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.
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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