Recently bought Dell PowerEdge R710 that seems to be Gen. 1 - iDRAC reports System Revision I, and the id number of the motherboard is 0N047H. The number on the actual casing is different though - its 0H241F and I suspect its probably predefined configuration sold by Dell.
My use case require fastest, highest core count CPUs that i can put in it. I believe that should be Xeon X5675 and just to be on the safe side I asked in Dell forums since they are notorious when it comes to NOT giving specific information about supported CPUs on their systems. A Dell moderator/engineer said that Westmere 5600 series CPUs are NOT supported and system support only 5500 Nehalem CPUs (you can read here). Well, my system came with two E5630 so their answer is either inadequate or Dell think this system should not exist.
Thats why I’m asking if someone here have actual experience related to that matter.
I dont have that much experience but it could very well be that the bios will not support a potential upgrade.
That said the x5690 is highest core and frequency per ark
I would venture a guess that if the CPU was launched at the same time as the e5630 then it should work in theory. Q1 2010 the x5680 was released along side the e5630 so I believe that would be the safest bet.
The difference between the Gen 1 and Gen 2 R710 is the CPU TDP rating it can support.
The Gen1 will not support processors with a 130W TDP whilst the Gen2 will.
Basically anything higher than the X5675 (X5677, X5680, X5688, X5690) is not supported on the Gen 1. The Gen 1 will support Westmere providing your BIOS is of a new enough version to support (which if it had E5620’s, then it is).
Thanks to Dell support today, I managed to dig out a document that officially states:
Blockquote
Important Information
•
Your system requires a BIOS and iDRAC firmware upgrade to support Intel
Xeon 5600 series processor (less than 130 W). You can download the BIOS and
iDRAC firmware for the Intel Xeon 5600 series processor at support.dell.com.
NOTE: A BIOS and iDRAC firmware update only supports a limited feature set of
the Intel Xeon 5600 series processor.
•
The following new Dell PowerEdge systems marked with the Roman Numeral
II on the chassis support the complete feature set of Intel Xeon 5600 series
processors: