Supermicro X9DAX range, overclocking from Supermicro

[mobilenvidia]

Just spotted these new Dual LGA2011 CPU range of motherboards supporting overclocking, unheard of from Supermicro till now.
What's in the range:

X9DAX-iF
Key Features

1. Dual socket R (LGA 2011) supports
Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600
2. Supports Overclocking
3. Intel® C602 chipset; QPI up to 8.0GT/s
4. Up to 512GB DDR3 1600MHz ECC
Registered DIMM; 16x DIMM sockets
5. 2 PCI-E 3.0 x16, 3 PCI-E 3.0 x8,
1 UIO PCI-E 3.0 x8 (for SMC UIO HBA)
or 1 PCI-E 2.0 x4 (in x8)
6. Intel® i350 Dual port GbE LAN
7. 8x SATA2 and 2x SATA3 ports
8. Integrated IPMI 2.0 and KVM with
Dedicated LAN
9. Dual port front and rear USB 3.0

X9DAX-iTF
Key Features

1. Dual socket R (LGA 2011) supports
Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600
2. Supports Overclocking
3. Intel® C602 chipset; QPI up to 8.0GT/s
4. Up to 512GB DDR3 1600MHz ECC
Registered DIMM; 16x DIMM sockets
5. 2 PCI-E 3.0 x16, 3 PCI-E 3.0 x8,
1 UIO PCI-E 3.0 x8 (for SMC UIO HBA)
or 1 PCI-E 2.0 x4 (in x8)
6. Intel® X540 Dual port 10GBase-T
7. 8x SATA2 and 2x SATA3 ports
8. Integrated IPMI 2.0 and KVM with
Dedicated LAN
9. Dual port front and rear USB 3.0
10. Voltage and Frequency over-clocking


X9DAX-7F
Key Features

1. Dual socket R (LGA 2011) supports
Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600
2. Supports Overclocking
3. Intel® C602 chipset; QPI up to 8.0GT/s
4. Up to 512GB DDR3 1600MHz ECC
Registered DIMM; 16x DIMM sockets
5. 2 PCI-E 3.0 x16, 3 PCI-E 3.0 x8,
1 UIO PCI-E 3.0 x8 (for SMC UIO HBA)
or 1 PCI-E 2.0 x4 (in x8)
6. Intel® i350 Dual port GbE LAN
7. 8x SATA2 and 2x SATA3 ports
8. 8x SAS2 ports from LSI 2208
9. Integrated IPMI 2.0 and KVM with
Dedicated LAN
10. Dual port front and rear USB 3.0
11. Voltage and Frequency over-clocking

X9DAX-7TF
Key Features

1. Dual socket R (LGA 2011) supports
Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600
2. Supports Overclocking
3. Intel® C602 chipset; QPI up to 8.0GT/s
4. Up to 512GB DDR3 1600MHz ECC
Registered DIMM; 16x DIMM sockets
5. 2 PCI-E 3.0 x16, 3 PCI-E 3.0 x8,
1 UIO PCI-E 3.0 x8 (for SMC UIO HBA)
or 1 PCI-E 2.0 x4 (in x8)
6. Intel® X540 Dual port 10GBase-T
7. 8x SATA2 and 2x SATA3 ports
8. 8x SAS2 ports from LSI 2208
9. Integrated IPMI 2.0 and KVM with
Dedicated LAN
10. Dual port front and rear USB 3.0
11. Voltage and Frequency over-clocking

 

[sotech]

Overclocking? Interesting.... I wonder if we're talking 3% or if they've somehow got around the locked-down nature of the Xeons. Seems a bit odd since currently only the single-socket CPUs have unlocked multipliers.

 

[Patrick]

Sat down with the product manager at Supermicro for these in August (sorry could not talk about them.) I'm supposed to receive one of these shortly. Didn't know they got released already. Yes they are 3% to 6% CPU overclocks.

Will explain more in the piece. The big thing here is that you need to think enterprise overclock versus enthusiast overclock. I actually think this is super exciting.

 

[mobilenvidia]

They probably just allow BCLK to be adjusted, which normally means about 3-5%, and really add instability for very little gain

But all the same, very nicely specced boards.

 

[Mike]

You don't need the unlocked multipliers to nett some numbers. Look at the i7-3820 which overclocks quite nicely yet won't go beyond it's turbo multipliers.
I'm thinking more along the lines of a little bit of extra power when needed across an entire cluster, thermals permitting. Or maybe max out a hybrid gpu cpu cluster when gpu's are not or lightly in use.

 

[mobilenvidia]

CPUs will go 4x BCLK steps past their max.
ie can set my i5-3470T to 40x BCLK, it's very max turbo = 36x, this adds 400Mhz (4Ghz max turbo)
If the multipliers could go higher the CPU would happily do so

BCLK overclocking I find very disappointing, I can can get to 103Mhz fairly easily, after this it's hit and miss)
So a whopping 3% going this way.
But doing both overclocks means I can get to 4.12Ghz (512Mhz over max turbo)

More risk, more power used, some PCIe devices aren't to happy with a faster BCLK.

Overclocking in a server is not what I would consider a selling point
My 2c worth

 

[Salami]

Hello, a search for X9DAX brought me here.

I think it may be announced but not for sale yet. I was hoping you'd review this board, since I am thinking about buying one.

 

[Salami]

Overclocking? Interesting.... I wonder if we're talking 3% or if they've somehow got around the locked-down nature of the Xeons. Seems a bit odd since currently only the single-socket CPUs have unlocked multipliers.

My guess is the very best you'll be able to do is 5% or 6%. EVGA and ASUS offer the same overclocking. But if Xeon decides to sell unlocked Xeons, then you may be able to get 25% or more.

Even 5% is enough to turn a E5-2670 into a E5-2680. That saves you $400 ($200 each on 2 CPUs). If Supermicro charges an extra $100 for overclocking (compared to a similar specced board with no overclocking) , that might make financial sense to some people at just a 2% overclock.

 

[Patrick]

Just received a note from Supermicro... turns out these boards are not released yet. But it does look like I will be getting a test system next month.

 

[mobilenvidia]

'Hyper-Speed'

X9DAX-7/i(T)F Overclocked Memory Testing List
The following modules were tested with overclocked settings.
This list is for reference only and does not guarantee that the same performance levels will be reached.
Stability will vary depending on the CPU and Memory module margins.

Tested at 1980 MHz (1 DIMM Per Channel, up to 8 DIMMs installed) - Set CPU BCLK to 106 and DDR Speed to 1866
Model Manufacturer Manufacturer Part # Mem Type Capacity # of Ranks
MEM-DR340L-SL01-EU16 Samsung M391B5273DH0-CK0 UDIMM 4 GB 2
MEM-DR340L-HL02-EU16 Hynix HMT351U7CFR8C-PB UDIMM 4 GB 2
MEM-DR380L-SL02-ER16 Samsung M393B1K70DH0-YK0 RDIMM 8 GB 2
MEM-DR380L-HL02-ER16 Hynix HMT31GR7CFR4C-PB RDIMM 8 GB 2

Tested at 1700 MHz (2 DIMMs Per Channel, up to 16 DIMMs installed) - Set CPU BCLK to 106 and DDR Speed to 1600
Model Manufacturer Manufacturer Part # Mem Type Capacity # of Ranks
MEM-DR380L-SL02-ER16 Samsung M393B1K70DH0-YK0 RDIMM 8 GB 2
MEM-DR380L-HL02-ER16 Hynix HMT31GR7CFR4C RDIMM 8 GB 2
MEM-DR316L-SL01-ER16 Samsung M393B2G70BH0-CK0 RDIMM 16 GB 2
MEM-DR316L-HL01-ER16 Hynix HMT42GR7MFR4C RDIMM 16 GB 2

Prettier PDF is here

 

[Patrick]

Supermicro Hyper-Speed Engaged!

More to follow. Expect some write-ups next week.

 

[Salami]

I can't wait for this review.

 

[Patrick]

So very interesting note. Supermicro has one board they are using for both the rackmount and workstation versions of this motherboard. That is really interesting because it means my 2U review system has things like 7.1 audio including S/PDIF optical out, USB 3.0 and IEEE1394.

More to come shortly.

 

[Patrick]

Whew... just finished two pieces on the hardware and one piece on the Supermicro Hyper-Speed BIOS overclocking. Monday - Wednesday on the main site. Trying to get this all done before Christmas.