Supermicro X12STH-LN4F Review Quad NIC Intel Xeon E-2300 STH Motherboard

[Eric Smith]

In our Supermicro X12STH-LN4F review, we see how this STH motherboard incorporates quad 1GbE and a big PCIe upgrade with the Xeon E-2300

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[RTM]

The i225V does not support NCSI, that could be part of the reason why they are using i210's.

Anyway it feels a little weird to use so many lanes for 4x 1g interfaces, I know they are still "just" 3.0 lanes (and not 4.0 lanes), but it makes me think that when Intel eventually upgrades the PCH to 4.0 or better for the next generation, that they could fit in a replacement for the i350AM4 (a 4 port 1g controller) that does 2.5Gbe on fewer lanes (allowing vendors to use the remaining lanes for something else).

 

[zir_blazer]

I'm also curious about why they use 4 i210 for these Motherboards, the only one that seems reasonable is Driver support. It is very likely than the i350-AM4 takes less real state on the Motherboard surface, and also has some premium features like SR-IOV, too, that makes it more desirable. Besides Driver support, the only other thing that could make it less convenient than the i210 should be price. And maybe power consumption, assuming it also requires its own heatsink.

 

[RTM]

4x i210AT's is not an uncommon configuration for Supermicro, at least the X10SLM+-LN4F used that as well.
I think you hit it on the nail though, it is almost due certainly due to cost.

That said another possible reason that I can think of (though the i210AT not that terrible), is that they may have so many of these controllers in stock, that they want to use them up (I have a feeling that is what happened with the older 82574L controller that the i210AT mostly replaced).