Supermicro SYS-112D-36C-FN3P Review A 36 Core Intel Xeon 6 SoC Server with 2x 100GbE

Credit: Patrick Kennedy - STH, source: www.servethehome.com

We recently looked at the Supermicro SYS-112D-40C-FN8P, a short-depth Intel Xeon 6 SoC system with eight 25GbE ports. This Supermicro SYS-112D-36C-FN3P is a similar 36-core version, but the bigger change is networking. Instead of 8x 25GbE, this platform gives us 2x QSFP28 100GbE in the same general front-I/O 1U format. With the 36-core Intel Xeon 6 SoC 6553P-B, we wanted to see what changes in terms of performance.

Supermicro SYS-112D-36C-FN3P External Hardware Overview

From the front, this is visibly a different layout than the 40-core (FN8P) unit we reviewed. This chassis has the primary I/O cluster on the front, along with the PCIe expansion on the right side, but the redundant power supplies are on the rear in this model.

The angled view shows how compact the system is. At around 15.7 inches deep, this is not trying to be a traditional deep 1U server. It is meant for racks and cabinets where depth is an important design constraint, even though this 36C unit has components on both faces of the chassis.

Another angle gives a better sense of the front face. The I/O section sits toward the center, while the larger opening on the right is for the PCIe expansion area rather than a front-mounted power supply.

On one side of the front panel, we have the shared management LAN area. There is one Intel i210 1GbE LAN port with IPMI shared on LAN port 1.

Next to that area are two USB 3.0 Type-A ports. These are useful for local installation and recovery work, especially since the system is designed for front-service access.

The main networking change versus the 40C model is here. Instead of eight SFP28 25GbE ports, this system has two QSFP28 100GbE ports tied to the Intel Xeon 6 SoC networking block.

For local console access, Supermicro also includes VGA on the front panel. That is still handy when a system is in a lab rack or when remote management is not yet configured.

Power and status controls are also on the front.

Moving to the rear, we get a very different view from the front I/O side. This side has the fan modules and the redundant power supplies.

The rear angled view shows the fan wall and power supply area more clearly. If the front is where the networking and console I/O live, the rear is where airflow and AC power become the story.

Looking more closely at the fan modules, the rear side has a row of small, serviceable fans.

The power supplies are also rear-mounted. Some racks that these go into have rear power and so this is really the other common configuration in front I/O edge servers.

Next, let us get inside the server.

Supermicro SYS-112D-36C-FN3P Internal Hardware Overview

Inside the system, you can see just how short the design is and the airflow layout.

You can see the motherboard label here as the Supermicro X14SDV-36C-SP3F. That 36C references the Intel Xeon 6 SoC 6553P-B, which is a 36-core 235W part.

The rear fan modules are outside the motherboard area, but the internal fan backplane and wiring show how they connect into the platform.

The Xeon 6 SoC sits under a decent-sized heatsink. The airflow guides are designed to ensure multiple fans are cooling the CPU heatsink. Generally, I am a much bigger fan of hard plastic airflow guides.

With the heatsink removed, we can see the Xeon 6 SoC package. The chip integrates the CPU cores, platform I/O, and networking onto a single package. Beyond that, there are also accelerators built into the Xeon 6 platform. In older Xeon generations, not only did we have slower networking, but you often saw other chips on the motherboard or in PCIe cards handling these functions.

Memory is provided through four DDR5 RDIMM slots. Supermicro lists support for up to 512GB of ECC DDR5-6400 RDIMM memory, which is a good fit for a compact system focused on edge, network, and appliance-style deployments.

For the system OS and local storage, there is a single M.2 NVMe slot. Many systems in this class use M.2 for a boot device, leaving the larger internal bays for data or application storage.

The PCIe expansion slot is still one of the more important parts of this design. Internally, the reason it matters is that the integrated 100GbE networking leaves the PCIe Gen5 x16 slot available for an accelerator, storage controller, or another application-specific card.

Cable management is tight, as one would expect in a short 1U server. Still, the internal layout is orderly enough that the airflow path and major board areas are easy to follow in the photos.

Next, let us get to the block diagram and topology.

Supermicro SYS-112D-36C-FN3P Block Diagram and Topology

A motherboard block diagram is a good place to start because it explains why this platform feels different from older Xeon D systems. An Intel Granite Rapids-D chip, the Xeon 6 6553P-B, sits at the center. The QSFP28 networking, DDR5 channels, PCIe Gen5 expansion, M.2 storage, USB, and BMC connectivity all branch from that SoC, rather than hanging from a larger multi-chip platform.

That diagram also helps explain the front-panel layout we saw earlier. LAN 1, USB 3.0, the two QSFP28 ports, and VGA are all shown as front I/O, while the PCIe Gen5 x16 slot and MCIO connections show where the platform has room for more expansion than the small chassis might suggest.

Here is the topology view from the 36-core platform. The key point is that the system is centered on the Intel Xeon 6 SoC, with networking, PCIe, memory, and storage all attached to the SoC platform.

The local lscpu output confirms the 36-core, 72-thread configuration and the cache hierarchy. At 4MB of L3 cache per CPU core, this gives the 6553P-B a total of 144MB of L3 cache across the chip.

Linux sees the Intel E825C networking through normal tooling. That matters because the 2x 100GbE ports are not an add-in NIC in this configuration.

Another tool view shows the same networking block from a hardware inventory perspective. This is useful confirmation that the operating system is seeing the integrated networking as expected.

Note that, for some reason, we used a blue-and-white-themed terminal to take these screenshots.
Next, let us talk about management.

Supermicro SYS-112D-36C-FN3P Management

For management, this system follows the same standard Supermicro IPMI implementation we saw on the 40C review platform. On the board, that starts with the ASPEED AST2600 BMC.

Running on that BMC is Supermicro’s familiar IPMI interface. The dashboard gives access to system health, configuration, and sensor data in the same general way as the 40C system.

The component information view is useful for checking installed hardware and firmware-level details. This is the kind of standard server management view that makes remote troubleshooting easier.

Supermicro also exposes power information and related controls through the IPMI interface. That is useful in a system where a 235W SoC and an add-in card can both contribute to the platform power envelope.

There is also an HTML5 iKVM feature. This is common on current server platforms, but it remains one of the most important day-to-day management features when the machine is remote.

Remote media mounting is present as well. Being able to mount images and storage remotely is still a key feature for installation and recovery workflows.

Overall, this is a very standard Supermicro IPMI implementation, which is exactly what we expected after the 40C review.
Next, let us talk about the performance.

Supermicro SYS-112D-36C-FN3P Performance

For CPU topology, the 36-core Xeon 6 SoC gives us a different core count than the 40-core model we saw in Supermicro’s other server, but it is otherwise the same basic core generation. Core-to-core latency is one of the first checks because it helps show how threads communicate across the SoC.

Same-core SMT latency gives another view of the platform. Together with the physical-core chart, it is useful when thinking about workload placement and thread pinning.

Next, let us get to the Geekbench results.

Geekbench Results

Geekbench 6 gives us a quick comparison between the 36-core Xeon 6 6553P-B SoC and the 40-core 6716P-B baseline from the earlier SYS-112D-40C-FN8P review. The 36-core part tracks the 40-core part closely in places where per-core behavior matters, while multi-threaded results reflect the smaller core count.

Geekbench 5 shows a similar comparison.

This is not the main benchmark story for a platform like this, but it is useful as a familiar reference point before moving into the AgentSTH data.

AgentSTH V5 Results Preview

In the 40C review, we previewed AgentSTH V5 using charts that compare this 36-core Xeon 6553P-B platform against the 40-core Xeon 6716P-B platform. That data belongs here as well because it is one of the main performance comparisons between the two systems.

AgentSTH is focused on CPU-based agentic workloads, not LLM inference on GPUs. Many agentic systems spend a lot of time on tasks such as parsing, compression, coordination, queues, hashing, and state handling, so the CPU side still matters.

The high-level lesson from the full socket chart is that running multiple agents can use the CPU more effectively than one large job that waits on a single slower path. That is why the multi-agent view is important for modern servers.

With AgentSTH running across 32 cores, the 36-core and 40-core systems are close in many parts of the suite because they use the same core generation. That makes this view useful because it removes some of the obvious core-count difference. 32-cores is just one shape we are testing for these workloads.

The throughput subtests show that the differences are not simply a matter of one model always winning. Once the benchmark is held to the same 32-core scale, cache behavior, clock behavior, and the subtest mix can change the result.

Coordination tasks are where the platform differences become more interesting. The Xeon 6716P-B can do better when threads repeatedly revisit related state, which helps keep metadata hot.

When the workload becomes more diverse due to allocator and hash-table churn, the Xeon 6553P-B platform can still look stronger in this V5 data. This underscores how the difference between the two Supermicro servers is more than just CPU core counts. It is not just a lower-core version of the 40-core system.

We should probably note that we are now on AgentSTH V7, having refined the benchmark set a bit after Ubuntu 26.04 LTS was released. Still, we wanted to maintain parity with the previous server review.
Next, let us get to the power consumption.

Supermicro SYS-112D-36C-FN3P Power Consumption

Supermicro offers a number of power supply options, but we have the 800W units designed to power not only the 235W TDP Xeon SoC, but also add-in cards.

Idle power usage was significant. We generally saw idle in the 105-135W range, and we saw peaks close to 300W. That is nowhere near the power supply limits, which leaves plenty of headroom for adding a large PCIe accelerator card.

Many folks ask about noise in our reviews. We do not publish that for servers. This box is designed to be tucked in a closet and out of earshot. Though it is not quiet by any means (nor anywhere near the loudest server), it is not loud.

STH Server Spider: Supermicro SYS-112D-36C-FN3P

In the second half of 2018, we introduced the STH Server Spider as a quick reference to where a server system’s aptitude lies. For this system, networking and form factor are major parts of the story.

Having the dual 100GbE networking built in, plus an additional expansion slot for more networking, is perhaps the story here. On a core/ U basis, this is much denser than previous systems, but we are also in an era where 1U servers (albeit deeper ones) can have over 10x the core count. Buying this class of server is really done because you want what the Xeon 6 SoC offers in terms of integration.

Final Words

Given how popular 100GbE is, the Supermicro SYS-112D-36C-FN3P’s networking layout will make a lot of sense in locations where that 100GbE networking is needed. For network appliances and CPE gear, having that all built in with a fast processor is very useful. We should probably take a moment here to note that this is just one configuration, and the built-in acceleration varies by SKU, as we discussed in our Intel Xeon 6 SoC Family Overview. While we have one version here, Supermicro designs its line to use different SoCs based on what customers need.

Compared to the first 8-core Intel Xeon D-1540 we reviewed many years ago, 36 cores running at higher clock speeds with much more integrated network bandwidth is a big step up. Another way to look at it is to compare it to systems when the original Broadwell-DE was launched. This chip uses more power, but it offers bandwidth and CPU performance more akin to a Xeon E5 V4 dual-socket server with add-on cards, yet it fits in a short-depth 1U chassis. It is quite amazing to see the generational changes here. At the same time, Intel has moved the Xeon D line to be very focused on edge deployments, so some of the old allure of having a low-power integrated virtual machine host based on Xeon D was lost generations ago. Nostalgia cuts both ways.

Overall, the SYS-112D-36C-FN3P is a strong reminder that Granite Rapids-D systems are not one-size-fits-all. Supermicro now has a variety of systems that can target different network configurations, core count configurations, accelerator configurations, and even physical environment layouts (e.g. front or rear power.) It was neat to look at two of these back-to-back to see how they differ.