The Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX2540 M8, the Dell PowerEdge R770 and the HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen12 are each vendor’s mainstream 2U, two-socket Intel Xeon 6 servers, and on the headline numbers they are close: 8 TB of DDR5, eight PCIe 5.0 slots, at least two double-width GPUs. The differences that decide a purchase are in the drives, the processor types on offer and how each handles GPUs. Facts here come from Fsas’s RX2540 M8 datasheet and from our own verified Dell and HPE data sheets.
View the data behind this chart
| RX2540 M8 | Dell R770 | DL380 Gen12 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xeon 6 core types | P-core only | P-core and E-core | P-core and E-core |
| Cores per CPU, max | 86 | 144 (E-core) | 144 (E-core) |
| Memory, max | 8 TB | 8 TB | 8 TB |
| 3.5-inch bays | 12 front | None | Up to 20 |
| E3.S NVMe bays | None listed | Up to 44 | Up to 36 |
| Management | iRMC S6 | iDRAC10 | iLO 7 |
Where they are the same
All three take two Intel Xeon 6 processors with up to 86 P-cores each, 32 DDR5 DIMM slots and an 8 TB memory ceiling using 256 GB modules, and all three have eight PCIe 5.0 slots. All three can carry at least two double-width GPUs, with the NVIDIA H200 NVL among the options, or six or more single-width cards such as the L4. For a general virtualisation or database host, any of them will do the job; the choice usually comes down to estate, support and the details below.
Drives: the biggest difference
The R770 is all solid-state. Dell lists no 3.5-inch bays, no SAS and no hard disks; its drive options are E3.S NVMe (up to 40 at the front plus 4 at the rear), 2.5-inch NVMe and 2.5-inch SATA SSDs. That suits all-flash builds and rules out large, cheap hard-disk capacity.
The RX2540 M8 keeps a 12 × 3.5-inch SAS/SATA base unit alongside 8, 16 and 24-bay 2.5-inch units; the 8 and 16-bay units and one of the two 24-bay units also take NVMe, and six more 2.5-inch bays are optional. Its datasheet lists no E3.S option.
The DL380 Gen12 covers the widest range: an EDSFF chassis with 36 E3.S NVMe drives, 24 front plus 6 rear SFF bays, or up to 20 LFF drives (12 front, a 4-bay midplane and 4 rear). If you need hard disks in quantity, the DL380 Gen12 holds the most and the R770 is out. The RX2540 M8 has a 12 × 3.5-inch base unit, but its datasheet’s drive list names only 2.5-inch hard disks of up to 2.4 TB, so confirm 3.5-inch capacity drives with Fsas before choosing it for that job.
Processors: E-cores or not
Dell and HPE both offer Xeon 6 E-core processors with up to 144 cores alongside the P-core parts: six E-core and seventeen P-core models on the R770, seven E-core and twenty-seven P-core on the DL380 Gen12. The RX2540 M8 datasheet lists 26 P-core models only, from 8 to 86 cores.
For most enterprise workloads, P-cores are the right choice anyway; E-cores suit dense, throughput-oriented work such as web tiers and containers. If that is your workload, the RX2540 M8 is not the platform. If it is not, the difference does not matter.
Memory and GPUs in detail
Fsas lists DDR5 RDIMMs at 6,400 MT/s and MRDIMMs at 8,000 MT/s for the RX2540 M8, but does not publish a two-DIMMs-per-channel speed. Dell gives 5,200 MT/s for the R770 at 8 TB, and HPE says the DL380 Gen12 still runs at 6,000 MT/s with two DIMMs per channel, so it keeps a higher memory speed fully populated.
On GPUs, Dell and HPE cap the H200 NVL and RTX PRO 6000 at 450 W in these chassis and attach conditions: Dell needs its GPU-ready risers with HPR Platinum fans and, for those two cards, Ubuntu 24.04.02 with kernel 6.11 or later; HPE needs its Cooling Upgrade Enablement Kit, which limits processors to 270 W at 30 °C ambient, or 350 W at 27 °C. Dell supports no double-width GPUs with its 40-bay E3.S front, and HPE does not allow GPUs and rear drive cages together. HPE also fits three RTX PRO 6000 cards where the others list two double-width cards. Fsas’s datasheet gives the RX2540 M8 two dedicated full-length x16 slots for double-width GPUs, one per processor, and defers the detailed rules to its configurator. For heavier GPU work each vendor also sells dedicated GPU servers, in Fsas’s case the PRIMERGY GX range.
How to choose
Start with the estate you already run. The management tools differ (iRMC S6 on the RX2540 M8, iDRAC10 on the R770, iLO 7 on the DL380 Gen12), and the value of one console and one support relationship across many servers usually outweighs a spec difference. Then apply the drive test: all-flash with E3.S points to Dell or HPE; 3.5-inch hard-disk capacity points to HPE first, with the RX2540 M8 only once Fsas confirms the drives. Then the processor test: E-core workloads rule the RX2540 M8 out.
For the full detail on each, see the RX2540 M8, R770 and DL380 Gen12 data sheets. We can supply and quote all three, and set the same configuration against each.