Product guide

IBM NeXtScale nx360 M5 2
Key features
IBM NeXtScale System M5 is the next generation dense platform from IBM System x®, following on from
the NeXtScale System M4 offering and its predecessor, IBM iDataPlex®. The NeXtScale system includes
a dense chassis, half wide compute nodes, plus storage and GPU nodes, all fitting within a standard rack
footprint. With M5, IBM extends the feature set to drive further growth in High Performance Computing
and also to reach even more segments and workloads requiring dense performance, such as Cloud, Grid,
and Analytics.
Designed with industry-standard, off-the-shelf components, IBM NeXtScale System is a general-purpose
platform that is designed to give customers a flexible IT infrastructure. The offering includes
compute-intensive systems, and GPU offerings and storage offerings. Customized solutions can be
configured to provide an application-appropriate platform with a choice of servers, networking switches,
adapters, and racks.
This modular system is designed to scale and grow with data center needs to protect and maximize IT
investments. Because it is optimized for standard racks, users can easily mix high-density NeXtScale
server offerings and non-NeXtScale components within the same rack. IBM NeXtScale System also
provides tremendous time to value by enabling users to set up and start it in a shorter period.
The NeXtScale nx360 M5 server provides a dense, flexible solution with a low total cost of ownership
(TCO). The half-wide, dual-socket NeXtScale nx360 M5 server is designed for data centers that require
high performance but are constrained by floor space. By taking up less physical space in the data center,
the NeXtScale server enhances density, and it supports the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 series up to
145 W and 18-core processors, thus providing more performance per server. The nx360 M5 compute
node contains only essential components in the base architecture to provide a cost-optimized platform.
The nx360 M5 also supports additional expansion options in the form of trays that attach to the top of the
server. The PCIe Native Expansion Tray can be added to the nx360 M5 to form a powerful compute
engine, supporting two GPU or coprocessor adapters. Planned for support is the Storage Native
Expansion Tray, which can be added to the nx360 M5 to form a storage-dense server supporting up to 48
TB of local SAS-attached storage.
The NeXtScale n1200 Enclosure is an efficient, 6U, 12-node chassis with no built-in networking or
switching capabilities, and therefore requires no chassis-level management. Sensibly designed to provide
shared, high-efficiency power and cooling for housed servers, the n1200 enclosure is designed to scale
with your business needs.
The NeXtScale nx360 M5 is also available as a warm-water-cooled server for the ultimate in energy
efficiency, cooling, nois,e and TCO.
Scalability and performance
The IBM NeXtScale System and the NeXtScale nx360 M5 server offer numerous features to boost
performance, improve scalability, and reduce costs:
Up to 12 compute nodes, each with two of the latest Xeon processors, 16 DIMMs, and three PCIe
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slots, in 6U of rack space. It is a highly dense, scalable, and price-optimized offering.
The Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family improves productivity by offering superior
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system performance with 18-core processors, core speeds up to 3.2 GHz, L3 cache sizes up to 45
MB, DDR4 memory speeds up to 2133 MHz, and QPI interconnect links of up to 8 GTps.
Two processors, up to 36 cores, and 72 threads maximize the concurrent execution of multi-threaded
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applications.