8    PowerEdge R720 and R720xd Technical Guide
 
Compared to the previous generation of Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers, the R720 and R720xd have 
more drive bay options, more PCIe slots, a larger memory footprint, flexible I/O, Express Flash PCIe 
solid-state drives (available Q2 2012), advanced system management, and hot-plug redundant 
cooling. The R720 also supports optional dual internal RAID controllers and up to four optional 
internal GPUs. 
Table 2 lists the technical specifications for the PowerEdge R720 and R720xd systems. For the latest 
information on supported features, visit Dell.com. 
 
Intel
®
 Xeon
®
 processor E5-2600 product family 
2 Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) links; 6.4 GT/s; 7.2 GT/s; 8.0 GT/s 
2.5MB per core; core options: 2, 4, 6, 8 
Up to 768GB (24 DIMM slots): 2GB/4GB/8GB/16GB/32GB DDR3 up to 1600MT/s 
R720:  
7 PCIe slots: 
One x16 full-length, full-height 
Three x8 full-length, full-height 
Three x8 half-length, half-height 
R720xd: 
6 PCIe slots: 
Two x16 full-length, full-height 
One x8 full-length, full-height 
Three x8 half-length, half-height 
Internal controllers: 
PERC S110 (software RAID; R720 only) 
PERC H310 
PERC H710 
PERC H710P 
External HBAs (RAID):  
PERC H810 
 
External HBAs (non-RAID):  
6Gbps SAS HBA 
R720 drive bay options: 
  Up to 16 x 2.5“ 
  Up to 8 x 2.5” + 8 x 2.5” (with dual RAID controllers) 
  Up to 8 x 2.5” 
  Up to 8 x 2.5” + 4 x 2.5” Express Flash
2
 or up to 8 x 3.5” 
R720xd drive bay options: 
  Up to 24 x 2.5” (front) + 2 x 2.5” (back) or 
  Up to 12 x 3.5” (front) + 2 x 2.5” (back) 
Hard drive options: 
  2.5” SAS SSD, SATA SSD, SAS (15K, 10K), nearline SAS (7.2K), SATA (7.2K) 
  2.5” Express Flash PCIe SSD
2
 (R720 only) 
  3.5” SAS (15K), nearline SAS (7.2K), SATA (7.2K) 
Self-encrypting drives (SEDs) available