What workloads does the HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen11 with NVIDIA RTX PRO GPUs support?
The HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen11 with NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 and 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs is designed as a flexible data center platform for a wide mix of AI and visual computing workloads.
It supports:
- **Generative and AI workloads**: generative design, large language model (LLM) inference (including models up to about **70B parameters** on the RTX PRO 6000), agentic AI, and physical AI use cases such as robotics and simulation.
- **Visualization and graphics**: photorealistic rendering, 3D graphics, virtual prototyping, and immersive visualization.
- **VDI and remote work**: virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), remote visualization, and multi-user GPU sharing using NVIDIA vGPU and Multi-Instance GPU (MIG).
- **Video and media**: video generation, real-time video production, and high-quality AV1/HEVC streaming and encoding/decoding.
- **Data- and compute-intensive workloads**: analytics, scientific computing, simulation, and large-scale data processing.
Industry examples include:
- **Healthcare**: medical imaging, genomics analysis, AI-assisted diagnostics.
- **Manufacturing**: robotics, digital twins, predictive maintenance for smart factories.
- **Media & entertainment**: real-time rendering, 3D content creation, video production.
- **Financial services**: fraud detection, risk modeling, algorithmic trading.
- **Scientific research**: simulation, computational modeling, and large-scale data analysis.
By combining AMD EPYC CPUs with NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 and 6000 Blackwell GPUs, the platform lets you right-size deployments—choosing higher performance for demanding AI and rendering, or more cost- and power-efficient configurations for VDI, inference, and edge AI.
How do the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 and 6000 Blackwell GPUs differ in this server?
In the HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen11, the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 and 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs are positioned for different performance and density needs.
**NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition**
- **Architecture**: NVIDIA Blackwell architecture optimized for AI and graphics.
- **AI performance**: Fifth-generation Tensor Cores with **FP4 precision** deliver up to **3x AI performance** versus the previous generation.
- **Rendering & graphics**: Fourth-generation RT Cores provide over **2x rendering performance** versus the previous generation for 3D, rendering, and virtual prototyping.
- **Memory**: **96 GB GDDR7** with **1.6 TB/s bandwidth**, enabling large-scale LLM inference (up to ~**70B parameters**) and complex simulations.
- **GPU partitioning**: Up to **4 MIG instances** per GPU, each with dedicated compute and memory.
- **Virtualization**: With NVIDIA vGPU, up to **12 instances per MIG** and up to **48 VMs per GPU**.
- **Video**: Ninth-gen NVENC and sixth-gen NVDEC for high-speed AV1 and HEVC encoding/decoding.
**Best fit**: Large LLM inference, multimodal AI, physical AI, high-end visualization, and dense multi-tenant GPU sharing where maximum performance and capacity matter.
**NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition**
- **Form factor & efficiency**: Single-slot, power-efficient design.
- **AI performance**: Modern Tensor Cores for efficient AI inference and mixed-precision compute, well-suited to **medium-scale LLMs** and models.
- **Rendering & graphics**: Ray tracing and rasterization for interactive visualization and accelerated content creation.
- **Memory**: Designed for **moderate-sized models**, large scenes, and multiuser VDI.
- **Virtualization**: NVIDIA vGPU support for dense VDI and multi-tenant deployments.
- **Video**: Hardware encode/decode for high-quality AV1 and HEVC streaming and content workflows.
**Best fit**: Cost- and power-optimized VDI, remote visualization, medium-scale AI inference, and edge or departmental deployments.
**In the DL385 Gen11 chassis**:
- You can configure **up to two RTX PRO 6000** GPUs for maximum AI and visualization density.
- Or **up to four RTX PRO 4500** GPUs for higher user density and more cost-efficient VDI, inference, and visualization.
In practice, choose the **RTX PRO 6000** when you need top-end AI and graphics performance per GPU, and the **RTX PRO 4500** when you prioritize user density, power efficiency, and budget while still needing solid AI and visualization capabilities.
What makes the HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen11 a secure and efficient AI platform?
The HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen11 is designed to consolidate AI, analytics, and visualization workloads while keeping security and operations manageable at scale.
**Platform and performance**
- **Processors**: Supports up to **two 4th or 5th Gen AMD EPYC** processors, providing high core density and strong performance per watt.
- **GPU options**:
- Up to **two NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition** GPUs for maximum AI and visualization performance.
- Or up to **four NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500** GPUs for cost-optimized, power-efficient VDI, inference, and visualization.
- **Scalable architecture**: Flexible memory, storage, and networking options so you can tailor the system to your workload mix.
- **Optional direct liquid cooling**: Helps improve energy efficiency and thermal management in dense deployments.
**Security by design**
- **HPE iLO 6 with silicon root of trust**: Establishes a hardware-anchored chain of trust from power-on through runtime, helping protect against firmware tampering and unauthorized access.
- **Quantum-resistant firmware signing**: Uses cryptographic methods designed to withstand emerging threats, helping future-proof firmware integrity.
**Operational efficiency and management**
- **HPE Compute Ops Management**: A cloud-native, AI-driven toolset for:
- Automated lifecycle management
- Predictive analytics
- Global fleet visibility and policy-based control
- **HPE OneView**: Simplifies orchestration and integration across hybrid environments, making it easier to standardize deployments and manage configurations.
- **NVIDIA AI Enterprise support**: Provides a validated software stack for AI workloads, helping you deploy and manage AI applications more consistently and securely.
By combining AMD EPYC CPUs, NVIDIA RTX PRO Blackwell GPUs, and HPE’s security and management stack, the DL385 Gen11 helps you reimagine your data center as a unified platform for inference, rendering, VDI, and data-intensive applications—while keeping operations streamlined and total cost of ownership under control.