New AsrockRack 3251 Motherboard with 10gbe NICs

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Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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Is that also an OCuLink port to the right of the SATA ports I see ?
 

EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
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It's been lurking in their catalogue since the start of may where it was still being called the EPYC3000D4I-2T; I dare say there's going to be other models using different SKUs of the Epyc 3000 chips. Sadly no sign of any mATX or larger models though :(
 

zir_blazer

Active Member
Dec 5, 2016
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For OCulink-to-SATA, are you supposed to use a custom/propietary breakout cable? Or it is standarized? Regardless, providing a single Port that can run either PCIe or 4xSATA is quite a nice idea.

Sadly, the Motherboard doesn't use AMD built in 10G MACs but instead an Intel X550-AT2 NIC. Patrick, you that know about prices and stuff, how much of a difference there is between using a 10G PHY or going straight to a 10G PCIe NIC chip like the Intel ones? Or even then, getting the Zen 10G MAC + 10G PHY vs a 1G PCIe Intel NIC like the i210-AT.
Is amazing how almost everyone avoids the AMD 10G MAC. I'm even curious about whenever Zen 2 IO dies have it or was removed. We still don't know the full capabilities of Matisse and Rome IO dies...
 
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EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
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I've seen a couple of SFF-8611 -> 4xSATA cables knocking about so I hope it's fairly standardised, but given that it's basically a PCIe socket talking SATA protocol I've no idea how it's meant to be wired electrically.

I don't think I've seen any vendor's hardware using the AMD xgbe 10Gb MAC yet - I wonder if it's because it's missing features like SRIOV (at least it didn't the last time I looked), and the cost of a PHY isn't worth it compared to the MAC+PHY of a chip that does support stuff like SRIOV.
 

maes

Active Member
Nov 11, 2018
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Looks like the manual for them is finally out. There's mention of a -NL variant with no networking at all besides the IPMI, as well as references to possibly having the two vacant OCuLink footprints occupied with variants supporting pcie x4 only (no sata) for a total of 3 OCuLink ports. (1x pcie/sata, 2x pcie only)

Patrick, if you get to test one of those motherboards, could you check for bifurcation support? From the bios screenshots it looks like it's possible to set the link width on the pcie slot, but there's no reference to bifurcation anywhere in the manual.
 

e97

Active Member
Jun 3, 2015
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Any word on pricing / availability before I bug the ASRock sales team? ; )
 
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Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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I have that case, you mean this board ?
ASRock Rack > EPYC3251D4I-2T

Should fit, need to take care of a fan to cool the CPU though. The OCUlink used as sata (breakout cable required) would be fine, it won’t work as NVMe of course.
 

Janga

New Member
Sep 21, 2019
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Hey Evan! Wow, so quick to reply!

Yeah, what I'm trying to figure out is if it's possible to build something like the existing SuperMicro Xeon D-1541 SoC system (SuperServer 5028D-TN4T link here and here) but with the ASRock EPYC3251D4I-2T board.

What's your current system configuration? I assume you're using one of the SuperMicro boards in this chassis?

Is there much room for a fan to fit on top of the CPU heatsink in this case? I'm so disappointed SuperMicro didn't include 10GigE on the M11SDV-8C-LN4F board. Hence the reason I'm look as this ASRock board.

Edit: Also how would the OCuLink port connect to to the 4x hot-swap backplane in this chassis? Does the backplane have 4x SATA connectors that go to the motherboard, or a miniSAS?
 

Janga

New Member
Sep 21, 2019
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To provide an update to my earlier posts, I went ahead purchased two of the ASRock Rack EPYC3251D4I-2T motherboards and have just finished building the servers. They work, but I'm having an issue with the core/thread count. The AMD Epyc 3251 is advertised as a 8 core/16 thread CPU, however it only displays 8 threads in the OS (have tried linux and windows). In the BIOS is also says 8 cores/8 threads. I believe I have SMT (AMD version of Intel hyper threading) enabled in the BIOS. Whenever I view the CPU info (in linux or windows) it only shows 1 thread per core.

Anyone else here have any experience with these boards or able to offer some advice?

ASRock Rack > EPYC3251D4I-2T
 

Ivan Dimitrov

Member
Jul 10, 2016
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Hi, could somebody share what are the supported bifurcation options? I assume x8/x8 and x4/x4/x4/x4 will be supported.
I am interested in the option x8/4/4. Has anybody tried this?