The Intel W480 Motherboard Overview: LGA1200 For Xeon W-1200
by Gavin Bonshor on June 24, 2020 9:00 AM ESTSupermicro X12SAE
The Supermicro X12SAE is the only Supermicro ATX W480 model at the time of writing and opts for a more straightforward take compared to other vendors with a professional feature set designed for use in a workstation or server environment. Included is a pair of PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots, six SATA ports, and dual Ethernet ports including an Intel I225 2.5 GbE Ethernet controller.
Supermicro has opted for a conventional socket design for the X12SAE which resembles a regular consumer board, with a green PCB, small aluminium finned heatsinks for the power delivery and chipset, with metal slot reinforcement on the PCIe and memory slots. There are two full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which operate at x16 and x8/x8, with a 5V PCI 32-bit slot. The storage options include two PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots, with six SATA ports that have support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. Across the four reinforced memory slots, users can install up to 128 GB of ECC and non-ECC memory, with speeds of up to DDR4-2933 supported. The X12SAE also includes five 4-pin fan headers with a BMC/IPMI heartbeat LED, and a catastrophic failure LED which wouldn't be a good thing to see.
In terms of connectivity, the Supermicro X12SAE includes three USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, and two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports on the rear panel, with one USB 3.2 G2 port available via the use of an internal header. Also included is a USB 2.0 header which adds two ports, with a USB 3.2 G1 header which also allows an additional port to be used. The rear panel also includes a trifecta of video outputs which consists of a DisplayPort, an HDMI, and DVI-D output. A serial port is present, while there are also two Ethernet ports, one controlled by an Intel I225V 2.5 GbE controller, and the other by an Intel I219LM with support for AMT and vPro.
The Supermicro X12SAE is the quintessential ATX workstation model with a simple core feature set and design, with its most notable features including dual PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots and dual Ethernet on the rear panel. Supermicro mentions IPMI and BMC support but doesn't go into detail about which BMC controller is used if any is used at all. Supermicro also hasn't unveiled its official pricing as of yet, but we expect this to be announced shortly.
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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.