Back in March, we reviewed AMD’s newest Zen Three primarily based EPYC 7003 processors, together with the 64-core EPYC 7763 and 7713. We’ve up to date the information again in June with a retail motherboard, and it scores a lot greater, exhibiting how EPYC Milan might be refined greater than it was at launch. Putting two 64-core processors right into a system requires a greater than succesful motherboard, and at present on the check bench is the GIGABYTE MZ720-HB0 (Revision 3.0), which has loads of options to boast about. Some of an important ones embrace 5 full-length PCIe 4.Zero slots, twin 10 GbE, plenty of PCIe 4.Zero NVMe and SATA storage choices, in addition to twin SP3 sockets, and sixteen reminiscence slots with assist for as much as Four TB of capability.
GIGABYTE MZ72-HB0 Overview
Although the GIGABYTE MZ72-HB0 motherboard for AMD’s EPYC processors basically is not new, we reported again throughout Computex 2021 that GIGABYTE launched a brand new revision (Rev 3.0) of this mannequin to assist each Milan (7003) and Rome (7002) out of the field, because the preliminary Revision 1.Zero mannequin solely included assist for Naples (7001) and Rome (7002). This is because of a small maneuvering of AMD’s product stack – the newest 64 core processors now push a TDP of 280 W per processor, moderately than 240 W, and whereas the socket is identical throughout all three generations, you will see that that motherboards both assist 7001+7002, or 7002+7003 relying on once they had been designed. So in order for you the MZ72-HB0 to assist Milan 7003 processors, you want revision 3.0, which we have now at present.
As with many server-focused motherboards, even in additional ‘normal’ type elements, the GIGABYTE MZ72-HB0 focuses primarily on performance and substance over type. GIGABYTE has opted for its typical blue-colored PCB, with the identical theme stretching to the sixteen reminiscence slots on the board. Looking at reminiscence assist, the MZ72-HB0 helps as much as 2 TB per socket, in eight-channel reminiscence mode, specializing in reminiscence as much as DDR4-3200 RDIMM, LRDIMM, and 3DS varieties all supported. As this can be a dual-socket EPYC motherboard, there are two SP3 sockets with 4 horizontally mounted reminiscence slots on both facet, and every socket can home processors as much as 280 W TDP.
Looking at connectivity, the MZ72-HB0 has 5 full-length PCIe 4.Zero slots, with three of them supporting the total PCIe 4.Zero x16 bandwidth, whereas the others are x8 however nonetheless full size. In order to stability the load on every CPU, three of the slots are managed by the left CPU wanting on the structure above, with the opposite two being managed from the suitable CPU. More element on that is on the next web page the place we analyze the topology of the motherboard.
On the rear panel is a fundamental choice of inputs, with two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, in addition to a D-Sub and Gigabit Management LAN port which permit entry to the BMC, which is managed by a generally used ASPEED AST2600 controller. Networking connectivity consists of two 10 GbE ports, whereas storage choices are aplenty. These choices embrace one bodily PCIe 4.Zero x4 M.2 slot, with two NVMe SlimSAS 4i ports, and three SlimSAS ports able to supporting as much as twelve SATA ports, or three PCIe 4.Zero x4 NVMe primarily based drives. For standard SATA storage, the GIGABYTE has 4 SATA slots.
Touching on the efficiency, it is no shock that the MZ72-HB0 takes a very long time as well into Windows – it took us simply over two and a half minutes from powering the system onto loading into the OS. It takes this lengthy from a chilly boot as a system takes time to initialize the networking controller, the BMC, and different important components to make itself prepared for POST. In phrases of energy, we measured a peak energy draw at full load with twin 280 W processors of 782 W. In our DPC latency testing, the GIGABYTE did not rating that nicely, however that’s normally par for the course…
