C266 chipset and Xeon E-2400

[Etorix]

Browsing through the newly launched Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs in ARK, I've stumbled on Raptor Lake chipset C266 "for servers" I had never heard about.

The sole C266 motherboard my favourite search engine could find is, unsurprisingly, a Supermicro one: B4SC1-CPU, for blade servers. Supports Xeon E-2400 "up to 95 W"… which cannot be found in ARK. Well, with some luck these E-2400 Xeons with a lower TDP than their desktop counterparts (like the E-2300 vs. W-1200/1300) will be released before Meteor Lake is launched.

 

[Ericloewe]

Huh, that one flew under my radar. I guess server boards are just so ridiculously expensive now that it's mostly an academic exercise.

 

[Etorix]

I suppose that none of that is supposed to be official yet. And then, it'll be "too new" to recommend…
But I'm curious about the core configuration in the Xeon E-2400 series.

 

[Yorick]

Looks like it drops iGPU, which is niche but nice for some users. 4 to 8 cores, with boost clocks north of 5 GHz for the beefiest ones.

 

[Etorix]

I could not find the page, and these Xeons are still not listed in ARK.
This article is two months old:

Intel Xeon E-2400 "Raptor Lake" Entry-Level Workstation CPU Specs Revealed, P-Core Only Flavors

Intel has revealed the official specifications of its Xeon E-2400 Xeon entry-level workstation CPUs which are part of the Raptor Lake family.

wccftech.com

There's no mention of iGPU, which I do not read as an explicit of its absence. Maybe all parts have an iGPU and there are no more 'G' and 'non-G' parts? Otherwise, it would be a de-featuring over E-2300 (which Intel is perfectly capable of).

It looks like the eventual release will be a very boring event. Especially as it will now take place after Meteor Lake is launched.

 

[Yorick]

When you look at https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/231692/intel-c266-chipset.html, it says "Integrated Graphics: No"

The C2x6 chipsets were historically the ones that supported an iGPU, whereas C2x2 did not. No longer, I guess.

If I had to guess I'd say this is because Intel now has Arc. So they can say "just stick in an Arc GPU if you need one" and save themselves the transistor count for the iGPU.

 

[Etorix]

Good point! These Xeon E-2400, now launched alongside Metor Lake and listed in ARK, all lack a 'G' because they really are 'non-G'. Updated architecture but same core count as E-2300, defeatured of their iGPU, upgraded to DDR-5 and PCIe 5.0—which has little or no obvious purpose in a small server.

Yawn.

 

[MrGuvernment]

Huh, that one flew under my radar. I guess server boards are just so ridiculously expensive now that it's mostly an academic exercise.

Yup, while older gear we know is fine for things, anything it seems newer than 5 years, you may as well take a loan out on your house.

 

[Yorick]

C262: SuperMicro X13-SCL-(I)F
C266: SuperMicro X13-SCH-(LN4)F

 

[Etorix]

8 SATA ports on the C262 board (X13SCL-F), and a more useful distribution of PCIe slots (x8, x8, x4, x4 rather than x16, x4, x4). That was unexpected.
I also note that Supermicro still uses the good old and trusted i210 NIC over i225/i226. 2.5GbE fails to impress.

 

[Ericloewe]

8 SATA ports on the C262 board (X13SCL-F),

The X13SCH apparently ships with the adapter cable from whatever the hell connector they're using now to I can't believe these things don't have a better name than "SATA-style" data connectors, so it's a bit of a wash in that regard.

and a more useful distribution of PCIe slots (x8, x8, x4, x4 rather than x16, x4, x4).

For two or three generations now, the H models have been 1U-optimized and the L models more geared towards generic ATX chassis. There will certainly be a variant of the X13SCH with a 90-degree PCIe slot at the bottom of the board - notice the odd cutout, it's there to make room for a second card sitting beneath the one that inserts into a riser on the x16 slot, to give you two cards in 1U while maintaining a usable microATX form factor.

I also note that Supermicro still uses the good old and trusted i210 NIC over i225/i226. 2.5GbE fails to impress

No big surprise there. Even on Xeon Scalable and Epyc boards, it's still somewhat rare to see Intel 10 GbE. Lots of I210s and Broadcom NICs, presumably because everyone is going to buy their own favorite NIC anyway, so the extra cost ends up being wasted. Fun fact: C3000 SoCs actually support 2.5 GbE, but it's such a useless feature nobody seems to have ever bothered with it over the past 6 years, despite it being minimal extra cost relative to 1 GbE (need a quad 2.5 GbE PHY, but the magnetics are the same as 1GBase-T).

 

[Etorix]

The X13SCH apparently ships with the adapter cable from whatever the hell connector they're using now to I can't believe these things don't have a better name than "SATA-style" data connectors, so it's a bit of a wash in that regard.

Indeed. For the sake of cable management, I guess I would rather prefer the breakout cable option. But the novelty here is that even C262 exposes 8 SATA ports: With previous generations, C2x2 provided up to 6 ports and you had to go for the higher-end C2x6 to have 8 ports.
With 8 SATA on C262, and no issue with passing through the now non-existent iGPU (another C2x6 exclusive of yore), I wonder what's the benefit of C266 over C262.

But that's mostly an academinc question because the platform looks very unattractive for home servers. X13SC_ boards are not yet listed on Geizhals, but Xeon E-2400 are, and they are super-expensive for what they are: Three to four times more expensive per core than LGA1700 Core CPU for desktop/workstation—and yet without the iGPU. W680 boards cost at least 500 E, twice as much as many Z690/Z790 boards; if C26x boards are similarly priced, the double "Xeon-tax" on CPUs and motherboard will make it very expensive for a small server.
Better go "server Ryzen" with AsRockRack at this point.

No big surprise there.

I'm not surprised that 2.5 GbE is not taking off in servers, just amused at the very obvious show of non-confidence from Supermicro here.

 

[Ericloewe]

X13SC_ boards are not yet listed on Geizhals

Some suppliers have them tentatively listed at 400ish €, which is a good news/bad news sort of situation. It's not pricier than earlier generations, but the prices were insane to begin with.

I wonder what's the benefit of C266 over C262.

According to Ark, more USB ports (not useful in a server) and more PCIe lanes (possibly useful for a cheap NVMe NAS platform, but those would probably stick with Xeon-D or Atom).

but Xeon E-2400 are, and they are super-expensive for what they are: Three to four times more expensive per core than LGA1700 Core CPU for desktop/workstation—and yet without the iGPU.

Phew, they're encroaching on Xeon Scalable/Epyc pricing. Not a good deal and it's really not clear to me what the market is.

 

[Constantin]

We mostly look for file servers, those platforms seem to be aimed at different uses. Otherwise the motherboard would have included SFP+ and a LSI HBA.

I wish the search function at SuperMicro was less 1995 than it is. They way they try to funnel you to a solution via processor / board generations rather than allowing you to spec out PCIe, HBA, SATA port requirements or SFP+ and then seeing what SM makes to meet your needs is really annoying.

 

[Ericloewe]

We mostly look for file servers, those platforms seem to be aimed at different uses.

But what? Telco edge stuff is saturated with Xeon-D and Epyc Embedded. Non-telco edge stuff might benefit, but that overlaps with Xeon-D and C3/4/5000. For anything outside the edge, there's just no meaningful niche.

 

[Etorix]

Some suppliers have them tentatively listed at 400ish €, which is a good news/bad news sort of situation. It's not pricier than earlier generations, but the prices were insane to begin with.

At 400-500 E for each of the motherboard and CPU, it's not going to be very popular for home NAS, that's sure.

Phew, they're encroaching on Xeon Scalable/Epyc pricing. Not a good deal and it's really not clear to me what the market is.

Companies which blindly buy anything Intel is offering without even looking at the AMD or ARM competition?

We mostly look for file servers, those platforms seem to be aimed at different uses. Otherwise the motherboard would have included SFP+ and a LSI HBA.

With 8 SATA ports, which is getting rare, these boards would be quite capable for storage. Their X11SCH predecessors were on the recommended hardware list—they still are on the list, but are mostly Unobtainium at this point. Some users here have used the X12STH generation for NAS builds, despite the price.
On-board SFP+ is quite uncommon, even where there could be enough real estate for it, and on-board SAS HBA is now totally out of fashion. (Have you seen a X11SDV or X12SDV board with a SAS HBA? I have not.)
The X13SCL has the right combination of x8 slots for a HBA and your-NIC-of-choice. The issue is price.

Which recent motherboards do you see directed at storage use? SATA ports are becoming an endangered species on the desktop, and even on some server boards. The worst example are C5000/P5000 Atom boards, which have far less SATA ports than C3000 boards.
We keep repeating to newcomers that a NAS does not need the latest and greatest board/CPU, but at some point it will not be possible to rely on Broadwell-era Xeon D boards…

 

[Constantin]

I just helped @bent98 put together a really nice system based on the X11SPM-TPF. Scalable Xeon, lots of memory, 12 SATA ports, 2 SATADOMS, multiple PCIe slots, SFP+. Etc. This is a killer board and as scalable xeons are retired, this is going to be an incredibly performant, yet relatively inexpensive system.

My embedded system cost more and performs a lot slower. It has a lower power consumption and more SATA ports but the above board has a lot more longevity built into it than mine does. Especially if the user ever wants to add a SSD pool that runs on NVM/PCIe, not SATA.

All that said, I just made your point by referring to a X11 generation board. But such is life with NAS’ in general, few of us here ever buy current-generation stuff as it tends to be far-too value priced to make sense absent some really compelling use-case scenarios.

 

[HansBohne]

I'm still at 1155 Xeons (each 32 ECC DDR3) with 2 of my servers - both have more than enough power to fill a 10 GBit network to the max (crypted ZFS) - the only thing I upgrade now and then are the disks - at least as long as I have "only" 10 Gbit Network.

I don't think it makes sense at the moment to upgrade the cpu and/or mainboard for a fileserver anymore - my serverboards (Asus P8B-M) are so old they even have PCI Slots :D

Supermicro is probably one of the best but still a bit expensive an/or not that easy to find ... :D

 

[Constantin]

As usual, the use case really matters. My system has an embedded CPU and I kind of regret that. Unlike @bent98, I do not have the luxury of substituting a different CPU as needs / use cases change. His board is incredibly flexible and as scalable Xeons come out of datacenters, it's going to potentially even more performant despite being (relatively) inexpensive.

People get way too hung up about older boards. Unless your use needs are on the bleeding edge, there is no need for PCIe5 or even 4, etc. I remain skeptical re: transcoding on a server vs. the end-point but that also reflects my use case. Etc. But everyone has different needs and their rigs should reflect that.

While buying heavy iron is a lot of fun, the reality is that within the next 6 months the rig will start to become obsolescent. So you likely are better off with used gear that's already depreciated or new gear that is no longer on the bleeding edge. Both acquisition types are likely to blow smaller holes in your wallet and offer better performance for the investment made.

And that's the last thing re: my soapbox rant here, I find the argument re: SuperMicro being expensive a little weird when folk are spending a few hundred bucks on the motherboard and thousands on the drives and other stuff, yet complain re: SM pricing. Also consider SM customer support vs. the competition.

I was so incredibly lucky to have iXsystems in my corner of the ring when the C2xxx Intel AVR54 bug emerged - iXsystems was super handling multiple motherboard exchanges until I got one that was current (1.03) and which worked without issues. Compare experiences from folk who tried to contact AsRock unless they got lucky.

When I inquired as a single-motherboard customer with SM and WiredZone, I got replies within a day to make sure things were right. I consider that a great value, i.e. a vendor that replies when things go badly vs. a vendor that may offer a competing motherboard at a lower price but whom you will never be able to get competent customer support from.

 

[Etorix]

There will certainly be a variant of the X13SCH with a 90-degree PCIe slot at the bottom of the board - notice the odd cutout, it's there to make room for a second card sitting beneath the one that inserts into a riser on the x16 slot, to give you two cards in 1U while maintaining a usable microATX form factor.

Here is the system, with a two-sided riser in the x16 slot, and provision for a HBA parallel to the motherboard:

Supermicro SYS-511R-M Intel Xeon E-2488 1U Server Review

We review the Supermicro SYS-511R-M which is the company's latest 1U Intel Xeon E-2400 series server platform and find some neat features

www.servethehome.com

Page 2 has some figures about power draw:

At idle, the Intel Xeon E-2488 saw package power consumption at only 5.9W which gave us 45W power consumption at the wall.

When we pushed the system up to a maximum 100% load we saw 170W package power and 232W at the wall. This is roughly 2x a Xeon E3 system albeit with 2x the core count and higher performance per core. […]

In previous generations of Xeon E3-1200 V1-V6 and some of the Xeon E-2100/ Xeon E-2200 series parts, the series was fairly safe to stay under the 120W (1A 120V) per U of power found at super inexpensive hosting shops. Now, that would likely require stepping down the CPU or setting some platform power limits.

It's a pity that C246 motherboards are now hard to find, or ridiculously priced.