The Intel W480 Motherboard Overview: LGA1200 For Xeon W-1200
by Gavin Bonshor on June 24, 2020 9:00 AM ESTASRock Rack W480D4U
Although ASRock and ASRock Rack are similar in name, they are separate entities under the same company in the motherboard space. ASRock Rack by comparison caters to the workstation and server markets. The ASRock Rack W480D4U is an interesting model with its micro-ATX size, and support for both ECC and non-ECC memory up to DDR4-2933. Included are a pair of PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots, eight SATA ports, dual Intel Gigabit Ethernet and an Aspeed AST2500 BMC controller.
Sorry for the slightly blurry image, this is all that is currently available
Looking at the design of the ASRock Rack W480D4U, it isn't anything fancy with a standard green PCB, and blue and white memory slots. These four memory slots include support for up to DDR4-2933, both ECC and non-ECC modules are supported, and up to a maximum of 128 GB can be installed. There is a single full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, with a half-length PCIe 3.0 x8 slot, and a single PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. Included on the board is an Aspeed AST2500 BMC controller which provides access to ASRock Racks intuitive interface and control panel. For storage, the W480D4U is using two PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots with eight SATA ports with one port supporting SATA DOM, with all the SATA ports supporting RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. The board is also equipped with seven 4-pin fan headers which are exceptional for a board of this size.
The rear panel includes two USB 3.1 G2 Type-A and two USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports, with two Intel I20 Gigabit Ethernet ports, and a dedicated Realtek RTL8211E Ethernet port for the boards IPMI controlled by an Aspeed AST2500 BMC controller. Finishing off the rear panel of the W480D4U is a D-sub video output for the BMC, a serial port, and UID LED button.
The ASRock Rack W480D4U conforms more to what is expected from its workstation and server series of models, with its green PCB and unassuming controller set. The board doesn't include integrated audio which isn't a negative, and overall it packs a nice punch for a micro-ATX Xeon focused model with seven 4-pin fan headers, support for 128 GB of DDR4 memory, and dual Gigabit Ethernet.
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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?