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Dell PowerEdge VRTX Acoustics and Thermals
6
Sound Power Level
1
Sound Pressure Level
2
Sound Quality
3
DIMMs, 16x 10k 2.5”
HDDs, and 4x 1100W
PSUs.
Operating,
100% TDP
6.8 48 None present
3x M620 server
nodes with Intel
®
E5-2630L CPUs, 6x
8GB DIMMs, 16x 10k
2.5” HDDs, and 4x
1100W PSUs.
Idle 5.4 36 None present
Operating,
50% TDP
6.2 42 None present
Operating,
70% TDP
6.5 45 None present
Operating,
100% TDP
7.3 53 None present
1
LwA – UL is the upper limit sound power levels (LwA) calculated per section 4.4.1 of ISO 9296 (1988) and measured in accordance to ISO
7779 (2010).
2
LpA is the front bystander position A-weighted sound pressure level calculated per section 4.3 of ISO9296 (1988) and measured in
accordance with ISO7779 (2010).
3
Prominent tone: Criteria of D.6, D.10, and D.11 of ECMA-74 12th ed. (2012) are followed to determine if discrete tones are prominent. The
system is floor-standing and acoustic transducer is at front bystander position, ref ISO7779
4
Configuration Variations: Server node types and processor types are the key variables in acoustical variation. Acoustical variation with
Hard Disk Drive (HDD) quantity, type, or speed is not presented, because the variation is generally masked by blower module acoustics
and apparent only at the lowest acoustical levels. For example, ≤ 5.7 bels. Acoustical variation with PSU quantity is not presented, because
its role is limited to high workloads at which the variation may be masked by blower module acoustics when the blower module also
increases in speed to provide airflow to cool the involved components.
Enhanced Acoustics option
Dell offers an Enhanced Acoustics option for M620 server nodes when they are configured with processors at
95W. It incorporates a processor heat sink larger than that in the standard 95W M620 server node. Because
the heat sink is larger, the tradeoff of its use is reduced, yet still balanced, DIMM (memory) count. Specifically,
16 balanced DIMMs fit with the Enhanced Acoustics option vs. 24 balanced DIMMs with the standard 95W
M620 server node. The benefit is suppression of acoustical output (see Table 2 and Table 3) for moderate to
high workload utilization. For example, while operating at 50% TDP, the PowerEdge VRTX with the Enhanced
Acoustics option is about 30% louder than idle, whereas the standard option is about 50% louder than idle.
Note that the acoustical suppression is only attained when all M620 server nodes installed in the PowerEdge
VRTX are equipped with the Enhanced Acoustics option. That is, a standard 95W M620 server node will
dominate acoustical output when mixed with a M620 server node with the Enhanced Acoustics option.
Cooling choices
Enhanced Cooling Mode (ECM)
ECM is a PowerEdge VRTX feature that allows for increased cooling capacity for the server modules installed
in the chassis. Example uses of ECM are server modules with high power (≥95W) processors installed in an
environment above 30C or for any server module configuration operating in a fresh-air environment.
The increased cooling capacity is achieved by allowing the four chassis blower modules to rotate at a higher
RPM. As a result, the system power consumption and sound power levels may be increased when ECM is
enabled. By default, ECM is disabled. When ECM is disabled the maximum airflow delivery per server module is
equivalent to that of the Dell PowerEdge M1000e chassis. When ECM is enabled, the blower modules have the
capability to deliver approximately 20% more airflow per server module.
The ECM feature only affects the speed of the system blower modules and does not affect the six cooling fans
dedicated to storage and I/O components. Thus, enabling ECM will only increase the cooling capacity for the
server modules. It is also important to note that ECM is not designed to provide increased cooling to the
servers at all times. Even with ECM enabled, the higher blower speeds will only be seen when the increased