Dell PowerEdge XE9680 H200 Cluster with Dell 400GbE Networking

The convergence of Dell enterprise-grade infrastructure with NVIDIA H200 architecture delivers a significant advancement in AI computing performance, redefining efficiency and scalability for large-scale machine learning. This analysis evaluates the Dell PowerEdge XE9680 platform equipped with 64 NVIDIA H200 GPUs across 8 nodes, interconnected through Broadcom Thor2 networking and Dell PowerSwitch fabric infrastructure, establishing new reference points for AI training and inference performance at enterprise scale, with clear implications for both cost efficiency and innovation velocity.

Our benchmarking demonstrates that the H200’s advanced Transformer Engine and 141GB HBM3e memory architecture deliver substantial performance gains, achieving 1,979 TOPS per GPU for INT8 operations and the same 1,979 TFLOPS for FP8 inference workloads. The integration of Broadcom BCM57608 Thor2 NICs with Dell PowerSwitch Z9864F switches creates a robust, lossless fabric that maintained 97.3% network efficiency under peak AI workloads, enabling excellent scaling across 64 GPUs.

The performance of NVIDIA H200 GPUs on Dell infrastructure is amplified by Broadcom networking technologies. Broadcom BCM57608 Thor2 NICs and Dell PowerSwitch platforms with Broadcom Tomahawk 5 ASICs form the backbone of a robust, lossless Ethernet fabric that consistently maintains over 97% efficiency under peak AI workloads. These technologies, ranging from hardware-accelerated collectives to congestion-resilient flow control, transform the interconnect from a limiting factor into a performance multiplier.