Users trying to construct their very own twin EPYC workstation or system, utilizing fully off-the-shelf elements, do not need loads of choices. Users should buy a lot of the CPUs at retail or at OEM, in addition to reminiscence, a chassis, energy provides, coolers, add-in playing cards. But the one merchandise the place there isn’t loads of competitors for these kinds of builds is within the motherboard. Unless you go down the route of shopping for a server on rails with a motherboard already fitted, there are very restricted twin EPYC motherboard choices for customers to only buy. So few in truth, that there are solely two, each from Supermicro, and each are known as the H11DSi. One variant has gigabit Ethernet, the opposite has 10GBase-T.
Looking For a Forest, Only Seeing a Tree
Non-proprietary motherboard choices for constructing a single socket EPYC are pretty numerate – there’s the Supermicro H11DSL, the ASRock EPYCD8-2T (learn our evaluate right here), the GIGABYTE MZ31-AR0 (learn our evaluate right here), or an ASUS KNPA-U16, all various in function set and ranging from $380. For the twin socket area nonetheless, there is just one possibility. The Supermicro H11DSi, H11DSi-NT, and different potential minor variants, will be discovered at customary retailers from round $560-$670 and up, relying on supply and extra options. All different options that we discovered had been a part of a pre-built server or system, usually utilizing non-standard kind elements as a result of requests of the client these techniques had been constructed for. In being the one ‘consumer’ centered motherboard, the H11DSi has lots to stay as much as.
As with different EPYC boards on this area, customers need to know which revision of the board they’re getting – it’s the second revision of the board that helps each Rome and Naples processors. One of the early points with the only socket fashions was that a few of them weren’t able to Rome help, even with an up to date BIOS. It needs to be famous that because the H11DSi was constructed with Naples in thoughts to start with, we’re restricted to PCIe 3.zero right here, and never the PCIe 4.zero that Rome helps. As a consequence, we suspect that this motherboard is likely to be extra suited to customers trying to extract the compute out of the Rome platform somewhat than expanded PCIe performance. Unfortunately because of this there are not any industrial twin socket EPYC motherboards with PCIe 4.zero help on the time of writing.
The H11DSI is partly E-ATX customary and half SSI-CEB, and so appropriate circumstances ought to help each in an effort to get the required mounting holes. Using the twin socket orientation that it has, the board is lots longer than what most common PC customers are used to: bodily it’s one sq. foot. The board as proven helps all eight reminiscence channels per socket in a 1 DIMM per channel configuration, with as much as DDR4-3200 for the Revision 2 fashions. We efficiently positioned 2 TB of LRDIMMs (16 * 128 GB) within the system with out points.
As with virtually all server motherboards, there’s a baseband administration controller in play right here – the IPMI ASPEED AST2500 which has turn into a normal in recent times. This permits for a log in to a Supermicro interface over the devoted Ethernet connection, in addition to a 2D video output. We’ll cowl the interface on the following web page.
Ethernet connectivity relies on the variant on the H11DSi you search for: the bottom mannequin has two gigabit ports powered by an Intel i350-AM21 controller, whereas the H11DSi-NT has two 10GBase-T ports from the Intel X550-AT2 on board. Due to this controller having a better TDP than the gigabit controller, there’s a further heatsink subsequent to the PCIe slots.
The board has a complete of 10 SATA ports: two SATA-DOM ports, and 4 SATA ports from every CPU by two Mini-SAS connectors. It’s value noting that the 4 ports right here come from completely different CPUs, such that any…
