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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
19 Comments
View All Comments
ZeDestructor - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
For us yes, but unless I'm wrong, 10GbE over copper on 8P8C connectors is more expensive and less flexible than SFP+, which aside from fibre, can also be used with Direct Attach copper or an SFP to 8P8C convertor (although those are really rare).I like where this is going though.. on-board 10GbE... with any luck, we'll see classic copper-only 8P8C 10GbE implementations on higher-end consumer boards and switches will start getting cheap!
gsvelto - Friday, March 7, 2014 - link
SFP+ offers significantly lower latency than 10GBase-T (up to 1µs per crossed port) and lower power too. This is mostly due to the block-encoding needed by 10GBase-T transmission protocol and the additional DSP processing required to clean the signal. SFP+ maximum cable reach is also higher and switches/adapters are generally cheaper than their 10GBase-T equivalents.All in all unless you're relying on existing legacy infrastructure and cannot do major changes to your cabling setup going for SFP+ cables and connectors is a win on pretty much all fronts.
sor - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
agreed. 10GBase-T is pretty horrible, and I hate the fact that the majority of server motherboards with on-board 10G have it. It's power hungry and hard to find switches for. I can only assume it's so that they don't have to put both 1G and 10G on different connectors. I'll go with direct copper SFP+ any day.electroball09 - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
"many $$$$">.>
<.<
much internet
very speed
wow
BMNify - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
if GIGABYTE’s regional offices dont want you to know their prices without logging in to just find that simple cost v utility then we shall all just wait on amd to prove those new x2 10Gb/s arm motherboards, provid what people want to buy with a clear and public stated price or no salekmi187 - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Completely agree with you here, I hate it when you have to jump through hoops to get an idea how much a certain solution is going to cost you. If they don't bother mentioning it clearly, I won't bother wasting money on their product either.Ian Cutress - Friday, March 7, 2014 - link
That's just that retailers policy. I recently learned that GIGABYTE Server also sell at ServersDirect and Superbiiz, which do not have that login requirement. Post updated to reflect these links :)extide - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
This would be the perfect board to upgrade my ZFS server into one day!Libertysyclone - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
Is IPMI too much to ask? even if it were an addin card I would be happy.