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Dell PowerEdge, generation by generation.

PowerEdge is Dell's server line and its naming is regular once somebody shows you the pattern. R is rack, T is tower, MX is the modular chassis and its sleds, C is the dense node, XR is the ruggedised edge box, XE is the accelerator platform. In the rack line the middle digit is the size and the last digit is the generation: R730, R740, R750 and R760 are the same 2U, two-socket server four times over — thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth generation.

156models listed
84refurbished
5generations compared

That is why the buying question here is almost never "which model". It is "which generation", and the answer is a trade, not a ranking. A generation-old machine is not a worse machine; it is a machine with a slower memory bus, fewer cores available per socket and, on the older steps, no NVMe bays at all. If the workload never touches those limits, the older generation does the same job for materially less money, on the same one-year warranty and the same QC we run on everything else.

The table below is what moved between the steps and what each move is worth when you are choosing. It is built from the specification sheets of the machines we list, not from marketing pages, and every row names the catalogue SKUs it came from.

What changed between the generations

5 steps

Every figure is the configuration ceiling on the specification sheet we hold against that model. Where a generation offers more than one processor family, the sheet lists both.

13G

R730

Processor
2 sockets, Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3, up to 18 cores per socket
Memory
24 DDR4 slots, up to 2133 MT/s, up to 768 GB
Storage & I/O
Up to 16 SFF or 8 LFF SAS/SATA; PERC H730/H730P; no NVMe bays

What changed. The generation that moved PowerEdge from DDR3 to DDR4 and to iDRAC8.

What it means. Still a sound virtualisation host and a very cheap one. The ceiling you meet first is memory speed and capacity, not cores — plan it around RAM per VM rather than around clock.

Figures above are from the specification sheet of:
14G

R740

Processor
2 sockets, 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable, up to 28 cores per socket
Memory
24 DDR4 slots, up to 2933 MT/s, up to 3 TB (7.68 TB with persistent memory)
Storage & I/O
Up to 16 SFF or 8 LFF; PERC H740P/H750; iDRAC9

What changed. Socket change to Xeon Scalable: 55% more cores per socket, a faster memory bus and four times the memory ceiling.

What it means. The generation where a two-socket box stopped being core-starved. If you are consolidating hosts rather than replacing one, this is usually the cheapest step that actually removes the bottleneck.

Figures above are from the specification sheet of:
15G

R750

Processor
2 sockets, 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable, up to 40 cores per socket
Memory
32 DDR4 slots, up to 3200 MT/s, RDIMM up to 2 TB, LRDIMM up to 8 TB
Storage & I/O
Up to 24 SFF SAS/SATA/NVMe; PERC H745/H755; BOSS-S2 boot; OCP 3.0; PCIe Gen4

What changed. Eight more DIMM slots, PCIe Gen4 throughout, and front NVMe as a normal configuration rather than an option.

What it means. The first generation in this line where an all-flash NVMe front end is ordinary. If the workload is database or analytics rather than general virtualisation, this is the step where the storage path stops being the limit.

Figures above are from the specification sheets of:
16G

R760

Processor
2 sockets, 4th/5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable, up to 60 cores per socket
Memory
32 DDR5 slots; 4800 MT/s with 4th Gen, up to 5600 MT/s with 5th Gen
Storage & I/O
Up to 24 SFF (16 SAS/SATA + 8 NVMe) or 12 LFF plus rear bays; PERC 11/12; PCIe Gen5

What changed. DDR4 to DDR5 and PCIe Gen4 to Gen5 — the memory and I/O buses both double up.

What it means. Buy this when you need current-generation cores, GPU or high-speed networking headroom, or a machine you intend to run hard for five years and more. Against a refurbished R750 the gap is bandwidth, not features.

Figures above are from the specification sheets of:
17G

R670 / R7715

Processor
2 sockets Intel Xeon 6 (6700E up to 144 E-cores, or 6500P/6700P up to 86 P-cores); or 1 socket AMD EPYC 9005, up to 160 cores
Memory
DDR5 RDIMM at 6400 MT/s; up to 32 slots (Intel) or 24 slots on the EPYC single-socket
Storage & I/O
EDSFF E3.S Gen5 NVMe — up to 20 bays on 1U, up to 40 on 2U; PERC 12/13

What changed. The core count stops coming from two sockets, and the drive form factor moves from 2.5-inch to E3.S.

What it means. A single-socket EPYC box can now replace a dual-socket one, which changes the licensing arithmetic more than it changes the rack. Worth pricing when the software is licensed per socket.

Figures above are from the specification sheets of:

Which one for which job

A virtualisation host you will fill with RAM

Cores are rarely what runs out first — memory is. An R740 with 24 populated slots does the work of a much newer machine for a fraction of the money, and the saving buys the DIMMs. Move up a generation when you need more than 3 TB in the box or the memory bus itself is the limit.

A database or an all-flash tier

Start at the R750. It is the generation where front NVMe stops being a special configuration, and the controller line (H755, BOSS-S2) is built for it. Below that you are attaching flash to a SAS path designed for spinning disks.

GPU, inference or high-speed networking

R760 and up, or the XE accelerator platform. What you are buying is PCIe Gen5 lanes and the power and cooling budget behind them; a generation-old chassis will take the card and then starve it.

A machine to match one already in the rack

Match the generation, not the model. Identical generation means identical controllers, DIMM types, caddies and iDRAC behaviour, which is what makes a spare a spare. Send the service tag of the machine you are matching and we quote against it.

Dell PowerEdge models we list

156 models

Rack Servers123

Tower Servers20

Blade Servers13

Questions we get about Dell PowerEdge

On paper, yes: fewer cores per socket, DDR4 instead of DDR5, PCIe Gen3 instead of Gen5. In a rack, it depends entirely on whether the workload reaches those ceilings. A file server, a domain controller, a backup target or a general virtualisation host normally does not. A database with an all-NVMe working set does. Tell us the workload and we will say which side of that line you are on rather than sell you the newer number.

XD is the dense-storage variant of the same generation — more drive bays in the same chassis. XS is the lower-cost configuration. XA carries accelerators. A four-digit number such as R6615 or R7715 marks the AMD EPYC platform rather than Intel. The first digit after R is the socket count class and the last digit is the generation, which is why R740 and R7515 are contemporaries.

Yes — R610, R620, R710, R720 and the towers of that era are still sourceable, and we list the ones we hold as end-of-sale rather than as current stock. They are the right answer when you are keeping a working system alive or need a matching spare, and the wrong answer for anything you intend to grow into.

Enterprise hardware reprices daily, and no two builds of the same model cost the same — memory, drives and the controller move the number more than the chassis does. A sticker would be wrong by the time you read it. Send the model and the configuration and you get today's rate, usually inside a business day, held in the contract.

A Dell PowerEdge model that is not listed here?The catalogue shows what we hold, not the limit of what we source. Send the model, the generation or a full parts list and you get a price and a lead time inside 48 hours.

Send the model

Other lines

Every model · new & refurbished

Same 1-yr warranty, same QC