Alternatives to Asus-W680

[guilly]

Hello,

Looking at building a homelab server. Before I pull the trigger on this board I would like some input / suggestions on alternatives. My intent is to build one proxmox server to host the following:

Details on anticipated workloads

• K8 cluster (3 node + 1 master)
  • Plex/Jelly Fin
  • Frigate
  • HomeAssistant
  • PiHole
• TrueNas (May separate later on)
• Windows O/S for gaming
  • Nvidia 2080 / 3080

PCI Required

• 16x PCI (GPU)
• 8x PCI (HBA for TrueNAS)
• 4x PCI (10Gbps card)

I think this is all I need but not 100% ?

Storage

• 5 x 8TB SAS or SATA drives (Plex / Frigate)
• 2 x 1TB m2 (VM's)

Memory

• 64GB would be plenty to start. I'm not opposed to going ECC vs not.

Any input is appreciated. I'm willing to go server grade board, I will be rack mounting this server just looking at not wasting $$ if not necessary. Obviously keeping in mind power consumption as it will be running 24/7.

 

[zir_blazer]

There are not many alternatives in the realm of LGA 1700 with BMC and ECC. It is either W680 Chipset or R680E (For embedded/industrial. About the same than W680 but with no overclock), and at that point your only viable choices are either the ASUS W680, the AsRock Industrials (No BMC) or the AsRock Racks (ASpeed BMC). It is either an AsRock Industrial IMB-X1714, AsRock Industrial IMB-X1316-10G, or AsRock Rack W680D4U-2L2T/G5, and from those only the X1714 fits your PCIe Slots requeriments. AsRock Rack has a W680 WS board which would also fit the PCIe Slots requeriment but has no BMC.

 

[guilly]

Thanks for the input. Seems those boards are more expansive then the Asus so not sure it's worth it. IPMI / BMC isn't a huge issue for me to be honest. ECC I feel like is probably wroth it but even then, I back up my personal information to cloud accounts. IF ever I had storage corruption I would be at risk of losing my plex library.

Not sure if that opens up options ?

 

[JanR]

What about the SuperMicro X13SAE-F?

It does not give you 16+8 lanes but 8+8 and addional x4 slots, together with three M2 slots (one CPU, two chipset).

 

[guilly]

What about the SuperMicro X13SAE-F?

It does not give you 16+8 lanes but 8+8 and addional x4 slots, together with three M2 slots (one CPU, two chipset).

Not sure I see the advantage over the Asus w680-Ace ? It's more then double the cost.

 

[JanR]

It's more then double the cost.

Hmm... at least here in Germany the two boards cost more or less the same according to "geizhals" - that's why I mentioned that board (it runs perfect in my system at work and also here at home (with no BMC)).

 

[Joss]

One board currently on my list is the ASRock Rack W680 WS, which doesn't seem to be released yet… announced only.

https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=W680 WS#Specifications

There's no online manual yet, but these are some of the specs:

• ATX, W680, ECC DDR5 (128 GB max), LGA 1700 (12th–14th gen)
• PCIe 5.0 x16 (CPU, switches to x8 if 2nd 5.0 slot is used)
• PCIe 5.0 x8 (CPU, x8 physical open)
• PCIe 4.0 x4 (CPU, x8 physical open)
• PCIe 4.0 x4 (PCH, x4 physical open)
• 2 * M.2 NVMe gen4 x4 (PCH)
• 8 * SATA (native, 2 * PCIe 3.0 x2)
• 6 * SATA (chipsets, 3 * ASM1061 with each 2 * SATA from PCIe 3.0 x1)
• 4 * 1 GbE RJ45 (Intel i210)
• VGA, HDMI, DP
• 2 * USB 3.2 gen1 header / only one USB 2.0 header /
• 7 * PWM fan headers

One of the main differences to the Asus board is that the four CPU-direct PCIe 4.0 lanes are not available as a gen4 M.2 slot, but over a PCIe slot, and that there are no PCIe 3.0 slots & no WiFi; instead you get 14 on-board SATA ports, 8 of them native. The other four PCIe 4.0 lanes (PCH), which are routed to the 4i SlimSAS connector on the Asus board, are here available as an additional PCIe 4.0 x4 slot.

Another very nice W680 board by ASRock Rack seems to be the W680D4U (Micro ATX), which solves the problem of expansion options vs. smaller form factor using several OCuLink connectors: https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=W680D4U#Specifications

 

[zir_blazer]

One board currently on my list is the ASRock Rack W680 WS, which doesn't seem to be released yet… announced only.

https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=W680 WS#Specifications

That board lacks a BMC thus is not considered Server, which the ASUS W680 and the other AsRock Racks do have.
If you paid attention to the PCB, you would see the solder spots for such a chip. There is another board based on the same PCB with that populated, the EC266D4-4L. It is based on a C266 Chipset and has no video outputs (Discounting VGA from BMC). Also, I have no idea whenever these boards can even POST with a regular Core series, since the CPU Support List only mentions Xeon E 2400 series and the Pentium G7400, nothing else. Sadly, AsRock Rack doesn't have a true viable Server/Workstation hybrid ATX sized, cause neither the W680 WS nor the C266 are one-size-fits-all.

The W680D4U-2L2T/G5 is plainly superior to the W680D4U. Main PCIe 16x slot is 5.0 instead of 4.0. Only advantage of the latter is that it can do 8x/8x bifurcation with the other slot whereas the PCIe 5.0 does not.

 

[Joss]

^ I know. After all, it's called "WS" for "workstation". But OP @guilly wrote above that "IPMI / BMC isn't a huge issue" for them, so I figured I could post about it, since it matches the PCIe requirements: x16, x8, x4, all of them CPU-direct. (Though the x16 does switch to x8, if you use the x8 slot… but that's to be expected with W680 boards, I believe.)

EDIT: as for the W680D4U vs. W680D4U-2L2T/G5, it depends on what you want; personally, I'd be content with PCIe 4.0; don't need 10GbE RJ45 either, since I'd rather go for a dual SFP+ card. As for bifurcation, I'm not sure… maybe it might also be possible to bifurcate the single x16 slot to x8/x8 or quad x4 in BIOS for use with a PCIe riser/splitter. (I once contacted ASRock regarding the Deep Mini ITX board W680D4ID-2T, and they answered that this board's single x16 slot can be bifurcated in the BIOS.)