GIGABYTE Server to Offer a 1P LGA2011 Motherboard with 10GbE SFP+
by Ian Cutress on March 6, 2014 5:22 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Gigabyte
- Xeon
- 10G Ethernet
- Enterprise
While home networking is moving slowly forward in the march towards 10GBase-T, having high speed access in the enterprise arena can be a specific requirement for a mission critical application. The most common way to add 10GbE capabilities are through add-in cards, or buying motherboards with them on board. The higher specification the motherboard (dual socket or more, many $$$$), the more likely this capability is to be added. For comparison, a PCIe card with 10GBase-T can cost $400+, so adding this to a motherboard requires that high end specification. GIGABYTE Server (a subdivision of GIGABYTE) emailed us today regarding the release of their GA-6PXSVT single socket LGA2011 motherboard that implements a single SFP+ 10GbE port on the rear panel.
By adding this feature to the motherboard itself, it means that users do not need that add in card and can implement other PCIe devices. The GA-6PXSVT is a fully equipped server LGA2011 motherboard with support for E5-1600 v2, E5-2600 v2 and 2nd/3rd Generation Core i7 processors. The 8 DIMM slots support ECC and non-ECC UDIMM/RDIMM, up to 1866 MHz with E5-2600 v2 processors. The single 10 GbE SFP+ Intel 82599EN port is coupled with two Intel 82574L Intel GbE Ethernet ports, along with an Aspeed AST2400 2D video adaptor.
The DIMM layout is designed for a server chassis such that airflow goes from right to left as the picture is displayed. The platform is designed for both compute and storage as well, with two SATA 6 Gbps + four SATA 3 Gbps from the C602 chipset paired with two Marvell 88SE9230 controllers, giving another eight SATA 6 Gbps ports. Due to these extra controllers and features, the PCIe layout supports dual x16 or x16/x8/x8 depending on how jumpers are applied on the motherboard.
The motherboard has four fan headers, a physical USB 2.0 port on board (for internal licence dongles), a TPM header, a USB 3.0 header, a USB 2.0 header, a backplane board header and various server related jumpers.
GIGABYTE Server motherboards are usually sourced by GIGABYTE’s regional offices (and thus pricing and warranty is individual to the purchaser based on units), although recently they have been placed for public purchase at malabs.com, ServersDirect and Superbiiz. The GA-6PXSVT should be availble there in the next few weeks.
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mapesdhs - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Having onboard 10GigE is a great feature, but oh no, not more Marvell controllers...
when will vendors stop using these awful chips??
I can't understand why Intel doesn't make available whatever technology it uses for its
own SATA3 connections as a separate simple addon chip which vendors can use to
provide extra SATA3 ports that _actually work properly_, because Marvell ports simply
don't. Never entrust a RAID0 setup to a Marvell controller. If there was such a thing as
a x4 or x8 PCIe Intel SATA3 card which offered 4 to 8 SATA3 ports, I'd buy some for sure,
eg. for my ASUS P9X79 WS, Asrock X58 Extreme6, etc., and numerous older boards
which don't native SATA3.
Btw, strange thing, although Gigabyte's spec summary says this board supports the
consumer i7 range of S2011 CPUs, their CPU support list table doesn't show any of
them. Do you know i7 support is present at launch? Or coming later?
Ian.
tyleeds - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Would be more interesting to know if the SFP+ port supports converged fabric. (FC+10Gbe or FCoE+10Gbe). Also: The internal USB drive is usually used for booting a bare-metal hypervisor like ESXiIan Cutress - Saturday, March 8, 2014 - link
I have the 6PXSV3 motherboard in to review which has the same issue - says on the page support for the consumer CPUs, but not in the QVL. I spoke with GIGABYTE Server, and they said they can only put CPUs into the QVL that Intel also says it officially supports, but they do unofficially support the consumer i7 series. I currently have the i7-4960X in the 6PXSV3, I just had to remember to use non-ECC with this CPU.SuperSpy00bob - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Assuming the large white connector about 1/4 down the right side of the board is the EATX 12v connector, does it scare anybody else that the wires are exposed?pattycake0147 - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Looks like a heatsink to me.DanNeely - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
It's a power connector. See item #2 on the diagram in page 19 of the manual.http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/server...
ZeDestructor - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Not even slightly.colonelclaw - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
What's the reason behind using the SFP+ interface rather than 10GBase-T?Kevin G - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Fiber interfaces for 10 Gbit Ethernet have existed for years where as 10Gbase-T switches are still relatively new. This allows for users to select the transceiver that interfaces with their network.colonelclaw - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Ah right thanks. So if you were starting from scratch, the logical route to take would be 10Gbase-T for the compatibility with common cat6/rj45 setups?