Supermicro partially updates website with LGA 2066 Motherboards with C422 Chipset for Xeon-W

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zir_blazer

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Dec 5, 2016
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From a comment on the Xeon-W launch announcement article I got here, with the big difference that now the C422 Motherboards links somewhere. There are two base PCBs, one for the X11SRM and another for the X11SRA. Links for the Motherboard Manual are there but they are still unpublished, so we can't peek at the Block Diagrams...

X11SRM-F --- mATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI
X11SRM-VF --- mATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI / 4x OCuLink ports for NVMe PCIe 4x
Note that OCuLink is a sort of internal/external PCIe like ThunderBolt. Some info here

X11SRA --- ATX / Intel I219-LM LAN / Realtek ALC1220 Sound / 2x M.2 Slots
X11SRA-F --- ATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI / Intel I210-AT LAN / Realtek ALC1220 Sound / 2x M.2 Slots
X11SRA-RF --- ATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI / Intel I210-AT LAN / 2x M.2 Slots

While the X11SRA series says that it supports only Xeon-W and no mention about Ci7/Ci9 HEDT, it has this funny remark:

***3xPCI-E3.0 x16 Slots(8/16/16 (Skylake-W 48 lanes)or 4/16/16 (Skylake-X 44 Lanes)or 4/8/16 (Skylake-X 28 lanes) or NA/4/8 (Kabylake-X 16 lanes), 1xPCI-E3.0x4 slots***

There is also this other one:
Intel VROC licence kit is needed to enable RAID.

Congratulations Intel, you just made a nightmarish platform even more so!

It seems that it uses the 48 Processor PCIe Lanes as 8/16/16 for the three PCIe Slots but I don't know where the 8 missing lanes are (The two M.2 Slots makes the most sense). It is a rather ultra clean layout, since there is no bifurcation. However, I don't like the M.2 Slots themselves because they are taking away possible expansion room with standard PCIe Slots.
Somehow I'm not satisfied with the Aquantia 5G LAN. Is more about the typical brand loyalty to Intel LANs due to them being considered the highest quality ones that anything else.



Also, the X299 based LGA 2066 Motherboards are available on their website, too. They are based on a different PCB that the C422 ones, with 4 PCIe 16x Slots instead of 3:

C9X299-PG --- ATX / Intel I210-AT LAN / Realtek ALC1220 Sound
C9X299-PGF --- ATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI / Intel I210-AT LAN / Realtek ALC1220 Sound
C9X299-RPFG --- ATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI / Intel I210-AT LAN

What the hell is that "Play Harder" on the Heatsink? And the -PG with those creepy shapes looks like a postmodern attention seeker. Seriously Supermicro, we have too many Motherboards with gaming products and there is no room for one more, just hybridize your Workstation line instead of tainting your brand name with those stupid gimmicks.
 
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zir_blazer

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Dec 5, 2016
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This just further confirms that C422 will be required for the LGA2066 Xeons. No longer will you be able to get a feature packed X299 motherboard and put a LGA2066 Xeon (like LGA2011-3 Xeons on X99).
Not surprised, this has been valid since consumer Skylake. You can't use Xeons E3 1200v5/v6 with consumer Chipsets, either.
 

JohnRB

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Feb 11, 2017
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Very interested on some real world performance comparisons between comparable 2066 and 3467 setups.

I have to sell a 9mo old server/workstation cpu/mb/ram/raid combo for a client, it is way more performance that he needs and asked me to look into the new Xeon platforms. He spent a fortune on it and realistically uses at most 10%. I could care less as long as the checks clear all that matters to me, Chances are he is going to want a new 2066/3467 monster he won't use LOL.

I also need to upgrade my in home server and the 2066/3467's are the first ones to really peak my interest in a while. Unless I find some really good and reliable documentation I may have to wait until I have client builds to test the 2066 vs 3467 questions.
 

frogtech

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Jan 4, 2016
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That ASPEED AST2500 BMC chip has been being used forever on these boards, is there any particular reason they don't use something newer? Just curious really.
 

Patrick

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That ASPEED AST2500 BMC chip has been being used forever on these boards, is there any particular reason they don't use something newer? Just curious really.
AST2500 is the latest generation. Really saw it start to come on boards only with this generation.
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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AST2400 (and 2300)
Apparently the differences for most people between 2400 and 2500 are minimal, does not even appear to be a significant power saving from the switch to DDR4 for the package , the CPU may still be manufactured on same process node for all I know.
 

jfeldt

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Jul 19, 2015
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I was hoping to see boards with more PCI-e slots. Does anyone know if any are arriving soon? I didn't see any other boards I liked from any other manufacturers either. Supermicro, if you are listening, a 16x for my video card, 3 8x for my storage and NICs, a 4x, 4x to an m.2, all unswitched and from the CPU. Go ahead and throw in a few with lanes from the chipset or just burn those on 1 GbE ports, etc onboard.
 

i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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@jfeldt Does it have to be a workstation/2066 board? If no look at the x11spl-f. It has 2x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x8), 5x PCIe 3.0 x8 (4x x8, 1x x4).
 
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jfeldt

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@jfeldt Does it have to be a workstation/2066 board? If no look at the x11spl-f. It has 2x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x8), 5x PCIe 3.0 x8 (4x x8, 1x x4).
Thank you. That's the board I would go with if I went Skylake-SP, and I was close to building a system on a X10SRL before the Skylake-W were announced. But, the Skylake-W CPUs are a better fit for my workload (see more at Single-socket Skylake Happiness (was sadness) )

Do these new boards work for you guys that are looking to build workstations? I'd like to think I'm not an anomaly.
 

Evan

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Well it's not elegant but you could split up the x8 into x4/x4 assuming it's like the scalable line. I did not check the manual to find out if that's possible but would assume so.
 

zir_blazer

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Dec 5, 2016
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I was hoping to see boards with more PCI-e slots. Does anyone know if any are arriving soon? I didn't see any other boards I liked from any other manufacturers either. Supermicro, if you are listening, a 16x for my video card, 3 8x for my storage and NICs, a 4x, 4x to an m.2, all unswitched and from the CPU. Go ahead and throw in a few with lanes from the chipset or just burn those on 1 GbE ports, etc onboard.
I'm my opinion, the best slot layout for an ATX sized Motherboard with a 48 Lane Xeon-W, should look something like this (And omitting the Chipset, since I don't know its Flex IO capabilities):

SLOT 1: 16x/8x (From 16x Port 1)
SLOT 2: -NOTHING- or Chipset slot, maybe M.2
SLOT 3: 0x/8x (From 16x Port 1)
SLOT 4: 16x/8x (From 16x Port 2. Other 8 lanes could be for 2 onboard M.2, U.2, or big integrated controllers like a SAS Controller or a heavy NIC like the Intel X550)
SLOT 5: 0x/8x (From 16x Port 3)
SLOT 6: -NOTHING- or Chipset slot, maybe M.2
SLOT 7: 16x/8x (From 16x Port 3)

This way you could fit four double slot Video Cards @ 8x, or three triple slot ones @ 16x.

Also, I'm starting to think that M.2 in desktop should always be full assemblies with a discrete PCIe Card adapter and heatsink. I have recently learned that is possible to do in-slot bifurcation of the PCIe Lanes so you can connect two or four different devices in a 16x slot that can be bifurcated as 8x/8x or 4x/4x/4x/4x. This seems to be extremely common in mITX so you can use the single 16x slot for more devices with a riser or something like that. There is no reason why you can't use a 16x slot for a passive card with up to 4 M.2 drives that doesn't requires a PCIe Switch at all. With two M.2, you could do 4x/4x and 8x to some other slot or controller.
 
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jfeldt

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I'm my opinion, the best slot layout for an ATX sized Motherboard with a 48 Lane Xeon-W, should look something like this (And omitting the Chipset, since I don't know its Flex IO capabilities):

SLOT 1: 16x/8x (From 16x Port 1)
SLOT 2: -NOTHING- or Chipset slot, maybe M.2
SLOT 3: 0x/8x (From 16x Port 1)
SLOT 4: 16x/8x (From 16x Port 2. Other 8 lanes could be for 2 onboard M.2, U.2, or big integrated controllers like a SAS Controller or a heavy NIC like the Intel X550)
SLOT 5: 0x/8x (From 16x Port 3)
SLOT 6: -NOTHING- or Chipset slot, maybe M.2
SLOT 7: 16x/8x (From 16x Port 3)

This way you could fit four double slot Video Cards @ 8x, or three triple slot ones @ 16x.

Also, I'm starting to think that M.2 in desktop should always be full assemblies with a discrete PCIe Card adapter and heatsink. I have recently learned that is possible to do in-slot bifurcation of the PCIe Lanes so you can connect two or four different devices in a 16x slot that can be bifurcated as 8x/8x or 4x/4x/4x/4x. This seems to be extremely common in mITX so you can use the single 16x slot for more devices with a riser or something like that. There is no reason why you can't use a 16x slot for a passive card with up to 4 M.2 drives that doesn't requires a PCIe Switch at all. With two M.2, you could do 4x/4x and 8x to some other slot or controller.
Yes, good point about mentioning empty slots! I try to keep my PC quiet so I value having a space next to my video card (mandatory) and fusion-IOs (if possible).
 

tjwb84

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Dec 4, 2017
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Very interested on some real world performance comparisons between comparable 2066 and 3467 setups.
Hey JohnRB, I am currently looking to do a new build, and just like yourself I am wondering about the performance difference (if any) between the 2066 and 3647 platforms. A Google search brought me to this thread (and not much else). I was wondering if you've done any builds for your clients yet, or have found an answer to this question?

It seems that the enormous footprint of 3647 would offer a significant advantage in terms of heat dissipation and keeping the cores close to their maximum frequencies, aside from the six-channel memory configuration. However, if the Xeon W CPU's get anywhere near their maximum turbo frequencies, they do seem to offer much, much better value.
 

Frank173

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Feb 14, 2018
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I know this thread is a bit older but just wanted to add information for anyone buying the X11SRA-F. I can confirm that this motherboard features bifurcation of any of the 3 x16 pcie slots. Bifurcation can be set to Auto,x16, x8x8, x4x4x4x4, and I think x8x4x4. I set one slot to x4x4x4x4 in order to use a card that houses 4 nvme drives.

All in all I am very satisfied with this board. For anyone who needs more slots for GPUs I find the complaints that this board does not offer 3 full x16 slots overcritical. A Xeon-W based workstation is not designed for gaming and anyone who uses GPUs for compute tasks is better served with a GPU server that employs switches and up to 10-12 x16 PCIe slots.

From a comment on the Xeon-W launch announcement article I got here, with the big difference that now the C422 Motherboards links somewhere. There are two base PCBs, one for the X11SRM and another for the X11SRA. Links for the Motherboard Manual are there but they are still unpublished, so we can't peek at the Block Diagrams...

X11SRM-F --- mATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI
X11SRM-VF --- mATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI / 4x OCuLink ports for NVMe PCIe 4x
Note that OCuLink is a sort of internal/external PCIe like ThunderBolt. Some info here

X11SRA --- ATX / Intel I219-LM LAN / Realtek ALC1220 Sound / 2x M.2 Slots
X11SRA-F --- ATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI / Intel I210-AT LAN / Realtek ALC1220 Sound / 2x M.2 Slots
X11SRA-RF --- ATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI / Intel I210-AT LAN / 2x M.2 Slots

While the X11SRA series says that it supports only Xeon-W and no mention about Ci7/Ci9 HEDT, it has this funny remark:

***3xPCI-E3.0 x16 Slots(8/16/16 (Skylake-W 48 lanes)or 4/16/16 (Skylake-X 44 Lanes)or 4/8/16 (Skylake-X 28 lanes) or NA/4/8 (Kabylake-X 16 lanes), 1xPCI-E3.0x4 slots***

There is also this other one:
Intel VROC licence kit is needed to enable RAID.

Congratulations Intel, you just made a nightmarish platform even more so!

It seems that it uses the 48 Processor PCIe Lanes as 8/16/16 for the three PCIe Slots but I don't know where the 8 missing lanes are (The two M.2 Slots makes the most sense). It is a rather ultra clean layout, since there is no bifurcation. However, I don't like the M.2 Slots themselves because they are taking away possible expansion room with standard PCIe Slots.
Somehow I'm not satisfied with the Aquantia 5G LAN. Is more about the typical brand loyalty to Intel LANs due to them being considered the highest quality ones that anything else.



Also, the X299 based LGA 2066 Motherboards are available on their website, too. They are based on a different PCB that the C422 ones, with 4 PCIe 16x Slots instead of 3:

C9X299-PG --- ATX / Intel I210-AT LAN / Realtek ALC1220 Sound
C9X299-PGF --- ATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI / Intel I210-AT LAN / Realtek ALC1220 Sound
C9X299-RPFG --- ATX / ASPEED AST2500 BMC for IPMI / Intel I210-AT LAN

What the hell is that "Play Harder" on the Heatsink? And the -PG with those creepy shapes looks like a postmodern attention seeker. Seriously Supermicro, we have too many Motherboards with gaming products and there is no room for one more, just hybridize your Workstation line instead of tainting your brand name with those stupid gimmicks.
 

gargii

New Member
Oct 3, 2019
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I can confirm that this motherboard features bifurcation of any of the 3 x16 pcie slots. Bifurcation can be set to Auto,x16, x8x8, x4x4x4x4, and I think x8x4x4. I set one slot to x4x4x4x4 in order to use a card that houses 4 nvme drives.
Frank, this information helps me a lot. I have X11SRA-RF and I am planning to use expansion card AOC-SLG3-2M2. Could you please elaborate on what expansion card and disks you used? Have you experienced any problems (e.g. BIOS update needed)?