Site survey for a DGX B300 or 8-GPU server: rack depth, weight, floor and power

What a site survey for a DGX B300 or an 8-GPU server checks

A site survey for GPU servers checks six things in the room before the hardware is ordered: the rack and its mounting depth, the weight and how it is lifted, the floor, the delivery path, the power feeds and the air. An NVIDIA DGX B300 takes 10 rack units, is 904.2 mm long and weighs 168 kg with its twelve power supplies; an eight-GPU PCIe server takes 4U or 5U, is 737 to 899.56 mm deep in the documents of Supermicro, Gigabyte and Dell (1,000.5 mm for the Gigabyte chassis with its optional fan kit), and weighs up to 71.35 kg in Dell's. NVIDIA has no document called "site survey" or "site preparation guide" for the DGX B300. The requirements sit in three documents, named in the next section.

The arithmetic for power and cooling is not repeated here: kilowatts and airflow per rack are in GPU rack power and cooling, servers per rack in air-cooled AI servers in a 10 kW rack, feed capacity in GPU server power on 16 A, 32 A and three-phase feeds.

The NVIDIA documents behind a DGX B300 site survey

NVIDIA's online documentation for the DGX B300, read 12 November 2026: "NVIDIA DGX B300 System User Guide", "DGX B300 System Service Manual", "Data Center Best Practices with DGX B300".

The site questions of the best-practices guide stand under the heading "Site Assessments and Space Planning" and come without figures. One asks whether the site has "a loading dock with hydraulic levelers for smooth transition from truck to staging area"; "Ramps, Door Dimensions, Elevators, Turn Radiuses, Etc." are listed as things to check, with no dimension for any of them.

The User Guide also says who receives the answers. "Your DGX B300 system must be installed by NVIDIA partner network personnel or NVIDIA field service engineers", and "If not performed accordingly, your hardware warranty will be voided." Before the installation, the buyer has to "ensure you have given all relevant site information to your Installation Partner".

One older text fills gaps. NVIDIA's "NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD: Data Center Design Featuring NVIDIA DGX H100 Systems" (DG-11301-001 v4, updated 19 November 2025) is the only NVIDIA document read for this article that names the EIA-310 rack standard, a server-lift rating, aisle widths and point loads under a rack. It describes the DGX H100, an older system that we do not supply; below it is called the H100 guide.

For eight-GPU PCIe servers the makers' documents are named under each table. The mechanical sections of HPE's and ASUS's documents were not available to us on 12 November 2026, so this page prints no dimensions for their servers.

Server rack depth for a GPU server in three figures

"Depth" means three things, and a survey needs all three. The chassis depth is what the maker prints for the server. The post distance is the space between the front and rear mounting posts, which the rail kit has to span. The cabinet depth is the outside of the enclosure, which also holds the plugs, the cable bends and the PDUs behind the server.

NVIDIA DGX B300 User Guide (Introduction) and Service Manual (Rack Mount Kit Replacement, updated 30 April 2026); Dell PowerEdge XE7745 Technical Guide, Rev. A09, September 2026; Gigabyte's product page for the G494-SB4-AAP2; Supermicro's product pages for the SYS-422GA-NRT and SYS-522GA-NRT; all read 12 November 2026.

The rack mount kit of the DGX B300 extends lengthwise: "the distance between the posts ranges from 29 to 35 in (0.74-0.9 m)", says the Service Manual. The kit carries the system like a shelf, and its prongs enter square or round holes. For racks with C-channel posts the manual warns of "an obstruction that prevents the rack mount kit from being installed in the frontmost post"; a third pair of cage nuts is then needed. NVIDIA's three documents name no rack standard. The reference rack of the best-practices guide is 48U, 600 mm wide and 1,068 mm deep, without the rear-door heat exchanger.

Dell's rail for the XE7745 and the XE7740 fits 19-inch EIA-310-E four-post racks with square, unthreaded round or threaded round holes. Its range of post distances is in Dell's rail sizing and rack compatibility matrix, not in the technical guides. Supermicro's pages and datasheets give no rail range, and Gigabyte lists an L-shape rail kit without one. Where the maker prints no range, ask for it with the quote.

On the rack side, Schneider Electric's installation manual for the NetShelter SX 2nd Generation racks (TME24330C, 9/2026) sets the vertical mounting rails to 737 mm (29 in) at the factory, the lower end of the range of the DGX B300 kit, and adds: "Remove all equipment installed on the vertical mounting rails before performing any adjustments." Measure the post distance in the rack as it stands, because moving these rails later means taking the equipment off them first. The words "19-inch rack" do not settle it: the summary of EIA-310-D in the H100 guide gives the hole pattern and the widths and no depth.

We supply Supermicro, Gigabyte, ASUS, Dell and HPE servers per project; send us the rack model and its post distance, and we compare them with the rail range of the server we propose.

Weight, lifting and the load rating of the rack

NVIDIA DGX B300 User Guide (Introduction and Safety; package as height × width × length); Dell PowerEdge XE7745 Technical Guide Rev. A09 and XE7740 Technical Guide Rev. A04; Gigabyte's product page; Supermicro's product pages and datasheets; all read 12 November 2026.

Dell's weights are maximums "with all drives". Supermicro prints the same net and gross weight for a 4U and a 5U chassis with different packages, so the figure cannot be the weight of a server with eight cards; ask for the weight of the configured system.

Only Dell prints handling thresholds: two people from 40 lb, three from 70 lb, and "A lift is required to move systems weighing above 120lb/54.4kg." Both Dell servers exceed that at their maximum weight. NVIDIA gives no head count for the DGX B300, and the H100 guide asks for a server lift "rated for a minimum of 350 pounds", written for a system of 287.6 lb. A DGX B300 with power supplies weighs 370.38 lb, more than that minimum, so the lift has to be rated for the weight of the B300.

The Safety chapter of the User Guide requires the rack to be "anchored to an unmovable support to prevent it from tipping" and loaded from the bottom up, with the heaviest equipment lowest.

Schneider Electric's manual gives the 42U to 48U NetShelter SX 2nd Generation racks a static load of 1,818 kg, "The maximum weight the rack can hold while the leveling feet are lowered", and a dynamic load of 1,134 kg, the maximum "while rolling on its casters". NVIDIA's reference rack with four busbar DGX B300 systems weighs 1,122 kg. For the rack with two AC systems the guide prints a kilogram and a pound figure that do not match each other, so we do not use it.

Floor loading for GPU racks in a data centre

The static and dynamic loads above are ratings of the rack and say nothing about the floor. For the DGX B300, NVIDIA publishes no floor-loading figure: no load per square metre, no point load and no raised-floor rating. The best-practices guide names "Floor load calculations" only as a design consideration for rear-door heat exchangers.

The H100 guide states the principle: "all flooring structures (including subfloor structures and slabs wherever applicable) are engineered to support the combined weight of the equipment racks they must support", and the pathways from the loading dock carry "the combined weight of the equipment plus any conveyances used to move the equipment to the rack location". Its table of rack weights gives 650 lb (295 kg) for a rack with one DGX H100 and 1,500 lb (680 kg) with four, as "general estimates"; its point-load column is not defined on the page, so we do not reprint it.

We give no figure per square metre and no floor rating, because we verified none at a standard or a floor maker. The survey supplies the load side:

• the weight of the empty rack from its maker and the configured weight of every system in it, with PDUs and cabling
• the number and position of the rack's feet or castors
• the heaviest item that rolls over the route, which is the packed system on its conveyance

The rating side comes from the building: its structural documents, or the operator in a colocation hall, as our guide to colocation for GPU servers in the EU describes. Ask for it in writing for the rack position and for the route.

Delivery path from the loading dock to the rack position

The package sizes in the weight table are the figures for doors and lifts. The package of a DGX B300 measures 1,065 × 711 × 1,178 mm and weighs 207.6 kg in the AC version. NVIDIA publishes no door, ramp or lift dimensions for it and no service clearances in figures.

The H100 guide is more concrete: "The facility should have a loading dock or permit a liftgate equipped delivery vehicle", and without a dock "a hydraulic lift or ramp must be provided". It asks for a secure receiving room separate from the data hall and for aisles of at least 36 inches.

Measure the narrowest door, the car of the goods lift and its load rating, every ramp and threshold, and the space at each turn against the longest side of the package.

Power feeds, connectors and one outlet per power supply

The AC version of the DGX B300 runs on 200 to 240 V only and draws up to 16 A per outlet. It has twelve power supplies, "A separate AC cord is required for each system power supply", and it comes with twelve locking C19/C20 cords of 1,200 mm; the guide allows only these cords. The rack therefore needs twelve C19 outlets within reach of a 1,200 mm cord. The cords are rated at 20 A; NVIDIA's table gives 16 A per outlet, and 16 A is the maximum rating of C19 and C20 connectors under IEC 60320, so plan with 16 A.

In two places NVIDIA's documents print two figures each. The User Guide has "12 x 3.2 kW" in its physical table and "3.3 kW @ 200-240 V, 16 A, 50-60 Hz" per supply in its power table, on the same page. For two AC systems per rack, the summary of the best-practices guide asks for one 60 A three-phase circuit per utility source at 400 V or more, while its provisioning table lists 63 A for 400 V and 60 A for 380 V and 415 V. The loads behind these circuits are in our DGX B300 specifications.

Eight-GPU PCIe servers need fewer outlets. Dell's XE7745 and XE7740 have eight supply bays and C19 cords, Supermicro's SYS-422GA-NRT has four 3,200 W supplies and its SYS-522GA-NRT six of 2,700 W for 200 to 240 V only, and Gigabyte's G494-SB4-AAP2 has four 3,000 W supplies with the note "Power cords are not included with server packages". Count one outlet per supply. How the supplies are split over two feeds depends on the redundancy mode, which our article on PSU redundancy in GPU servers explains.

Inlet air, humidity and airflow direction

NVIDIA DGX B300 User Guide and "Data Center Best Practices with DGX B300" v1.0; Dell technical guides for the XE7745 and XE7740; Supermicro's and Gigabyte's product pages; ASHRAE TC 9.9 reference card, 2021 Equipment Thermal Guidelines (5th edition); all read 12 November 2026.

The humidity ranges differ, so name the document with every figure. The best-practices guide quotes class A2 as 20 to 80 % RH without naming an ASHRAE edition, while ASHRAE's 2021 reference card and Dell use the dew-point wording in the table. Dell lowers the maximum by 1 °C per 300 m above 900 m and limits some GPU configurations to 30 °C; the limits per server are in our comparison of GPU server inlet temperatures.

The best-practices guide also asks for an air filter rated at least MERV 13. The airflow direction of the DGX B300 is not stated in words in the three documents; the sentence about "front to rear airflow" stands in the H100 guide, so confirm the orientation with the installation partner.

Site survey checklist for a DGX B300 and an 8-GPU server

the documents named in the tables above; the column "Measure on site" is our checklist.

The DGX B300 comes without network cables or adapters. Uplinks, the management port and the acceptance test for PCIe servers are in our checklist for preparing a server room for a GPU server, and the questions for a card in a server you already run in adding a GPU to an existing rack server. Chassis sizes are compared in 4U and 8U GPU servers and in Supermicro, Gigabyte and ASUS eight-GPU servers.

Our AI servers page states a rack, power and airflow check before we quote, and the table is what that check needs. Write to us with the rows you can fill in, or to request@eurokommerz.at, and we answer with a configuration for that room. The DGX B300 is supplied per project: before we can quote, the distribution asks for the company, the project and the intended use, as buying a DGX B300 in the EU describes.

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