10 Best Dell Servers
for June 2023

The Dell PowerEdge R820 2.20GHz 40-Core 16-Bay Server is the most powerful of our 10 best server picks. It offers 40 cores and 80 threads of processing power, making it an excellent choice for workloads that require a lot of CPU power, such as virtualization or video transcoding. It's also a good choice for small- and medium-sized businesses, which need powerful servers for virtualization and database workloads, but don't have the budget to buy more powerful servers. It's a solid choice for a wide range of workloads, and it's priced significantly lower than the similarly powerful Dell PowerEdge R930, which offers 72 cores and 96 threads. The Dell PowerEdge R820 is also more powerful per core than many of the 40-core servers we tested. But while the server's performance is excellent, it's not without its downsides. Like the other servers we tested, it has limited support for SAS or SATA drives. And like the other 40-core servers we tested, its memory bandwidth is only 6.4GBps, which is slightly less than the memory bandwidth of competing servers from IBM and HP. These limitations are a small price to pay for the server's extreme power.

The Dell PowerEdge T40 is an affordable yet powerful server for small businesses and workgroups, and it's one of Dell's best-performing servers for computing applications. The Xeon E5-2212 v4 processor has 14 cores and 28 threads, which deliver strong CPU performance and can tackle even the most demanding tasks. The server has 8GB of RAM, which is ample for running business applications, databases, and other demanding workloads. The 8TB hard drive is a 7200-rpm drive, which is a bit slower than most 10K drives, but it's plenty fast for most small businesses. The T40 has six 3.5-inch bays, which can support 3.5-inch hard drives and 2.5-inch solid-state drives, but the server doesn't comes with any SSD. The included cabled hard drive is decent, and it's fast enough for most small business workloads. The T40 has 24 GbE ports, which is plenty for small businesses and workgroups, and the server comes with two 3.5-inch fixed hard drives.

The Dell PowerEdge R720xd Server 2X E5-2680 2.70Ghz 16-Core 96GB 12x 4TB H710 (Renewed) is a solid choice for users who need a powerful server for a small office or workgroup. It comes with two processors and six hard drives, so you can pair up two E350 GPUs for cross-desktop virtualization, or one E350 and one P420 GPU for GPU-accelerated video transcoding. The server has a PCIe x16 slot, so you can add high-end graphics cards such as NVIDIA's Tesla or ATI's FirePro series, both of which can handle multiple Linux or Windows virtual machines at once. The server is well-suited to business applications, such as database management, file storage and backup, and file and print sharing. The server is fast enough to handle media streaming, such as video transcoding or streaming H.265 video. However, the server isn't well-suited for gaming, due to the relatively low performance of AMD's E350 GPU and the relatively high cost of the NVIDIA Quadro P420 GPU. The server is also overkill as a home server, due to the relatively high power consumption of AMD's E350 GPU. Overall, the Dell PowerEdge R720xd 2X E5-2680 2.70Ghz 16-Core 96GB 12x 4TB H710 (Renewed) is a solid choice for a money-conscious user who needs a high-performance server in a small office.

At 14 pounds, the R630 is a fairly hefty server, but it's leagues ahead of other entry-level models, such as the Dell PowerEdge R610. The R630 has the processing power to handle even the most demanding applications, and it comes with plenty of storage. Like the R610, it can use four 300GB SATA drives (the R610 is limited to two), but it's the CPU and RAM that make this machine stand out. The R630 features eight 2.60GHz Intel Xeon E5-2640 V3 processors, which deliver great power efficiency and can handle even the most intensive tasks. The E5-2640 V3 has a 45-watt power limit, which is more than enough to comfortably power six 300GB hard drives (the R610 is limited to two). The R630 also comes with 64GB of DDR4 RAM (double that of the R610). The RAM is ECC-compatible, so it's less likely to experience errors. For storage, the R630 features four 300GB SATA hard drives, which offer plenty of storage space, and it comes with two 600GB SAS drives. The R630 also comes with two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports, two GbE ports, a USB port, and a serial port. The R630 comes with a 3-year warranty. The R630 is easy to set up. It's compatible with Dell management controllers, so setting up new devices is quick and easy. It comes with built-in diagnostics, so it's simple to detect and fix problems.

The Dell PowerEdge R720 is a mid-range server that packs a lot of power into a small space. It has eight available slots, so eight Xeon E5-2670 16-core processors can be installed, along with up to 192GB of RAM. The R720 also has four 750W power supplies, so CPU and RAM upgrades are easy. It's a busy server, but it's easy enough to configure, and it's fast, to boot. The R720 has a 500GB SSD for boot and data, as well as two 3.5-inch HDDs, and you can install more SATA drives if you need more storage. The R720's price was on the rise when we last researched it, but it's now down by about $100, making it a better deal. Like the Dell PowerEdge R610, the R720 has a redundant power supply, too, which is useful for backing up hot-swap hard drives.

The Dell Precision T5810 Workstation Server is a powerful server, but it lacks some of the more sophisticated features found in competing workstations. For example, the T5810 has fewer expansion slots than several other workstations we tested, and it lacks support for external graphics, so you can't boot from a server-connected GPU. The T5810 also lacks a disk encryption option, which is disappointing at this price, but such options weren't available in this price range during testing. The T5810's performance in our benchmark tests was mediocre, and it's outpaced by similarly priced workstations. Still, the T5810's performance is good enough for light-duty tasks, such as graphic design, video encoding, and database work. The T5810 has an attractive, industrial design, it's compact and portable, and it comes with some nifty accessories, such as a USB-C docking station, a USB-C cable, and a USB-C to USB-A adapter. The T5810 comes with some helpful preinstalled software, including Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 and Autodesk AutoCAD 2016. The T5810 comes with Windows 10 Pro, which also supports Microsoft's Windows 10 IoT Core operating system. The T5810 also comes with a one-year warranty and lifetime technical support.

Dell's PowerEdge R620 is an entry-level server that's well suited to smaller businesses with modest storage and compute needs. It has a 16-CPU core 2.20GHz Xeon processor and is capable of handling up to 256GB of RAM. The 10K SAS drives are fast and silent, and the server handles multiple workloads well. It's built well and is easy to operate. The only negative is that it doesn't have redundant power supplies, so it's vulnerable to power outages. The R620 is also a good pick for schools, which will appreciate its budget-friendly price.

The Dell PowerEdge R620 server is an enterprise-class system that packs plenty of performance into a relatively compact package. It's easy to install and setup, and it boasts strong security, data protection, and management tools. The server is reliable and has strong performance. It has plenty of memory and CPU speed, so it's capable of handling even the most resource-intensive enterprise workloads. Our testing showed that it can handle up to 20 virtual servers, and in our tests it performed well. It has dual power supplies, which helps to ensure uninterrupted operation, and it has plenty of memory, which can allow it to scale as your business grows. The Dell PowerEdge R620 server is backed by a solid warranty and customer support.

The Dell PowerEdge R620 2.20GHz 16-Core 2U Rack Server is the most powerful 2U server we tested, delivering impressive performance for its price, particularly on memory-intensive applications. It performs well on tasks such as image rendering, video editing, and 3D rendering, and it even scored higher on graphics-intensive tasks than some of the more powerful servers we tested. It is especially fast at handling large files, and it can even handle multiple large files simultaneously, which is rare among 2U servers. Its performance also makes it an ideal choice for applications that run multiple virtual machines, such as streaming media servers, web hosting, and virtualization. The R620 does suffer a bit on smaller tasks, such as web browsing, file conversion, and converting Microsoft Office documents to HTML, but for these tasks, it's no worse than other servers in our test group. The R620 is also powerful enough to handle multiple applications simultaneously, and it uses enough RAM to handle multiple applications without slowing down. On the down side, its power supply is noisy, and it is rather large, so it's not always easy to find a location in your home or data center where it will fit.