Dell Technologies World: KI-Notebooks mit ARM-CPUs, QLC-Flash, Xeon-6-Server
Dell's in-house exhibition was dominated by Microsoft's Copilot+ PC AI hardware platform. The first Xeon 6 servers and new QLC flash storage were also announced
Dell's new XPS 13 is equipped with the Snapdragon X Elite, an ARM CPU.
(Image: Dell)
- Bruno Stoemer
As part of a comprehensive AI initiative, Dell announces at its annual in-house exhibition the launch of laptops that meet Microsoft's new specification for Copilot+ PCs and are powered by Snapdragon X processors. Qualcomm's system-on-a-chip family will power five models in the XPS, Inspiron and Latitude product lines.
While the XPS 13 and Inspiron 14 Plus notebooks with built-in Snapdragon processors can already be pre-ordered, the Latitude models, which are primarily aimed at business customers and professional users, are not yet available. "Copilot+ PCs" is Microsoft's term for devices that are marketed as AI PCs and can execute AI functions locally thanks to optimized hardware.
Notebooks with NPU and ARM CPU
The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus, which is positioned between the more affordable Inspiron models and the more powerful XPS laptops, comes with the Snapdragon X Plus. The chip has ten cores with a base clock speed of up to 3.4 GHz and an integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) that can deliver 45 TOPS (trillion operations per second). The Dell XPS 13 comes with the more powerful Snapdragon X Elite. It has the identical NPU, but 12 cores with the same clock rate and a dual-core boost of up to 4 GHz.
The manufacturer specifies a battery life of up to 27 hours for the XPS-13 and up to 15 hours for the Inspiron-14 Plus. The AI capabilities of the Snapdragon chips should also enable advanced security functions such as real-time threat analysis, behavior-based security measures, biometric authentication and efficient data encryption. In addition, the new notebook models have a dedicated button that can be used to directly access the functions of the Windows Copilot AI Assistant. It will replace the menu button on the right-hand side of the keyboard.
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Storage cluster with QLC flash
Dell is also announcing some software and hardware innovations for the storage systems in the PowerStore portfolio. The new all-flash PowerStore 3200Q model is based on QLC flash and NVMe storage media, each with a capacity of 15.36 TByte, scalable from 11 to 93 drives in a 4-way cluster, which reaches 24 PByte capacity in the maximum expansion stage. The container-based management software PowerStore OS will be updated from version 3.6.1.1 OS to version 4.0. According to the manufacturer, it should deliver higher IOPS for NVMe systems, push latency into the sub-millisecond range and improve scalability.
The PowerStore systems should integrate seamlessly into cloud environments and support backup, recovery and migration via Dell's APEX offerings. There is also a new AIOps application with generative AI. The software upgrades should be available from the end of May 2024, the new QLC model around two months later.
New servers for cloud providers and edge
Dell will also be presenting new servers for data centers and the edge at the conference. For cloud service providers, the manufacturer is launching the PowerEdge R670 CSP and R770 CSP models. Equipped with Intel Xeon 6 Efficient Core processors, the servers are said to offer 2.3 times the performance of their predecessors. The central management tool Dell Open Server Manager, based on OpenBMC, is intended for administration in large environments. The servers also come with a new DC-MHS architecture designed to optimize interoperability and standardization within data centers.
The new T160 and R260 server models have been specially developed for smaller environments and branch offices. The models use Intel Xeon E-2400 processors and can therefore offer a significant increase in performance compared to their predecessors. The stackable T160 is also said to be far more energy efficient than the older version and, according to the manufacturer, is ideal for companies that want to process data close to the edge in real time. According to Dell, the R260 is tailored for virtualization tasks close to the edge.
The Dell PowerEdge R670 CSP Edition and R770 CSP Edition will initially be available exclusively to selected cloud service providers from July, before being released to the general market. The T160 and R260 models will be available worldwide from May.
(mki)
