CWWK W680 NAS motherboard

[flobert]

Motherboard Features

• 8-layer white PCB
• Full protection (all USB, audio, and network interfaces)
• PCI-Ex16 signal supports automatic splitting into:
  • 2× Gen4x8 signals
  • 1× Gen8x8 signal

Processor

• Supports Intel 12th / 13th / 14th Gen LGA1700 desktop CPUs
• Notes:
  • vPro requires i5-1X500 or higher (F-series not supported)
  • Integrated graphics required for display output
  • 125W TDP CPUs supported by default
  • K-series CPUs not recommended
  • Recommended: i3-13500T and similar low-power CPUs for long-term use

Memory

• 4× U-DIMM DDR5 slots (Quad-channel, non-ECC)
• Supports ECC server memory error correction
• DDR5 default: 5600 MHz (12th Gen limited to 4800 MHz)
• Max per stick: 32 GB
• Max total: 128 GB

Storage

• 2× M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 ×4
• 1× M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 ×4
• 3× SFF-8643 (2 native, 1 via ASM1164 extension)

Network

• 1× MARVELL AQC113CS 10G RJ45 port
• 1× Intel i226-V 2.5G RJ45 port
• 1× Intel i226-LM2.5G RJ45 port (with vPro & remote management support)

Display

• Integrated graphics depends on CPU
• 2× HDMI 2.0 (4K @ 60Hz)
• 2× DP 1.4 (8K @ 60Hz)
• 1× USB-C (8K @ 60Hz)

Expansion

• 2× PCI-Ex16 slots (GPU / network / array card)
• 1× PCIe 5.0 ×16 (works as ×8 when two cards inserted)
• 2× PCIe 3.0 ×4 slots

Power Supply

• ATX 24-pin (motherboard power)
• 1× ATX 8-pin + 1× ATX 4-pin (CPU enhanced power)

Onboard Interfaces

• 2× vertical USB 2.0
• 1× ATX 8-pin (CPU power)
• 1× ATX 4-pin (CPU enhanced power)
• 1× LGA1700 CPU socket
• 4× DDR5 RAM slots
• 4× PCI-E splitter chips
• 2× M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 ×4
• 2× PCI-E ×16 slots
• 2× PCI-E ×4 slots
• Other: Speaker, Battery, LED, Audio, RGB, JCOM, TPM, Buzzer, GPIO
• 6× Fan power sockets
• 3× SFF-8643
• 1× M.2 Key CNVi WiFi
• 1× F_PANEL switch pin header

Rear I/O (10 Panels)

• 2× HDMI 2.0
• 2× DP 1.4a
• 1× 10G RJ45 port
• 2× 2.5G RJ45 ports
• 2× USB 3.2 Gen2 (Red, 10 Gbps)
• 2× USB 3.2 Gen2 (Blue, 10 Gbps)
• 2× USB 2.0 (Blue)
• 1× USB-C (USB 3.2 Gen2, 10 Gbps)
• Audio:
  • 1× Blue (Line-In)
  • 1× Green (Line-Out)
  • 1× Red (Mic-In)
• 1× GPIO button

Structure

• M-ATX form factor: 244 × 244 mm (9.6 × 9.6 in)
• Solid-state capacitor design

Operating System

• Microsoft Windows 10/11 64-bit
• Linux compatible
• EFI mode only

Link:

Changwang CWWK W680 NAS motherboard supports 12-bay server-grade SATA,

CWWK is committed to developing a reliable, secure, and customizable firewall or VPN appliance for network professionals and enthusiasts.

cwwk.net

 

[cesmith9999]

There is a (slightly) lesser board out there too. mostly missing one of the M.2 slots and it is based on the Q670 chipset and the 10GB is replaced by a 2.5GB. I am not certain that the $30 difference is worth stepping down.

StoneStorm Q670 - look it up on Amazon. both boards are there under the StoneStorm brand.

Chris

 

[Stovar]

Its a lovely looking bit of board, but its cwwk/topton. Just check out the cwwk mobo thread here, towards end few owners had possible capacitor or mobo failures just after a year.

In my opinion, if you want quality parts with quality components on the motherboard, bios updates and compatibility just spend the extra money on the Asus workstation w680 or if you can afford it the W880 motherboards, id suspect those workstation graded boards will use the highest level parts and should last the distance with any luck.

 

[zzz111]

W880 motherboards, id suspect those workstation graded boards will use the highest level parts and should last the distance with any luck.

I hope they make a W880. The Asus pcie slots arent the greatest for a nas. and a W880 nas would have amazing pcie connectivity. The idle power is higher than 12/13/14th gen. 265k's can be very cheap tho

 

[Stovar]

I hope they make a W880. The Asus pcie slots arent the greatest for a nas. and a W880 nas would have amazing pcie connectivity. The idle power is higher than 12/13/14th gen. 265k's can be very cheap tho

I was considering getting the W880 Asus board for building an new PC/Nas build, this is first time I have heard about an pci-e slots being problematic and also the idle power being higher then 12-14th gen cpus, can you share any information regarding this?

I was consider the Intel 235 or T variant cpu, this one is meant to be much more power efficient then 12th-14th gen cpus, but I can't see many articles or proof or real world test. I was looking at the ASUS Pro WS W880-ACE SE board also.

Edit: Its ok just spotted the W880 thread and your last post, yeah the Intel 235 is meant to be pretty good. I have actually posted other variants on that thread just below your post which may offer lower idle watts.

 

[kapone]

You guys are looking at $400-500 boards for a NAS...and are worried about power efficiency? What's wrong with you guys?

Just kidding, but unless your NAS plans call for lots of pcie/nvme connectivity, these type of boards may be overkill (and even then, there are other options that may be cheaper)? I mean, any power efficiency savings (excluding Europe...the power prices there are nuts) are being eaten up by the hardware cost.

p.s. A quad core CPU is overkill for a NAS.....

 

[Stovar]

You guys are looking at $400-500 boards for a NAS...and are worried about power efficiency? What's wrong with you guys?

Just kidding, but unless your NAS plans call for lots of pcie/nvme connectivity, these type of boards may be overkill (and even then, there are other options that may be cheaper)? I mean, any power efficiency savings (excluding Europe...the power prices there are nuts) are being eaten up by the hardware cost.

p.s. A quad core CPU is overkill for a NAS.....

Certainly do get what you are saying but imo these quick fix nas boxes, ie from miniforums, gmktec g9 nas, beelink mini mes, terramaster, lincstations. I regard them as light nas boxes.

I feel there poorly designed also and don't offer good stability, larger double sided nvme drives (4TB- 8TB) and lack ECC and limited Ram size, especially once you start adding multiple dockers and ZFS to the mix.

I suspect many are getting these $400-500 workstation boards for the ECC support and better bios, and more importantly the overall stability which is key to NAS.

You can sometimes find cheaper W680 workstation motherboards on ebay.

 

[zzz111]

Power cost in the US is on the rise too. Mines doubled over the past 4 years and is set to increase by the same amount over the next 3 years again. It’s starting to be worth it for me to shell out an extra $200 if it saves 2-400 over the 5-10 years I plan to own it now. I imagine others in the north east are also feeling the power increases the past few years. Real world pricing for w880 is hard to figure out tho as only the asus board seems available. My hope is that they don’t abandon the boards with almost no one wanting the system or at least they do production runs of the board so I can pick one up in a few years to swap out my z890 when nova lake gets released. I don’t think there’s gonna be many second hand boards tho maybe old new stock.

w880 and mini nas boxes are an entirely different system in terms of size and throughput. You can’t really do higher than 10gb for a network connection for those tiny boxes. Long term reliability is also somewhat linked to keeping components cool and mini boxes usually aren’t great for that. You also can’t sick multiple nvmes without some bottleneck (lanes, power, #of connections, etc). Built in sas/u.2 also save you a lot of power compared to AICs if you know you’re doing it anyway and it saves you from having to buy an AIC.

 

[cesmith9999]

I bought the w680 board. And I am fitting it out now. A few short psu cable issues to fix.

One fit issue is with the last slot, it is open ended. Because of the m.2 slots. You cannot put an x8 or x16 card in that slot.

2nd issue is that there was no manual with it. It would be nice to have a front panel diagram. I had to guess which pins were the 2 for power on. I will figure out the rest.

3rd. Proxmox used to 10GB adapter for vbr0. and all 3 nics were listed as down in "ip a" I had to switch to one of the 2.5gb nics for that interface to show as UP. making that change in /etc/network/interfaces. It still does not allow for a remote

still working on getting Proxmox running

Chris

 

[Alduin]

I bought the w680 board. And I am fitting it out now. A few short psu cable issues to fix.

One fit issue is with the last slot, it is open ended. But because of the m.2 slots. You cannot put an x8 or x16 card in that slot.

Chris

Could you test if you can enable ASPM successfully and reach deeper C-States (C6 or deeper)? You would be my hero.
The mainboard fits my bill perfectly, but as I am from Europe, I really need the power savings.

 

[Stovar]

Wish Cwwk used the newer W880 chipset rather then the older W680 chipset from years ago. The arrow lake/15th gen has 4 more pci-e lanes with the right cpu ie ultra 5 235 and better energy efficiency also.

Playing around with an dell micro optiplex atm with an Ultra 5 235T 35watter and its so lovely to see 15-25 watts in general surfing/YT watching, yet still have the power and speed of a more higher end type PC. Does boost to 40-60 watts with more load ie app loading or unraring etc.

This is with default hardware and just 1 nvme drive mind.

 

[etorix]

1× Gen8x8 signal

This board is WAY ahead of its time…

You guys are looking at $400-500 boards for a NAS...and are worried about power efficiency? What's wrong with you guys?

Obviously not looking in the right direction, that is Supermicro A2SDi-H-TF and -TP4F boards: 12 SATA in mini-ITX, RDIMM and very low power.
These days, many are running containers and/or VMs on top of their (True)NAS, hence the quest for CPU power; otherwise, I fully agree that W680/W880 is overkill for pure storage. (And for NVMe storage, go for EPYC 8000.)

 

[cesmith9999]

edits made to post above

Chris

 

[cesmith9999]

Right now, my main issue with this board is that in Proxmox, is the networking. right now I have to have all 3 interfaces connected to my switch. and I cannot get the gui to work on the vmbr0 bridge on a reliable basis.

I also do not see a way to disable the onboard networking ports in the BIOS on the system.

The first 8 SATA ports work as I have created an 8 disk ZFS pool. and the performance is acceptible.

I am trying to get the sever stable before I try out the ASPM. There is a menu where you can select the CState Limit. default is auto. but you can go all the way down to C State 10.

More to be added...

Chris

 

[cesmith9999]

Found the documentation.

畅网知识库

doc.x86pi.cn

畅网知识库

doc.x86pi.cn

Chris

 

[cesmith9999]

in my current configuration. I am drawing 90 watts.

I have 8 * 3TB SATA disks and an HBA installed <- this is most of the power.

I have 64 GB of ram and a Core(TM) i3-14100 installed.

My config is that i am going to have a proxmox/truenas vm configuration. With a total of 16 disks, 8 in an external sas enclosure.

Chris

 

[kimoincali]

The first 8 SATA ports work as I have created an 8 disk ZFS pool. and the performance is acceptible.

Did you happen to test the 3rd set of SATA ports that uses the ASM 1164? What speeds are you getting on the first 8?

 

[cesmith9999]

I have not. I can easily just move the sata connector from port 2 to port 3 to see if it works. I am getting normal speeds from what I expect from 8 SATA disks in a Raidz2 configuration

Chris

 

[kimoincali]

I have not. I can easily just move the sata connector from port 2 to port 3 to see if it works. I am getting normal speeds from what I expect from 8 SATA disks in a Raidz2 configuration

Chris

If it's no trouble that would be appreciated. If not, no worries.

I'm looking at this board to consolidate 3 systems into 1. I have 2 older unraid servers ( ThinkServer TS140 with Intel Xeon E3-1245 v3 & Supermicro X9SCM with Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2) and a windows machine running Blue Iris (HP box with Intel Core i3-10100 CPU). This mobo is ticking lots of the boxes. I'd continue to use unraid with it.

 

[cesmith9999]

There are 2 internal usb ports.

The 3rd sata port works in proxmox. No discernible difference in performance.

Chris