Intel C202, C204, C206 Xeon E3 Bromolow Motherboards Thread

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XZed

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Feb 3, 2011
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Hadn't expected that :( (unless i'm wrong, i could understand, from Patrick's reviews, that NF200 use means no VT-d ?)...
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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Hadn't expected that :( (unless i'm wrong, i could understand, from Patrick's reviews, that NF200 use means no VT-d ?)...
So the issue with the NF200 is that PCIe lanes/slots that sit behind the NF200 have issues with VT-d. On the plus side, there is still a lot you can do without VT-d so it is not the biggest issue out there. Right now there is always the option to move to a higher-end platform or wait for the next gen if one needs more PCIe lanes.
 

XZed

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Feb 3, 2011
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Right now there is always the option to move to a higher-end platform or wait for the next gen if one needs more PCIe lanes.
Do you mean : move to X58 now or wait for X79 later ?

(Does it make sense to move to oldest X58 now ?)

Thank you
 

cscholz

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Apr 27, 2011
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Hello everyone,

I wrote a long text but the forum swallowed it. Sigh.

The TL;DR was: I own a P8BWS with a E3 1275, 16G ECC RAM and a GTX 580. Does anyone want me to test anything specific?
 

XZed

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Feb 3, 2011
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Hello everyone,

I wrote a long text but the forum swallowed it. Sigh.

The TL;DR was: I own a P8BWS with a E3 1275, 16G ECC RAM and a GTX 580. Does anyone want me to test anything specific?
Thank you very much to purpose it :) !

Will think about it but right now : which OS(es) ?

Any tests with VT-d ?

Thank you very much
 

nitrobass24

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Dec 26, 2010
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Do you mean : move to X58 now or wait for X79 later ?

(Does it make sense to move to oldest X58 now ?)

Thank you
If you need more PCIe lanes for vt-d than Bromolow provides than right now x58 is your only option until x79 is released.
 

dpante1s

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Apr 12, 2011
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Hello everyone,

I wrote a long text but the forum swallowed it. Sigh.

The TL;DR was: I own a P8BWS with a E3 1275, 16G ECC RAM and a GTX 580. Does anyone want me to test anything specific?
I would like to see the E3 1275 running in a P67 board but you already have a C206 board which supports Intel Xeon E3 processors
 

Patrick

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Correct, X58 (at least officially) does not support ECC.
AFAIK, X38 was the last desktop chipset to support ECC.
Well... if you look at the Tylersburg chipset (such as in the Supermicro X8ST3-F) it is really the workstation version of the X58 and with a W3500, W3600 or the E5500/ E5600 CPUs one gets ECC. Big difference between that platform and the Intel 5500/5520 platforms is that the latter supports registered ECC DIMMs.
 

ChillyPenguin

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Apr 27, 2011
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Asus P8B WS and ESXI Vt-d (or lack there of)

Hello everyone,

I wrote a long text but the forum swallowed it. Sigh.

The TL;DR was: I own a P8BWS with a E3 1275, 16G ECC RAM and a GTX 580. Does anyone want me to test anything specific?
I have a P8B Ws and there is no option in the BIOS to turn VT-d on. As near as I can tell, it is disabled, or does not function. ESXi reports that the host is not capable of passthrough. I will be returning the board and CPU in favor of a X9SCM-F and a E3-1230 (currently running a 1235).

I contacted ASUS and was on the phone with Level 2 for about 30 minutes and after explaining what VT-d is, I was told to install Server 2008 and use Hyper V. If someone is interested, it looks like the ASUS server boards do have the option to turn VT-d on in their BIOS, though they lack some of the nice features of the P8B WS, most notably USB 3.0.
 

XZed

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Feb 3, 2011
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If you need more PCIe lanes for vt-d than Bromolow provides than right now x58 is your only option until x79 is released.
No, you would have to get LGA1366 Xeons
Thank you !

I have a P8B Ws and there is no option in the BIOS to turn VT-d on. As near as I can tell, it is disabled, or does not function. ESXi reports that the host is not capable of passthrough....[....]....it looks like the ASUS server boards do have the option to turn VT-d on in their BIOS, though they lack some of the nice features of the P8B WS, most notably USB 3.0.
Finally, does it have or not ?

I hope, Asus didn't get confused with :

"First off, it works a bit differently in Hyper-V, but you can still expose raw disks and RAID volumes to Hyper-V virtual machines, and this does not require Intel VT-d"
Hyper-V Pass-Through
 

rj123456

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Apr 21, 2011
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I'm very seriously considering building a Windows 2008 Server system with this configuration. Would love to know if this will work.

Hello everyone,

I wrote a long text but the forum swallowed it. Sigh.

The TL;DR was: I own a P8BWS with a E3 1275, 16G ECC RAM and a GTX 580. Does anyone want me to test anything specific?
 

nitrobass24

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Dec 26, 2010
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I'm very seriously considering building a Windows 2008 Server system with this configuration. Would love to know if this will work.
Why wouldnt it work? You dont needt VT-d with Server2008/Hyper-v because Hyper-v doesnt support VT-d. It does Volume passthrough, not Controller passthrough.
 

cscholz

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Apr 27, 2011
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I have a P8B Ws and there is no option in the BIOS to turn VT-d on. As near as I can tell, it is disabled, or does not function.
There is an option for "Intel Virtualization Technology" in the Advanced menus, which should mean VT-x. No explicit VT-d. I could check and see if I can find a VSphere DVD somewhere - but since you already tried it might not be worth the effort.

VT was off by default, you DID enable it, right? =)

General update: I installed the system and moved a copy of my old Win 7 installation (from a H57 board) over. Installed a few drivers, works well so far and the GTX 580 runs in x16:2.0 mode as expected.
 

nitrobass24

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Dec 26, 2010
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There is an option for "Intel Virtualization Technology" in the Advanced menus, which should mean VT-x. No explicit VT-d. I could check and see if I can find a VSphere DVD somewhere - but since you already tried it might not be worth the effort.
Intel Virtualization Technology = VT-x

The P8B WS does not support vt-d and is not advertised as such. Dont waste your time testing vsphere.