1 HN user recommended this demo2 months2023–2025score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Pointed to as a look at Hetzner's unusual semi-custom server hardware and cooling.
Der8auer tours Hetzner's test lab and shows a custom AM5 server motherboard with the CPU socket rotated 90 degrees, built for rack airflow in their AX52 servers.
“The second is especially interesting as it demonstrates Hetzner's unique semi-custom hardware.” (HN, 2025)
There's some videos out there showing off their custom motherboards, it's an odd mixture of standard-ish consumer ATX but stripped down to the absolute bare essentials and with some components rearranged for better airflow in racks chassis they also build themselves: [this video] Another video showing the custom racks and other infrastructure: [link]
Custom stripped-down motherboards arranged for rack airflow
Der8auer did some similar videos a few years ago, but in English: [link] [this video] The second is especially interesting as it demonstrates Hetzner's unique semi-custom hardware.
Hetzner also do some crazy-cool stuff, especially around the 7950X3D, cooling, AM5 etc. ( [this video] ). They also do some amazing stuff with ARM (their cloud offering is really solid for this).
Hetzner is buying ASUS consumer AM5 motherboards, but with the whole CPU + memory block rotated so that the memory sticks are horizontal instead of vertical for better airflow: [this video]
ASUS AM5 boards with rotated CPU and memory block for airflow
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