I'm looking into building a decent home workstation that double-functions as home server, running 24/7, accessible and managable through vpn. I'm planning to run virtual machines on it, although undecided yet what type, likely a proxmox hypervisor (type 1). Since I'm regularly abroad and since my place regularly suffers from power cuts, I want to have a machine-level (rather than OS-level) managing solution available to be able to restart it remotely when necessary. I firstly presumed this boiled down to must for IPMI, but then I came across Intel's vPro's AMT. It is not clear to me what this allows for, however, and how exactly it differs from IPMI. For one, I understand it does not use its own ethernet port, rather it seems to utilize some pin(s) on ordinary ports. I also understand that vPro is more business oriented from reading Intel's web pages and reading several other forums. But, what exactly does that mean? It is bugging me that I can't find anything concrete about this solution, rather most information I come across is marketing material. If vPro would allow me to remotely monitor and (re)start my workstation, then it would have my preference over IPMI simply because it allows for a cheaper and more inclusive workstation-oriented motherboard.
In particular, I'm considering the Xeon W-1290P processor for this build, because it offers sufficient performance, seems to idle at very low power (https://www.servethehome.com/intel-xeon-w-1290p-benchmarks-and-review-a-top-end-sku/3/), quick sync for hardware acceleration (Intel in general), and I found a good deal for it. I preferably also stick to a mATX form factor, partially related to me liking the Node 804 case, but also because I do not intend to equip it with multiple extension cards in the future (perhaps only a single GPU). With its W480 chipset and a desire for IPMI, this does not leave a lot of options: the Asrock Rack W480D4U or the SuperMicro X12SCZ-F or X12SCZ-TLN4F, which cost an arm and a leg (especially the latter for offering 10GBe over 1GBe). Instead, for example the GIGABYTE W480M Vision W does not offer IPMI, but supports vPro, comes at less than half the cost and includes many additional peripherals (including 2.5GBe, audio ports, display ports and USB 3.2, optical S/PDIF). Would its support of vPro serve my purpose of remote management?
In particular, I'm considering the Xeon W-1290P processor for this build, because it offers sufficient performance, seems to idle at very low power (https://www.servethehome.com/intel-xeon-w-1290p-benchmarks-and-review-a-top-end-sku/3/), quick sync for hardware acceleration (Intel in general), and I found a good deal for it. I preferably also stick to a mATX form factor, partially related to me liking the Node 804 case, but also because I do not intend to equip it with multiple extension cards in the future (perhaps only a single GPU). With its W480 chipset and a desire for IPMI, this does not leave a lot of options: the Asrock Rack W480D4U or the SuperMicro X12SCZ-F or X12SCZ-TLN4F, which cost an arm and a leg (especially the latter for offering 10GBe over 1GBe). Instead, for example the GIGABYTE W480M Vision W does not offer IPMI, but supports vPro, comes at less than half the cost and includes many additional peripherals (including 2.5GBe, audio ports, display ports and USB 3.2, optical S/PDIF). Would its support of vPro serve my purpose of remote management?