Supermicro X9SCL+-F Review

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odditory

Moderator
Dec 23, 2010
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Patrick, thanks for the X9SCL+-F review

You pointed out the main diff from the X9SCM-F being that the X9SCL+-F has identical Intel Nics whereas the X9SCM-F did not. That's significant since I've heard some complaints about the X9SCM-F not being able to bond/team its Nics since they're different. That also got rectified on the X9SCM-iiF (rev2 X9SCM-F), which does have identical Intel nics.

So the question for me is what's the diff between this X9SCL+-F and the X9SCM-iiF. The only thing that stands out is the missing fourth PCIe slot on the X9SCL+-F that is present on the X9SCM-iiF. I'm guessing that the mapping of the PCIe lanes is different - and as the review discussed there are only 16 PCie lanes off the CPU to go around, which on a sidenote kind of bugs me as insufficient - sure Intel didn't want to cannibalize E5 sales with an E3 that was too fully featured, but its a pretty big gap between 16 lanes and 40 -- shouldn't E3 be at least 24? I realize there are probably architectural and technical explanations for it that I'm not factoring but nevertheless its 2012, almost 2013 here.

Anyway, back to my original point, it's curious why Supermicro has a habit of fragmenting their product lines with so many minute variations of basically the same board, you do wonder about the rationale behind it.
 
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supermacro

Member
Aug 31, 2012
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Having 2 different NICs on X9SCM-F tends to switch with each other (eth0 becomes eth1 and vice versa) in Linux environment and I think Supermicro was aware of this thus introducing with X9SCM-iiF with two of the same NICs.

The only major difference now is that X9SCM-F has two SATA3 ports (all drives are now SATA3 so you can take advantage of 6gpbs) and X9SCL+-F does not (only 6 SATA2).
 
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cactus

Moderator
Jan 25, 2011
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CA
The SATAIII come from the C204 chipset on the X9SCM-F vs the C202 on the X9SCL+-F. Browsing specs, I dont see a physical reason for the lack of the PCI-E 4x electrical 8x physical on the C202 boards.

Edit: I am kind of interested in the X9SAE-V. Adds AMT, something I have be annoyed the Asus P8(B|C) WS doesn't have.
 
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coolrunnings82

Active Member
Mar 26, 2012
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I'm also waiting for the X9SAE-V. I have a customer who doesn't want to go the Asus route after reading all the dismal reviews of their offerings in the C216 chipset range. Anyone know if it's out yet or when it will be out? Can't find any vendors with it...
 

survive

New Member
Apr 19, 2012
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Hi guys,

I believe Jeggs101 is correct, the C202 chipset has 4 fewer PCI-e lanes than the C204.

-Will