LGA 1700 Alder Lake "Servers"

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Kiririn

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Apr 7, 2022
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Can't wait for one of these boards to actually become available to purchase for an average consumer (and/or for DDR5 ECC RAM to be possible to buy)

Some other ones that I haven't seen mentioned:
MW34-SP0 (rev. 1.0) | Server Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global (IPMI with custom fan curve support, unlike supermicro X13SAE-F, from what I can see only non-F has proper fan control)
ASRock Industrial - IMB-X1712 (PS/2 header is nice to see as there is no alternative for proper ps/2 keyboard input)
 
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rootshell

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Jan 10, 2021
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That Gigabyte looks interesting. An additional M.2 slot (4 total) and RAM is oriented for front-to-back air flow for server use... vs the SM. How bad is their IPMI software? Guessing not at the SM level?

Also wondering if going with a DDR4 ECC MB makes sense given no DDR5 ECC available... and even at what cost when available... and what the real world perf difference would be.

PCIe use on this W680 platform is going to be tight for AICs. That's the one thing that has me second guessing myself. I need an HBA, I need 10-100Gbps NIC. That leaves me with what? A PCIev3 x4 on most of these boards? Do I need a GPU AIC is the question. Hmmm.
 
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Kiririn

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Apr 7, 2022
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rootshell said:
That Gigabyte looks interesting. An additional M.2 slot (4 total) and RAM is oriented for front-to-back air flow for server use... vs the SM. How bad is their IPMI software? Guessing not at the SM level?
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The IPMI looks impressive, lots of screenshots here https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/server_manual_mgt_console_user_guide_ami_v1.x.pdf. It seems to be real IPMI, unlike e.g. ASUS Control Center Express RTL8117

Nothing jumps out at me as missing compared to SM, and the fan control looks way better than SM's 4 presets with no customisation:




Bigger question for me is Gigabyte reliability, my track record with their consumer gear is poor to say the least.

Using a supermicro board in my desktop PC has been a breath of fresh air in terms of stability, I don't want to give that up...

rootshell said:
Also wondering if going with a DDR4 ECC MB makes sense given no DDR5 ECC available... and even at what cost when available... and what the real world perf difference would be.
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Wondering the same. It seems DDR4 ECC modules need overclocked a fair bit to match the average consumer DDR4 modules. The gap between gaming-oriented DDR4 and DDR5 is not big, but the gap between standard DDR4-3200 and DDR5-4800 is reasonably large
 
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Stephan

Stephan

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@Kiririn Anecdotally, what kind of stability issues with Gigabyte did you experience?

That Gigabyte board is my favorite so far. I like the well-hung DDR4, because my gut says it will be 1-2 years before you can really trust DDR5 UDIMM ECCs. So conservative choice. Good modern Aspeed 2600 28nm IPMI. Can't find wattage of that chip. OpenBMC gurus say datasheet is under NDA. No power guzzling 10 Gbps solution is a plus for me, because will put in a Mellanox. 2.5 Gbps will be good enough for management access fallback. Alot of m.2 slots, two PCIe x8, one x4 from chipset. Best of all the power envelope, which should go from 10 to 250 watts with matching performance. Ice Lake Xeons idle much higher.
 
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unwind-protect

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I dunno. I still like the ASRock best. One more PCIe slot, DDR4 and I even have use for a PCI slot. Just wish it had 10 Gbit/sec.

Not entirely convinced I should move my server to this platform. 128 GB limit, no 10 Gb - I could still pick a dual processor platform. But the single core speed is so tempting.
 
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Weapon

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Oct 19, 2013
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unwind-protect said:
I dunno. I still like the ASRock best. One more PCIe slot, DDR4 and I even have use for a PCI slot. Just wish it had 10 Gbit/sec.

Not entirely convinced I should move my server to this platform. 128 GB limit, no 10 Gb - I could still pick a dual processor platform. But the single core speed is so tempting.
Click to expand...
where do you see DDR4?
 
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Kiririn

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Apr 7, 2022
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Stephan said:
@Kiririn Anecdotally, what kind of stability issues with Gigabyte did you experience?

That Gigabyte board is my favorite so far. I like the well-hung DDR4, because my gut says it will be 1-2 years before you can really trust DDR5 UDIMM ECCs. So conservative choice. Good modern Aspeed 2600 28nm IPMI. Can't find wattage of that chip. OpenBMC gurus say datasheet is under NDA. No power guzzling 10 Gbps solution is a plus for me, because will put in a Mellanox. 2.5 Gbps will be good enough for management access fallback. Alot of m.2 slots, two PCIe x8, one x4 from chipset. Best of all the power envelope, which should go from 10 to 250 watts with matching performance. Ice Lake Xeons idle much higher.
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Am increasingly leaning towards the Gigabyte as well. It is nice to see an Aspeed IPMI that takes advantage of the fancy fan control the chip is capable of, rather than hamstringing it with presets as Supermicro do.

Some of the issues i've run into with gigabyte:

970A-UD3P: Noisy USB with high TDP CPU causing various issues and making USB audio unusable. Chance of boot loop requiring hard power cycle on resume from S3.
J1800N-D2H: Issues with HDMI output and USB that varied between BIOS releases
890GPA-UD3H: Some overclocking protection that 'helpfully' auto reset BIOS to defaults randomly triggered on power on, even when not overclocked. Random instability in normal use despite passing stress/memory tests

I'm still willing to consider them due to anecdotal positive experiences with their Intel boards - these negative experiences were with AMD and a known-problematic SoC Celeron
 
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apnar

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Mar 5, 2011
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I still haven't seen a board that I really like. I built a (temp) system around the consumer Asus Prime Z690-P and none of these new W680 boards have as good of IO options in my mind. That board has:

3x PCIe 4.0 x4 M2 (one direct from processor)

1 x PCIe 5 x16 (off processor)
1 x PCIe 4.0 x4 (in x16 slot)
2 x PCIe 3.0 x4 (in x16 slot)
1 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slot

I'd like the same config with ECC and IPMI (and maybe another 5 x16 slot that allows splitting the existing one into two x8) but can't find a board that does it yet.
 
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Stephan

Stephan

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RolloZ170 said:
trust DDR5 ? please elaborate !
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I am saying there will be interop issues with Intel platform bringup code which includes DDR5 training. Some modules working good, some not. Also Linux kernel support for EDAC, which transfers hardware error report via kernel into userland, needs at least 1 year to mature. Good if you want to play beta-tester but I am too old for that. I am also slightly suspicious of durability of first-gen voltage regulation being put on each DIMM.

Drawback of that Gigabyte board seems to be there is no way to adjust multiplier, voltage and, worst of all, TDP in BIOS. I researched 12900K air coolers yesterday and even with Noctua D15S and be quiet Dark Rock Pro 4, running below 95 deg C during worst-case stresstest is impossible. If BIOS does not have the options only chance is then fiddle with MSR in Linux to bring down TDP so your aircooler can keep up without throttling. Or just run into 100 deg C thermal limit and let the chip throttle TDP itself?

Saw a guy report on Reddit yesterday that he took the top lid off and temps dropped 5-10 deg C so overall case ventilation design must be well engineered by self-builders. If Gigabyte IPMI on this board is indeed flexible with fan curves, this will be very very handy. I.e. to ramp backside fan more aggressively.
 
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Ivan Dimitrov

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Stephan said:
@Kiririn Anecdotally, what kind of stability issues with Gigabyte did you experience?

That Gigabyte board is my favorite so far.
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Yeah, the gigabyte looks really good and well balanced. I am not sure for the DDR5 reliability but the price will for sure take a few years to become reasonable.
The only benefit I can see for DDR5 is that it can potentially go to 256GB in the future. Although it is not currently supported. But even if possible down the line it will take even more years for 64GB DDR5 UDIMMs to become reasonably priced. At this point the socket 1800 will be out, most likely :)
 
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Weapon

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Oct 19, 2013
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Anyone have any new info on these boards or DDR5 ECC UDIMMs? I’m looking to upgrade from my 2288G but there isn’t much out there at the moment.
 
Stephan

Stephan

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@Weapon Only my gut feeling and my opinion, but this low-end workstation line will take another year i.e. spring 2023 to fully resolve and get availability without insane markups. I needed a bunch of machines for a side project and went with 3647 now.
 
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juma

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Apr 14, 2021
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Weapon said:
Anyone have any new info on these boards or DDR5 ECC UDIMMs? I’m looking to upgrade from my 2288G but there isn’t much out there at the moment.
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This might be a potential UDIMM:
www.dell.com

Dell Memory Upgrade - 16 GB - 1Rx8 DDR5 UDIMM 4800 MT/s ECC (Not Compatible with Non-ECC, 5600 MT/s DIMMs and RDIMM) | Dell USA

Random Access Memory (RAM) is a type of hardware that your computer uses to store information. Adding memory is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve your computer's performance. Dell™ Branded memory offered in the Memory Selector has gone through rigorous quality assurance and quality...
www.dell.com
 
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