The GIGABYTE MW51-HP0 Motherboard Review: Consumer Meets Workstation for Xeon W

Board Features

At a high leve, the MW51-HP0 offers workstation features in an extensive CEB-sized package. Notably, the board is armed with a Broadcom PEX8747 PLX chip, which allows users to install up to four dual slot PCIe 3.0 x16 cards, or alternatively up to seven single slot cards. In this configuration the top slot always runs at x16, and the remaining six slots at x8.

A now aging Realtek ALC1150 HD audio codec proves the onboard audio, while a pair of Intel I210-AT GbE NICs provide the boards networking capabilities. Somehow GIGABYTE has managed to fit a single M.2 slot onto the stacked PCB with support for PCIe 3.0 x4 drives up to a size of M.2 22110 and allows users to use mini SAS hard drives via a U.2 connector. A total of ten SATA ports are present with two ports controlled by a Marvel 88SE9172 SATA controller which allow allows for two SATA DOM devices. The MW51-HP0 is also compatible with backplanes thanks to two SATA SPGIO connectors. 

A total of six 4-pin fans headers are located around the board, with one dedicated to the CPU and the remaining five to chassis fans. Other onboard connections include two USB 3.1 G1 front panel headers offering four ports and single USB 2.0 header allowing for two ports. On the rear panel is a further ten USB ports split between two USB 3.1 G2 (Type-A and Type-C) and eight USB 3.0 Type-A ports. The MW51-HP0 also includes plenty jumpers including a clear CMOS jumper next to the BIOS battery, a BIOS recovery jumper, a Force ME update jumper, as well as a PMBus connector and two thermistor cable connectors.

Test Bed

As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.

Many thanks to...

We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.

Hardware Providers
Sapphire RX 460 Nitro	MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC	Crucial MX300 + MX500 SSDs	Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs
G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX	Crucial Ballistix DDR4	Silverstone Coolers	Silverstone Fans