Supermicro H11DSi-NT Dual AMD EPYC Motherboard Review

[Patrick Kennedy]

Our Supermicro H11DSi-NT dual AMD EPYC motherboard review. The H11DSi-NT is a standard EATX AMD EPYC platform with five PCIe slots and up to 2TB of RAM supported

The post Supermicro H11DSi-NT Dual AMD EPYC Motherboard Review appeared first on ServeTheHome.

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[Morphers]

after 2 fails with this board I am annoyed.
The board works fine all except getting into the bios, it just hangs after pressing delete. I have one board model H11DSi currently with same config and it goes into bios fine, both nts just don't seem to work?

 

[Patrick]

Send a note to SM support. Our review unit is working perfectly. Often the hanging is either a component or a BIOS/ firmware issue.

 

[CheapSushi]

Is it me or do these EPYC boards and often other SuperMicro boards seem to have fairly weak MOSFET/VRM/FETs/Chokes setups with dinky heatsinks? Some are spread around. But if you compare them with workstation class boards from ASUS for example, it seems night and day. It's just kind of unbelievable especially for how superior enterprise boards are touted. I'm sure it's good enough. But still, it seems just so basic and not robust. I mean, this is a dual socket board, potentially 64 cores/128 threads, utilized 100% at 3.2GHz, costing over $8000+ alone. It just doesn't look like it's all there. Even some mid range consumer boards seem to do better in that department. Maybe I'm getting the wrong impression.

 

[Patrick]

@CheapSushi it is somewhat like consumer power supplies. At some point, the VRMs on consumer boards were for either extreme overclocking (not present on server/ workstations) or for show. The consumer motherboard manufacturers used it as a point of differentiation and the reviewers they use point it out at every turn, reinforcing the belief.

It is not just Supermicro, it is all major server vendors.

Remember, when it comes to consumer products, 80+ platinum (or higher) is not the rating of every workstation PSU, and in the consumer market, a 1.2kW single PSU is still considered large. On the server side, in 2018 the lowest 80+ PSU rating we have seen is Gold and that is on a small embedded product PSU. Every mainstream 1U/ 2U server we have had since 2017 has been using 80+ Platinum or Titanium rated PSUs.

It is a bit strange coming from the server world and seeing what those guys get excited about.

 

[alex_stief]

Is it me or do these EPYC boards and often other SuperMicro boards seem to have fairly weak MOSFET/VRM/FETs/Chokes setups with dinky heatsinks? Some are spread around. But if you compare them with workstation class boards from ASUS for example, it seems night and day. It's just kind of unbelievable especially for how superior enterprise boards are touted. I'm sure it's good enough. But still, it seems just so basic and not robust. I mean, this is a dual socket board, potentially 64 cores/128 threads, utilized 100% at 3.2GHz, costing over $8000+ alone. It just doesn't look like it's all there. Even some mid range consumer boards seem to do better in that department. Maybe I'm getting the wrong impression.

I guess the issue here is: there is still no motherboard available for SP3 that I would consider "workstation".
Asus WS C621E Sage is the only option on Intels side of the wall. All other boards are tailored towards the server market - or at least not tailored towards the enthusiast workstation market. The VRM design just does its job.
This lack of enthusiast-grade motherboards might have to do with the rapidly increasing number of cores for the prosumer market. A single CPU with 16 or 18 cores covers the needs of most enthusiasts. Hence the demand for dual-socket boards with more prosumer-oriented design and features is declining. I still have a little hope for SP3 since ASRock claimed to be working on a dual-socket board.