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Configuration Recommendations

The most effective strategy for reducing acoustical output starts at the point of purchase. Though specific configuration

recommendations are difficult to provide due to the wide range of workloads and applications that the MX7000 system

supports, the following guidelines can be used to understand tradeoffs and optimize a system for a specific application

space.

 Typically sled fans (rear fan modules) are the loudest component in the system, therefore reducing the total

power consumption on individual sleds is the most successful approach to reducing acoustics. Choose lower

wattage components, especially CPUs, and optimize DIMM counts to reduce sled power consumption.

 For compute sled configurations (MX740c & MX840c), CPU thermal design power (TDP) drives cooling

requirements of the sled for most workloads. Choose the lowest TDP required achieve workload requirements.

Where possible choose general purpose processors over low core-count or frequency optimized models to

achieve lower acoustical output.

 For IOM-A/B options, 10 GbT and 25 GbE pass through, fabric expander (MX7116n) module and the switching

module (MX5108n) provide better acoustical experience. Fabric switching engine (MX9116n) requires higher fan

speeds to cool, which may compromise efforts to reduce acoustics.

 For IOM-C options, SAS storage IOM (MX5000s) requires lower fan speeds than the fibre channel module

(MXG610s).

 When sled or module slots are empty, blanks must be installed to achieve efficient cooling and keep fan speeds

from increasing.

The following table lists three configurations designed for specific workloads and deployment in attended data center

applications.

Table 1: Select configurations that are designed for deployment in attended data center spaces.

Component

Computational

Transactional

Virtualization

MX740c

MX840c

MX5016s

IOM A1

10GBT PTM

25gbe PTM

10GBT PTM

IOM A2

10GBT PTM

25gbe PTM

10GBT PTM

IOM B1

10GBT PTM

Blank

IOM B2

10GBT PTM

Blank

IOM C1

Blank

MXG610s

MX5000s

IOM C2

Blank

MXG610s

MX5000s

1. Computational MX740c sled configured with 2 145W CPUs, 12 32GB DIMMs, 4 1.6TB NVME SSD drives, 2 25Gb Mezzanine cards,

and an H740 PERC.

2. Transactional MX740c sled configured with 2 135W CPUs, 12 32GB DIMMS, 6 1.6TB 12Gb/s SAS SSD drives, 2 25Gb Mezzanine

cards, 1 Fiber Channel MMZ, 2 M.2 Drives

3. Virtualization MX740c configured with 2 135W CPUs, 12 32GB DIMMS, 6 1.6TB NVME SSD drives, 2 25Gb Mezzanine cards, 1

H745P PERC. MX5016s configured with 16 1.6TB SAS SSD drives.

Sound Cap

For some MX7000 deployments, noise sensitivity may be situational and/or temporary. For these applications Dell

EMC developed a software-based solution that can be enabled on demand. Sound cap is a custom thermal profile

available in the BIOS and iDRAC GUI on MX740c and MX840c sleds. The sound cap feature limits acoustical output

by applying a percentage-based power cap to the CPU. Therefore, acoustical output reduction comes at some cost to

system performance.