ASRock WC621D8A-2T & WC621D8A-NL Boards

[Roy68]

I have one of these boards purchased recently off ebay for a great price.

Please use this thread to post your experiences on which Scalable CPUs (ie. ES,QS, etc) work and don't work with this board..

I'm currnently using 12 core W-3235 with no issues, but would like more cores at some point when prices come down a bit.

 

[juw]

Can confirm Xeon 8259CL is working out of the box.

 

[Irishdave]

Can confirm Xeon 8259CL is working out of the box.

Hi hope you dont mind can you confirm which motherboard is working out of the box with 8259cl as am looking for one for testing,We normally outsource testing cpu's but have decided to do inhouse to save ...thanks in advance

 

[Roy68]

Can confirm Xeon 8259CL is working out of the box.

Good to know, I think this 8259CL processor is listed at 210W. But motherboard manual states supported: 'Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors (Max 205W) and Intel® Xeon® W Processor (MAX 255W)'.
I wonder if this means we can ignore the 205W power limit on scalables? Seems ridiculous since W processors supported up to 255W.

 

[RolloZ170]

I wonder if this means we can ignore the 205W power limit on scalables? Seems ridiculous since W processors supported up to 255W.

supermicro X11SPL and X11SPM newer BIOS have limit max. 165W
normal supermicro/Dell/HP mboards with "max. 205W" do not have TDP limit but support only TDC=228A
8259CL TDP=210W, TDC=255A
It's not the TDP that prevents from starting.
(on X11SPL and X11SPM you need VRM mod and BIOS mod. to get 8259CL working)

 

[Roy68]

supermicro X11SPL and X11SPM newer BIOS have limit max. 165W
normal supermicro/Dell/HP mboards with "max. 205W" do not have TDP limit but support only TDC=228A
8259CL TDP=210W, TDC=255A
It's not the TDP that prevents from starting.
(on X11SPL and X11SPM you need VRM mod and BIOS mod. to get 8259CL working)

Thanks, any idea what TDC limit is on these WC621D8A boards? Must be quite a bit higher to handle 3175X with 28 unlocked cores and base freq 3.1GHz

 

[Roy68]

Also there's a ton of overclocking options in bios, haven't touched any of it since I have no experience of that. Is it a waste of time messing with these with a locked CPU?

 

[Tarrega]

Hello, Is anyone able to confirm please whether or not these Asrock WC621D8A motherboards work with 6 DIMMs installed?

I ask because there is information that 6 DIMMs (or 12 if the board supports it) is required to achieve full memory bandwidth with these scalable Xeon CPUs, whereas 8 DIMMs for instance only achieves 35% (!) and 4 DIMMs 67%, apparently.

However, the WC621D8A manual only mentions 1, 2, 4 and 8 DIMM options, not 6.

I'm hoping this is a documentation error as the manual for a similar board - the Asrock EP2C622D16-2T - does mention 6 DIMMs, although that's a dual CPU board.

 

[RolloZ170]

Is anyone able to confirm please whether or not these Asrock WC621D8A motherboards work with 6 DIMMs installed?

6 DIMMs works, best you can do.
the 2 add. inner slots (A2,D2) are spare and should only be populated if you need more memory,
or suitable for some PMEM configs.

I'm hoping this is a documentation error

sure, funny isn't it ?

 

[RolloZ170]

I ask because there is information that 6 DIMMs (or 12 if the board supports it) is required to achieve full memory bandwidth with these scalable Xeon CPUs, whereas 8 DIMMs for instance only achieves 35%

channel A and D have two DIMM Slots. A1,A2,D1,D2
you can populate here 4x 16GB 1Rank DIMMs and and in the other single Slots 32GB 2Rank DIMMs, this is also balanced 6 channel configuration.

 

[Tarrega]

channel A and D have two DIMM Slots. A1,A2,D1,D2
you can populate here 16GB 1Rank DIMMs and and in the other single Slots 32GB 2Rank DIMMs, this is also balanced 6 channel configuration.

Thanks for the reply. Am I to take it that a 6 DIMM config doesn't work with your board?

 

[RolloZ170]

Thanks for the reply. Am I to take it that a 6 DIMM config doesn't work with your board?

the manual of WC621 and EPC621 is completely nonsense.
A1,B1,C1 - D1,E1,F1
6 DIMMs is best you can do.

" the 2 add. inner slots (A2,D2) are spare and should only be populated if you need more memory, "

 

[Tarrega]

the manual of WC621 and EPC621 is completely nonsense.
A1,B1,C1 - D1,E1,F1
6 DIMMs is best you can do.

Roger that, thanks.

Do you think an 8272CL is likely to work in this motherboard? I've read elsewhere your info about these CL 2nd gen scalable Xeons needing 255A TDC.

Edit: Just re-read the comment above about the 8259CL working, so presumably the answer is Yes for the 8272CL too...

 

[RolloZ170]

Do you think an 8272CL is likely to work in this motherboard? I've read elsewhere your info about these CL 2nd gen scalable Xeons needing 255A TDC

sure 8272CL works too,same for 8275CL, 8222CL.
they don't need 255A. it is the TDC(thermal design current) a way to make these custom OEMs incompatible.
ASRock C621 (except the WC621xxx) have NOT stronger VRM than supermicro.

 

[Tarrega]

they don't need 255A. it is the TDC(thermal design current) a way to make these custom OEMs incompatible.

Valuable insight, thanks.

One more thing. I've seen the 8272CL advertised on ebay as Unlocked in one listing, but not in any other listings or elsewhere. Is this likely true? and if so does that apply to all Xeon CL 2nd gen chips or even OEM chips in general?

 

[Roy68]

Thanks for the reply. Am I to take it that a 6 DIMM config doesn't work with your board?

6 x DIMM is the best configuration to give balanced hexatruple channel mode. See my Bios pic below. RolloZ170 is correct that the memory explanation in manual is crap.

 

[Roy68]

6 x DIMM is the best configuration to give balanced hexatruple channel mode. See my Bios pic below. RolloZ170 is correct that the memory explanation in manual is crap.

But it took me a couple of days before all channels worked correctly, I think there was some dirt/grease somewhere either in CPU socket, CPU pins or memory/memory socket, not sure which. Anyway I drenched everything with 99.9% isopropyl alchohol + air duster, and no issues since.

 

[Tarrega]

6 x DIMM is the best configuration to give balanced hexatruple channel mode. See my Bios pic below. RolloZ170 is correct that the memory explanation in manual is crap.

Thanks for the confirmation. I wonder how many Asrock Rack customers out there have under-performing memory configs, esp. if that 37% benchmark for the 8-DIMM config applies. Did you get a good deal on the DRAM too may I ask?

 

[Tarrega]

But it took me a couple of days before all channels worked correctly, I think there was some dirt/grease somewhere either in CPU socket, CPU pins or memory/memory socket, not sure which. Anyway I drenched everything with 99.9% isopropyl alchohol + air duster, and no issues since.

Helpful. Maybe not surprising if the m/b has been in storage for a few years.

 

[Roy68]

Thanks for the confirmation. I wonder how many Asrock Rack customers out there have under-performing memory configs, esp. if that 37% benchmark for the 8-DIMM config applies. Did you get a good deal on the DRAM too may I ask?

Yes there's quite a few deals on Fleabay, I got 6 sticks 2666 Micron ECC for £85 GBP. The faster 2933 memory (which Scalable Gen 2 supports) is quite a bit more expensive, but if you see a deal then buy that. I think the difference in performance is marginal at best. Last time I ugraded memory on my old LGA2011 V2 board from 1600 to 1866 DDR3, in my use case I saw absolutely no difference.