The GIGABYTE MW51-HP0 Motherboard Review: Consumer Meets Workstation for Xeon W
by Gavin Bonshor on March 6, 2019 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Gigabyte
- Workstation
- server
- Xeon-W
- C422
- MW51-HP0
CPU Performance, Short Form
For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We put the memory settings at the CPU manufacturers suggested frequency, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.
For motherboard reviews in 2019, we are running an updated version of our test suite, including a newer OS and CPU cooler. This has some effect on our results. Due to the lack of overclocking options within the GIGABYTE MW51-HP0 firmware, the Kingston RDIMM memory is operating at DDR4-2666 CL19 and not DDR4-2666 CL16 like in our previous C422 review of the Supermicro X11SRA. This will have a slight impact on some of the results.
Rendering - Blender 2.78: link
For a render that has been around for what seems like ages, Blender is still a highly popular tool. We managed to wrap up a standard workload into the February 5th nightly build of Blender and measure the time it takes to render the first frame of the scene. Being one of the bigger open source tools out there, it means both AMD and Intel work actively to help improve the codebase, for better or for worse on their own/each other's microarchitecture.
Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7: link
The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 1-2 minutes on high-end platforms.
Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link
As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.
Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test: link
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz, and IPC win in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here.
Neuron Simulation - DigiCortex v1.20: link
The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up. Results are taken during the steady-state period in a 32k neuron simulation and represented as a function of the ability to simulate in real time (1.000x equals real-time).
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
33 Comments
View All Comments
colonelclaw - Wednesday, March 6, 2019 - link
The lack of 10GB Ethernet mars what is otherwise an attractive bit of kit, both technically and aesthetically.imaheadcase - Wednesday, March 6, 2019 - link
Well since this board is not for %99 of readers on this site, its more than likely if you are spending that much for a board you going to get stand alone NIC for that. Anandtech likes to for some reason review stuff now that is business/IT/Phone related more than consumer stuff.Kevin G - Wednesday, March 6, 2019 - link
Big consumer stuff has, well slowed down. Sky Lake was released 3.5 years ago and since then Intel has boosted clocked, bumped up core counts and polished the chipset. AMD released Ryzen which got lots of coverage but the Zen+ refresh was mainly polishing off the first release. Zen 2 is still a little bit away so news will at least pick up on the consumer CPU side soon.The GPU side of things hasn't been that exciting as AMD and nVidia are seemingly content where they are in the market. The mining boom shifted prices upward which neither company is eager to reverse. The GTX 1660 Ti is actually a fairly big thing for consumers but that level of performance could be had years ago if you had the cash back then for a high end card. AMD's Navi will be another step forward for consumer but again will be over shadowed by the previous generation of highend hardware that carried higher prices.
I hope the next big thing is a wider product line up of gaming displays now that HDMI 2.1 has adopted variable refresh rate support, nVidia supports Freesync displays (soft of) and Intel will finally be adding Freesync support too. Things are lining up for this to go mainstream. Though much like CPU and GPU news, variable refresh rate support has been around for years on other hardware.
I see 2.5 and 5 Gbit hardware taking of on the consumer side along with 802.11ax (Wifi 6) enabled devices. Wireless is starting to move beyond a gigabit of bandwidth so the wired side of connectivity also has to evolve. Though it feels odd celebrating the release of 2.5 and 5 Gbit speeds when 10 Gbit has been around for years.
If you want a real wide guess of what the next big consumer thing will be that really hasn't spread in the high end yet would be network based audio transport. Stuff like PoE enabled network speakers that integrate with other smart home devices. Stuff like this exists on the professional side of things but even there you'd have to look for it.
gavbon - Friday, March 8, 2019 - link
Prosumer boards serve a purpose just as much as consumer desktop boards. I personally like focusing on consumer boards, but when I get asked to look at workstation boards, it makes a nice change!PeachNCream - Friday, March 8, 2019 - link
I would question the accuracy of the 99% statistic regarding readers. While I am myself a consumer as an individual, my profession is in enterprise computing and networking so products outside of the consumer space are of an interest to me as much as are consumer electronics. I think quite a few of us are in a similar state, working in information technology and reading to stay caught up on broader developments. Sure, individual workstation motherboards are a bit of an oddity as most workstations are major muscle movement purchases that are acquired from hardware company like HP or Dell, but they are still relevant so I'm happy to see them getting a little word count now and then.CheapSushi - Thursday, March 7, 2019 - link
Not even 10GB but 2.5G and 5G at least, especially now that controllers are more affordable. 2.5G should be basically standard now in 2019.Kevin G - Wednesday, March 6, 2019 - link
Typo on the first page:"A total of eight DDR4 channels are present and allow users to run memory in quad-channel memory mode"
I believe you mean eight DIMM slots in quad-channel memory mode.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, March 6, 2019 - link
Thanks!Sivar - Wednesday, March 6, 2019 - link
You see, this is how to report a typo (or "thinko"). No sarcasm, attacks, or diatribe about how Anandtech must be a shill for the reviewed item's manufacturer.Just polite, factual, and tactful. Thank you!
kalm_traveler - Wednesday, March 6, 2019 - link
The Xeon W-3175x is not a 32 core chip; it is 'only' 28 core.