Back in 2021, Samsung announced the industry’s first High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) based DDR5 memory, the use of which doubled the speed of DDR4 while reducing energy use by 13%, with Samsung’s DDR5 stacking eight layers of 16Gb DRAM chips to offer a whopping 512GB capacity.
Fast forward to 2024, and at Computex, ServeTheHome came across the Gigabyte R283-ZK0 motherboard, shown above. Integrating the maximum number of DIMM slots into servers, specifically those using modern configurations with 12 DDR5 channels per CPU socket and two DIMMs per channel (totaling 24 DIMMs per socket), presents significant challenges in terms of both ensuring the DIMMs function correctly together and managing the physical space required to fit all these components inside the server chassis. This is a problem the Gigabyte R283-ZK0 motherboard skillfully addresses.
This powerhouse is not just another server board, it packs in 48 artfully arranged DDR5 memory slots, allowing for up to 24TB of RAM when equipped with Samsung's 512GB DDR5 modules.
Twisted slots
From the outside, the R283-ZK0 resembles a typical 2U server with its 12x 2.5-inch hot-swap NVMe/SATA/SAS drive bays and a large fan wall, but the magic is revealed once you remove the lid. Inside, the server reveals a CPU slot positioned at the back, just in front of some PCIe risers. But the real marvel is above the system where the motherboard stretches out with an impressive array of 24 DDR5 RDIMM slots per CPU - totaling 48 slots in a dual second-gen AMD EPYC 9004 series setup.
As ServeTheHome’s Cliff Robinson says, "To fit this many DIMMs, the CPUs cannot be aligned next to one another. Instead, there are staggered sets of 6-2-4-4-2-2-4 DIMM slots. The slots are twisted on the motherboard at an angle to allow for some overlap of the slots and sockets." It's an impressive piece of engineering for sure.
Other features of the Gigabyte R283-ZK0 include dual 10Gb/s LAN ports (Intel X710-AT2), one PCIe Gen5 x16 FHFL (full-height, full-length) slot, and one OCP 3.0 Gen5 x16 LAN mezzanine slot for use with network cards.
