This doesn't even compete with Threadripper, much less Epyc. This chipset allows you to use LGA1200 Xeons which are identical to the 10th gen Core series plus ECC support -- which is essentially what you get with regular Ryzen line -- except the regular ryzen line goes to 16 cores and ECC is only "semi official"
The Xeon has one minor advantage over Ryzen - the Xeon does both ECC and integrated graphics. Ryzen APUs can't do ECC, so if you want ECC, you need to pair a Ryzen without integrated graphics with either a discrete GPU or a motherboard with onboard graphics like the X470D4U.
For one, the W480 Vision W from Gigabyte includes AMT, as far as I can tell. Some are selling it as a workstation board, and the W-1370 / 1370P CPUs are positioned as workstation processors. But I don't see any downside to using this as a pretty beefy server. It does have a fancy audio section, but that in itself shouldn't disqualify server use. Happy to get anyone else's take on this here. Saying this, of course, because I was able to get a hold of that motherboard + W-1370P CPU, both currently rare, and am considering them as a server for a small business whose network I run.
When you're talking servers the dinky GPU doesn't factor in.
The price difference between the Intel and AMD line they can more than afford to toss in any motherboard-integrated GPU they can think of.
I'd say 99% of the time the server GPU is only used during initial setup and config. Everything is remote managed.
I even go so far as to disconnect the mouse, keyboard and monitor on almost every server I set up. Keeps the business owner's kids from screwing with it.
The iGPU is not a deciding factor in a server purchase.
I don’t know about that. Ryzen chips can do ECC, I actually haven’t looked at whether the APUs have a different memory controller, but all Ryzen chips support ECC. My X570 board let’s me enable it via the BIOS (F20a, AMD CBS menu).
Intel don't need to compete with threadripper. This workstation chipset will move to all default OEM workstations as usual. OEM that are affraid to change anything on there portfolio because of R&D funding budgets from Intel to keep using there chipsets and cpu. IT will swallow it anyhow as they see still Intel as the only fit for business.... and also because the decision body is most of the time led by people who are sitting far to long at an IT desk thinking they still know anything about HW. 100000's of these workstations will just be business as usual, CVE, underwhelming core performance vs competition, heat, it does not matter the only thing OEM (Dell, HPinc, ...) will offer are Intel based workstation. We use 1000's a year asking several years to get an alternative into the Z offering from HPinc to getdecent pricing on +10 cores …. the only answer is "we will look into it"
"This doesn't even compete with Threadripper, much less Epyc."
Its not trying to. TR and EPYC are in a different cost tier entirely. Why would you buy a TR or EPYC and pay more, if you didn't need the number of cores or lanes they offered, and if your workloads weren't going to utilize those cores or lanes. And if you needed those cores and lanes, you wouldn't be looking at this segment. Think edge computing tasks, SMB, storage, virtualization.
Intel also offers stability, and an IPC advantage, at least for now. Maybe ZEN3 comes along and changes the game, at least in terms of IPC, but the jury is still out on stability. Poor QA, insufficient testing and qualification, and really bad software, seems to be a systemic issue at AMD.
Different use-cases. If you buy a workstation with the attitude of "more cores must be more better!" you will very likely end up wasting money on a system that does not perform as well as one chosen for the tasks you will be performing.
Most people who opt for this board will use it as a small office server - and most would not even need to expand. Add a couple sticks of ECC or not memory, a couple of SATA drive and they would be set. several USB3.2 ports, 2.5Gb/s Ethernet and integrated graphics. Perfect small business server.
had a person on a forum tentatively planning on using an X299/ i9-7900X as the basis for a simple home media/file server build....(undoubtedly on a 1 GbE network at home, no less)
I think the lack of PCIe 4.0 is the sole deal breaker. Intel has it on their high end server platforms, why hasn't this filtered down to the workstation...you'd think they would just tweak the same chipset - the silicon support IS THERE in Comet Lake CPU's as they have already announced Rocket Lake (the same microarchitecture as Comet Lake) will support PCIe 4.0 later this year. I mean what is that going to require yet another chipset?
Two totally different platform launched in the same year, really Intel?
Vast majority of small businesses who would opt for this CPU could care less about PCIe4 or more cores.
Rocket Lake S will be built on the same process as Comet Lake - but will be basically a Tiger Lake in architecture (Willow Cove, Xe LP 24EU). Z490 will support PCIe4 on some boards - but Rocket Lake will launch with the Z590 which will be PCIe4. Will be great to finally have PCIe4 reach mainstream status. Same LGA1200 socket, different chipsets.
You are joking right? Why would somebody buy a high end workstation in June 2020 with PCIe 3.0, when PCIe 4.0 SSD's have been out for months and even the PlayStation 5, a VIDEOGAME CONSOLE, will have a PCIe 4.0 SSD next year, all the while Intel will be revising these CPU's and presumably the chipset around PCIe 4.0 within 6 months?
Anybody buying into this platform is getting screwed. To say someone who wants a W1200 doesn't care about PCIe 4.0 is as ridiculous as saying someone who buys a Corvette doesn't care about 0-60.
No. These servers are the cheapest servers. That is the sole purpose. You want high end? You need a different platform. Box from the shelve. Install Windows server. Done. No upgrades, no performance parts. Just run it as long as it runs.
Even if they would be PCIe 2.0 they would sell. Current xeon servers are still also sold with iron drives. The box will say, Intel and Xeon, Windows server will run on it, and the barebone is less then 600 bucks. All potential customer needs.
Most their good folks went to Biostar, I seem to remember, and then to Gigabyte. Glad to see they're still around as a company, although they may not have anything to do with the DFI of old
Ah, a man of culture! Those where the hardware times. The times when the chipset mattered, and the latest CPU could do things you couldn't do with last years CPU. When the midrange GPU was affordable and still beat last years high end GPU. Having said that. On the CPU front AMD is making life interesting a bit lately.
Regarding Supermicro X12SAE: it is NOT the only ATX W480 model from Supermicro; the second one is X12SCA-F. Its main difference is BMC (hence the "-F"), thus, the IPMI/BMC mentioned in X12SAE docs are about X12SCA-F.
In X11 lineup these mobos' predecessors were X11SAE/X11SAE-F (Skylake/Kaby) and X11SCA/X11SCA-F (Coffee). For some unknown reason in the X12 lineup this pair was separated, and current Supermicro's site is, to put it mildly, not very informative/straightforward/useful (previous version had much better information accessibility), so it isn't easy to grasp the whole W480 lineup.
This chipset is for people who need a server. Which CPU? Intel I guess. I am wondering why so many motherboard are made. Maybe because they are a drop in replacement for the consumer chipset. So R&D cost are minimal. In the end 99% of those chipsets are sold by HP/Dell/Lenovo in less then 1000 bucks windows server boxes. If only those 3 would make the same Ryzen based servers like Asrockrack. Then still the bulk would be intel, since in this branch, hardware minded people are scarce (you did your 3 year IT course, and now you can maintain a Windows Server, as long everything goes as planned).
BTW, regarding ASUS Pro WS W480-Ace: according to User Manual, two Display Port connectors on the rear panel are NOT outputs, but are INPUTS, for those TB3s. Probably to connect discrete GPU outputs, for those to be tunneled to TB3s.
Dunno if iGPU output pipes are routed to TB3s internally or if HDMI is the only iGPU output; the User Manual keeps silence about it.
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BTW there are 10 SATA ports, 2 of which are off of an ASMedia chip. There have been issues with ASMedia drivers, but I'm thinking that by now they are resolved. If I needed that many ports, I'd be using them last, and with non-critical disks, until I'm sure that they're up to snuff.
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YB1064 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Underwhelming at best. Why would anybody go for this over EPYC?Jorgp2 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Lolextide - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
This doesn't even compete with Threadripper, much less Epyc. This chipset allows you to use LGA1200 Xeons which are identical to the 10th gen Core series plus ECC support -- which is essentially what you get with regular Ryzen line -- except the regular ryzen line goes to 16 cores and ECC is only "semi official"foobaz - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
The Xeon has one minor advantage over Ryzen - the Xeon does both ECC and integrated graphics. Ryzen APUs can't do ECC, so if you want ECC, you need to pair a Ryzen without integrated graphics with either a discrete GPU or a motherboard with onboard graphics like the X470D4U.PixyMisa - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
For a server though, you want BMC, so you want a motherboard like the X470D4U.And for a workstation, in most cases you want discrete graphics.
abeetz - Sunday, January 23, 2022 - link
For one, the W480 Vision W from Gigabyte includes AMT, as far as I can tell. Some are selling it as a workstation board, and the W-1370 / 1370P CPUs are positioned as workstation processors. But I don't see any downside to using this as a pretty beefy server. It does have a fancy audio section, but that in itself shouldn't disqualify server use. Happy to get anyone else's take on this here. Saying this, of course, because I was able to get a hold of that motherboard + W-1370P CPU, both currently rare, and am considering them as a server for a small business whose network I run.abeetz - Sunday, January 23, 2022 - link
Correction - I meant that some are selling it as a SERVER board...0ldman79 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
When you're talking servers the dinky GPU doesn't factor in.The price difference between the Intel and AMD line they can more than afford to toss in any motherboard-integrated GPU they can think of.
I'd say 99% of the time the server GPU is only used during initial setup and config. Everything is remote managed.
I even go so far as to disconnect the mouse, keyboard and monitor on almost every server I set up. Keeps the business owner's kids from screwing with it.
The iGPU is not a deciding factor in a server purchase.
eek2121 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
I don’t know about that. Ryzen chips can do ECC, I actually haven’t looked at whether the APUs have a different memory controller, but all Ryzen chips support ECC. My X570 board let’s me enable it via the BIOS (F20a, AMD CBS menu).Slash3 - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
Pro series APUs do support ECC, but non-Pro APUs do not.duploxxx - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
Intel don't need to compete with threadripper. This workstation chipset will move to all default OEM workstations as usual. OEM that are affraid to change anything on there portfolio because of R&D funding budgets from Intel to keep using there chipsets and cpu. IT will swallow it anyhow as they see still Intel as the only fit for business.... and also because the decision body is most of the time led by people who are sitting far to long at an IT desk thinking they still know anything about HW. 100000's of these workstations will just be business as usual, CVE, underwhelming core performance vs competition, heat, it does not matter the only thing OEM (Dell, HPinc, ...) will offer are Intel based workstation. We use 1000's a year asking several years to get an alternative into the Z offering from HPinc to getdecent pricing on +10 cores …. the only answer is "we will look into it"Dr_b_ - Monday, September 21, 2020 - link
"This doesn't even compete with Threadripper, much less Epyc."Its not trying to. TR and EPYC are in a different cost tier entirely. Why would you buy a TR or EPYC and pay more, if you didn't need the number of cores or lanes they offered, and if your workloads weren't going to utilize those cores or lanes. And if you needed those cores and lanes, you wouldn't be looking at this segment. Think edge computing tasks, SMB, storage, virtualization.
Intel also offers stability, and an IPC advantage, at least for now. Maybe ZEN3 comes along and changes the game, at least in terms of IPC, but the jury is still out on stability. Poor QA, insufficient testing and qualification, and really bad software, seems to be a systemic issue at AMD.
edzieba - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Different use-cases. If you buy a workstation with the attitude of "more cores must be more better!" you will very likely end up wasting money on a system that does not perform as well as one chosen for the tasks you will be performing.Deicidium369 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Most people who opt for this board will use it as a small office server - and most would not even need to expand. Add a couple sticks of ECC or not memory, a couple of SATA drive and they would be set. several USB3.2 ports, 2.5Gb/s Ethernet and integrated graphics. Perfect small business server.MDD1963 - Saturday, June 27, 2020 - link
had a person on a forum tentatively planning on using an X299/ i9-7900X as the basis for a simple home media/file server build....(undoubtedly on a 1 GbE network at home, no less)Samus - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
I think the lack of PCIe 4.0 is the sole deal breaker. Intel has it on their high end server platforms, why hasn't this filtered down to the workstation...you'd think they would just tweak the same chipset - the silicon support IS THERE in Comet Lake CPU's as they have already announced Rocket Lake (the same microarchitecture as Comet Lake) will support PCIe 4.0 later this year. I mean what is that going to require yet another chipset?Two totally different platform launched in the same year, really Intel?
Deicidium369 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Vast majority of small businesses who would opt for this CPU could care less about PCIe4 or more cores.Rocket Lake S will be built on the same process as Comet Lake - but will be basically a Tiger Lake in architecture (Willow Cove, Xe LP 24EU). Z490 will support PCIe4 on some boards - but Rocket Lake will launch with the Z590 which will be PCIe4. Will be great to finally have PCIe4 reach mainstream status. Same LGA1200 socket, different chipsets.
Samus - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
You are joking right? Why would somebody buy a high end workstation in June 2020 with PCIe 3.0, when PCIe 4.0 SSD's have been out for months and even the PlayStation 5, a VIDEOGAME CONSOLE, will have a PCIe 4.0 SSD next year, all the while Intel will be revising these CPU's and presumably the chipset around PCIe 4.0 within 6 months?Anybody buying into this platform is getting screwed. To say someone who wants a W1200 doesn't care about PCIe 4.0 is as ridiculous as saying someone who buys a Corvette doesn't care about 0-60.
PixyMisa - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Intel themselves are selling PCIe 4.0 SSDs. They just don't have anything that can use them at that speed.Foeketijn - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
No. These servers are the cheapest servers. That is the sole purpose. You want high end? You need a different platform. Box from the shelve. Install Windows server. Done.No upgrades, no performance parts. Just run it as long as it runs.
timecop1818 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
nobody cares about pcie4, and definitely not the target audience for this cpu/boards.PixyMisa - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Intel doesn't offer PCIe 4.0 on any of their CPUs yet. Not even Cooper Lake, which launched last week.Foeketijn - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
Even if they would be PCIe 2.0 they would sell. Current xeon servers are still also sold with iron drives.The box will say, Intel and Xeon, Windows server will run on it, and the barebone is less then 600 bucks. All potential customer needs.
Foeketijn - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
Because the whole server is going to cost way less then 1 Epyc CPU.dragosmp - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
DFII fondly remember a Lanparty Nforce4 AM2 board
Most their good folks went to Biostar, I seem to remember, and then to Gigabyte. Glad to see they're still around as a company, although they may not have anything to do with the DFI of old
Foeketijn - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
Ah, a man of culture! Those where the hardware times. The times when the chipset mattered, and the latest CPU could do things you couldn't do with last years CPU. When the midrange GPU was affordable and still beat last years high end GPU.Having said that. On the CPU front AMD is making life interesting a bit lately.
bolkhov - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Gavin,Regarding Supermicro X12SAE: it is NOT the only ATX W480 model from Supermicro; the second one is X12SCA-F. Its main difference is BMC (hence the "-F"), thus, the IPMI/BMC mentioned in X12SAE docs are about X12SCA-F.
In X11 lineup these mobos' predecessors were X11SAE/X11SAE-F (Skylake/Kaby) and X11SCA/X11SCA-F (Coffee). For some unknown reason in the X12 lineup this pair was separated, and current Supermicro's site is, to put it mildly, not very informative/straightforward/useful (previous version had much better information accessibility), so it isn't easy to grasp the whole W480 lineup.
Foeketijn - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
This chipset is for people who need a server. Which CPU? Intel I guess.I am wondering why so many motherboard are made. Maybe because they are a drop in replacement for the consumer chipset. So R&D cost are minimal.
In the end 99% of those chipsets are sold by HP/Dell/Lenovo in less then 1000 bucks windows server boxes.
If only those 3 would make the same Ryzen based servers like Asrockrack. Then still the bulk would be intel, since in this branch, hardware minded people are scarce (you did your 3 year IT course, and now you can maintain a Windows Server, as long everything goes as planned).
bolkhov - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
BTW, regarding ASUS Pro WS W480-Ace:according to User Manual, two Display Port connectors on the rear panel are NOT outputs, but are INPUTS, for those TB3s. Probably to connect discrete GPU outputs, for those to be tunneled to TB3s.
Dunno if iGPU output pipes are routed to TB3s internally or if HDMI is the only iGPU output; the User Manual keeps silence about it.
Mr Perfect - Saturday, June 27, 2020 - link
That ASRock W480 Creator has the most impressive rear IO I've ever seen. Why don't high end desktop boards have a set like that?jamescairo13 - Thursday, July 2, 2020 - link
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BTW there are 10 SATA ports, 2 of which are off of an ASMedia chip. There have been issues with ASMedia drivers, but I'm thinking that by now they are resolved. If I needed that many ports, I'd be using them last, and with non-critical disks, until I'm sure that they're up to snuff.