gen5 fabric, a free PCIe Gen5 x16 slot in each host for the half-height HX-5160P-1C adapter (27 W maximum), plus PCIe native mode in the BIOS. Older listed hosts use Liqid’s Gen3/Gen4 adapters.
- •5. Host operating system. Linux, VMware/Nutanix, or Windows Server 2012 R2 or later; desktop Windows is not supported. The Gen5 adapter supports surprise hot-plug under Windows and Linux.
Facility: space, power and air
Liqid’s chassis are datacentre equipment with their own requirements, and some differ from the servers beside them.
- •6. Rack depth. The EX-5410P and EX-5410C are 4U and 790 mm deep (175 × 447 × 790 mm). The EX-5410P weighs 34.34 kg.
- •7. Power inlets. The EX-5410P has four 3,000 W Titanium supplies with Saf-D-Grid 400 V connectors and accepts 100–277 VAC. Check your PDUs have matching outlets, or plan for new ones.
- •8. Inlet temperature. The EX-5410P is specified for 0 to 27 °C operation, while the EX-5410C and Liqid’s switches are specified to 35 °C. If your cold aisle runs warmer than 27 °C, address that first.
- •9. Total load. A 30-GPU UltraStack MI350P draws about 22 kW, air-cooled; GPU power alone is 600 W per MI350P. Plan the rack in our rack power density planner.
Fabric: cabling and management
The fabric is a second network to plan alongside your Ethernet.
- •10. Cable type and length. Liqid uses CDFP connectors, in copper for short runs or active optical cable (AOC) for longer ones. AOC can take an FX-5016-2 switch from about 225 W typical to 400 W or more.
- •11. Management connectivity. The EX-5410P has two Gen5 x1 and two 10GbE management ports plus a BMC; every validated bundle includes a 1U Liqid Director appliance that needs rack space and a management connection.
View the data behind this chart
| Layer | Detail |
|---|---|
| Gen5 ToR switches | 2 × 18-port Gen5 x16 top-of-rack switches |
| Liqid Director | 1U management appliance running Matrix |
| EX-5410P chassis × 3 | 4U each, 30 GPU slots, 790 mm deep |
| Host servers | Up to 16, one Gen5 HBA each |
| Power and cooling | Saf-D-Grid PDUs · inlet air ≤27 °C |
Operations: support, licences and software
The commercial and operational terms deserve the same scrutiny as the hardware.
- •12. Support hours. Liqid’s standard support runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm US Mountain time, which is roughly 15:00 to midnight in the UK for most of the year (14:00 to 23:00 for a few weeks in March and late October, when the clocks change on different dates). Standard support has no after-hours or holiday cover, and work stops at 5pm Mountain time. Separately, Liqid’s phone line pages an on-call engineer for out-of-hours system outages, and its severity table targets a one-hour response for Severity 1. Decide who takes the first call during the UK morning.
- •13. Licence and warranty terms. Liqid publishes no general Matrix licensing model: its MI350P system includes a three-year slot licence, and SmartStack bundles carry 36- or 60-month software and hardware support. Match the terms to your planned life for the system.
- •14. Orchestration fit. Liqid lists compatibility with Kubernetes, Slurm, OpenShift, VMware and Ansible. Confirm the versions you run, and plan how jobs release GPUs before Matrix reassigns them.
Order the checks to save time
Run the list in this order: compatibility first, because an unlisted server or GPU changes the whole design; facility second, because power and cooling changes have the longest lead times; fabric and operations last. Our Liqid compatibility summary covers the first block by vendor, and the fabric hardware page has the chassis and switch specifications in one place.
If you would rather hand the list over, send us your server models, GPU plans and rack details. We check each item against Liqid’s current documents and come back with a sized, quoted design. Start on the Liqid page.