Supermicro H12SSL boards listed on website

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Zhang

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Sep 18, 2018
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TXAG26

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Aug 2, 2016
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Wow, very cool to finally see these boards. I think a lot of us have been expecting these for awhile.

For those looking to use these as workstation boards, be careful with the Broadcom BCM57416 10GBE adapter - I picked up a HPE 535T dual 10GBe port adapter (which uses the same BCM57416 chipset as these new H12SSL boards) and was UNABLE to get it to work in Windows 10.

I probably tried upwards of 10-15 different Windows server & related driver packages from all the major OEM's, Broadcom drivers, etc., and none of them would work in Windows 10. Last I checked, there were NO Windows 10 drivers available for the BCM57416 network chipset.
The BCM57416 works great out of the box in ESXI 6.7 U3 (it just works, no VIB packages/drivers to load, it's baked right in).
I presume it works just as well in Windows SERVER, but Windows 10 is a no-go at the moment.
Maybe this is something Supermicro can request from Broadcom - Windows 10 drivers for the BCM57416 chipset...

https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...416-10gbe-vs-intel-x550-10gbe-adapters.25982/
 
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TXAG26

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Aug 2, 2016
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At this point, with Epyc v3 being announced in Fall 2020, I’m really surprised SM released these boards today. These should have been announced this past Fall 2019 or in late Summer 2019 when Rome was announced.
Maybe these will be drop-in ready for Epyc v3?
 

edge

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Apr 22, 2013
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H12ssl-nt interests me. No manuals yet so no way to get down in the weeds.
 

BlueFox

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Seems like there are unused pcie lanes.
Very few. I count 120 in use on the H12SSL-NT. Add in 4-8 for the dual 10GbE NICs and you're at 128.

On another note, is OCuLink obsolete already? Seems they've replaced it with SlimSAS ports on the H12SSL-NT.
 
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edge

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Apr 22, 2013
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Very few. I count 120 in use on the H12SSL-NT. Add in 4-8 for the dual 10GbE NICs and you're at 128.

On another note, is OCuLink obsolete already? Seems they've replaced it with SlimSAS ports on the H12SSL-NT.
I count 112 useful, plus bmc, dual 10Gb nics, and whatever they are wasting on usb (4 too many usb). I did bad math initially on the pcie slots and counted 72 lanes, not 88 (head slap). Given this is pcie 4, that is still a good bit of IO.

IO, IO, It's off to work I go...
 

BlueFox

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There are 96 lanes going to the PCIe slots (5 x 16 + 2 x 8).
 

IamSpartacus

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Mar 14, 2016
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There are 96 lanes going to the PCIe slots (5 x 16 + 2 x 8).
Then x8 for the two m.2 and x8 for the two miniSAS ports that can be used for NVMe. That makes 112. Maybe another x8 for the onboard HBA and x8 for the dual 10Gb NIcs?
 

BlueFox

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There are two SlimSAS ports and each one uses 8 lanes, so 24 total for storage.
 

lpallard

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Aug 17, 2013
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I could probably just send an email to Supermicro, but I figured I'd ask here since most of you guys are very knowledgeable anyways...

1. Supermicro has a line for "workstation" and "server" motherboards. Generally speaking, what's the difference??
2. I noticed that Supermicro doesnt have any AMD based motherboards in their workstation line... Why's that?
3. Why Supermicro doesnt have TR motherboards? Is this because they consider TR a gaming/consumer CPU instead of a workstation/server CPU?
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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SM is for the most part a server specialist company. The WS boards they do offer are something of an anomaly for them.

The main difference between the Server and Workstation boards are:
  • Workstation boards generally include audio and expose any on-cpu video (HDMI and/or DP ports)
  • Server boards generally include IPMI with video from the BMC and require ECC dims.
  • Workstation boards have the memory slots and CPU aligned for cross-board airflow (bottom front intake/top rear exhaust)
  • Server boards generally have the memory and CPU aligned for front-back high pressure airflow
AMD workstation boards are probably just a demand issue for them. Not much demand on the Intel WS boards they already do. Like most things with SM, if they had a customer demand for it (a 10,000 unit customer, that is) then they would build it.

As for ThreadRipper, see last item.
 
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writerinserepeat

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