Dell PowerEdge R740 Servers

Chassis options

The R740 was built in three front-bay configurations. As with the R640, the bay layout is fixed to the chassis and backplane, so it cannot be changed after purchase without replacing both. Rear drive bays and the 24-bay front are R740xd features, not R740.

All three variants take the optional BOSS card with two M.2 SATA SSDs for a mirrored boot volume, keeping the front bays free for data.

Processors

The R740 accepts first-generation (Skylake-SP, 2017) and second-generation (Cascade Lake, 2019) Intel Xeon Scalable processors in two LGA3647 sockets, and unlike the R640 it supports the full 205 W thermal envelope in every chassis, so the top Platinum parts are an option. Both CPUs in a system must be identical. The lists below cover the SKUs most commonly found in refurbished R740 units.

Second-generation Xeon Scalable (Cascade Lake)

First-generation Xeon Scalable (Skylake-SP)

Silver and Gold 5xxx processors cap memory at 2400 or 2666 MT/s regardless of the DIMMs fitted. If memory bandwidth matters to your workload, a Gold 6xxx or Platinum with second-generation silicon is the difference between 2400 and 2933 MT/s on the same board.

Memory

Twenty-four DDR4 DIMM slots, twelve per processor across six channels. Registered (RDIMM) and load-reduced (LRDIMM) modules are supported; they cannot be mixed in the same system. With one CPU installed, only the twelve slots on that side are usable.

For best performance populate all six channels per CPU in matched sets: 6, 12 or 24 DIMMs in total for a dual-CPU system. A single DIMM per CPU works but runs at a fraction of the available bandwidth. Memory runs at the lower of the DIMM rating and the CPU limit, so 2933 MT/s modules on a Silver 4214 run at 2400 MT/s.

Storage and RAID

Drive support depends on the backplane fitted at the factory. All backplanes are hot-plug. The controller options are:

Supported drive types are 12 Gb/s SAS and 6 Gb/s SATA in both hard disk and SSD form, plus U.2 NVMe on the 16-bay hybrid backplane. Drives need the correct Dell 14th-generation caddy: the 2.5" and 3.5" carriers are not interchangeable with 11th or 12th-generation trays, though they are the same parts used by the R640 and R940.

Networking and expansion

Onboard networking is provided by a Network Daughter Card (NDC) that slots into a dedicated connector rather than a PCIe slot. Common options:

• Broadcom 5720 quad-port 1 GbE (the base configuration)
• Intel X550 or Broadcom 57416 dual-port 10 GbE BASE-T plus dual-port 1 GbE
• Intel X710 quad-port 10 GbE SFP+
• Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx dual-port 25 GbE SFP28

Beyond the NDC, the R740 offers up to eight PCIe 3.0 slots across three risers with two processors installed, in a mix of full-height and low-profile. That is enough for a pair of Fibre Channel HBAs, a 25 GbE adapter and a RAID card at the same time. With the GPU-enabled riser configuration the chassis takes up to three double-width 300 W accelerators such as the NVIDIA Tesla V100 or P40, which is the main reason to choose an R740 over an R640 for analytics, rendering or inference workloads.

Power supplies

Two hot-plug redundant power supply bays, configured 1+1. Options are 495 W, 750 W, 1100 W, 1600 W, 2000 W and 2400 W, all 80 PLUS Platinum or Titanium. A dual-CPU system with a full memory load and sixteen drives sits comfortably within a 1100 W envelope; the 1600 W and above units are for GPU configurations. Both supplies in a system should be the same rating.

Management

Every R740 includes iDRAC9 with a dedicated management port. The Express licence covers remote power, health monitoring and basic alerts; the Enterprise licence adds the virtual console, virtual media, remote firmware updates through the Lifecycle Controller and the full Redfish API, which is what most buyers actually want for a server in a rack they do not visit. Enterprise licences can be added to any unit. The R740 also supports OpenManage Enterprise for fleet management.

Physical specification

Supported operating systems

The R740 is on the certified hardware lists for:

• Windows Server 2016, 2019 and 2022
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, 8 and 9
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 and 15
• Ubuntu Server 18.04, 20.04 and 22.04 LTS
• VMware ESXi 6.5, 6.7, 7.0 and 8.0
• Citrix Hypervisor 8

Windows Server 2025 and ESXi 8 are outside Dell's support matrix for the R740 but run on it. Confirm your hypervisor's hardware compatibility list before buying if you need vendor support.

Buying a refurbished R740 from ServerDove

Every unit we sell has been through full hardware diagnostics and a burn-in run: memory tested across every installed DIMM, controller and drive health verified, both power supplies load-tested, and the iDRAC reset and confirmed reachable. BIOS is returned to defaults and the firmware brought to a stable release. Units carry a six-month warranty and are held in Doha, so a replacement part is a short drive away rather than a shipment from overseas.

Because the R740 is past its manufacturer support window, we are also the practical route to keeping one in service: we stock the caddies, PERC cards, NDCs, power supplies and rail kits that fit it, and our hardware support plans cover units bought elsewhere as well as our own.

If you need a specific configuration that is not listed, tell us the CPU, memory and drive layout you want and we will quote a build from stock. Custom configurations are usually ready within two working days.