The ASRock Rack W680D4U-2L2T/G5 is without doubt one of the actually enjoyable platforms from the corporate. With the most recent technology of CPUs, we’ve got not seen Intel have the identical deal with its Xeon E line. As an alternative, ASRock Rack is profiting from Intel’s completely different technique with the twelfth/thirteenth Gen Intel Core processors and turning the workstation-focused W680 chipset with DDR5 ECC UDIMM help, with 10Gbase-T right into a server platform. That’s the magic behind the W680D4U-2L2T/G5 that we’ll see on this evaluate.
ASRock Rack W680D4U-2L2T/G5 {Hardware} Overview
The ASRock Rack W680D4U-2L2T/G5 is a mATX (9.6″ x 9.6″) platform for the LGA1700 socket. One of many large benefits of a mATX platform is that it suits in lots of chassis each server and pedestal/ tower.
The highest of the motherboard is probably essentially the most distinctive. Right here we’ve got an ATX 24-pin connector and two 8-pin connectors. We’ve 4 DDR5 reminiscence UDIMM slots under these. Beneath the reminiscence is the LGA1700 socket. To the left of the socket are the 2 Intel i210 NICs and the heatsink for the Intel X710 NIC. One thing that’s extra distinctive right here is that there are three fan headers to the left of the DIMM slots. Usually we see these on the best edge (there are 4 on the best edge too.) ASRock Rack appears to be considering some beefy coolers with this.
On the reminiscence, as a result of we’ve got a W680 chipset, we get help for non-ECC or ECC DDR5 UDIMMs. Within the DDR5 technology, UDIMMs and RDIMMs usually are not suitable. When many focus on server reminiscence for higher-end AMD EPYC 9004 “Genoa” and 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable “Sapphire Rapids” they’re referring to RDIMMs. This motherboard solely helps UDIMMs. Here’s a video on that:
Since Intel is pairing the W680 chipset with ECC UDIMM help with twelfth Gen and thirteenth Gen Intel Core processors, we get one thing a bit completely different.
We are able to use customary Core CPUs and ECC UDIMMs on this platform as a substitute of getting to make use of a Xeon E-line as we did up to now. That is without doubt one of the greatest variations between this and the earlier generations.
One could ask what’s the distinction between the ASRock Rack W680 platform and the buyer Z690 platforms apart from ECC. A bit one is the airflow association. All the ASRock Rack W680 platform is about up for front-to-rear (server/workstation) chassis airflow, together with the LGA1700 socket, DDR5 DIMM slots, SATA connectors, and extra.
The PCIe scenario is completely different from earlier variations as effectively. The PCIe x16 slot is a PCIe Gen5 slot. The x4 slot is a PCIe Gen4 slot from the CPU that shares its lanes with one of many Oculink ports so you possibly can select slot or Oculink. The smallest slot is a PCIe Gen3 x1 slot to the PCH. This is without doubt one of the few motherboards one will see with three generations of PCIe slots subsequent to at least one one other.
The underside left has the W680 chipset and 4 SATA connections. Maybe the extra fascinating a part of that is that we get a PCIe Gen3 M.2 slot from the PCH after which 4 Oculink ports. We already talked about that one Oculink port shares its PCIe Gen4 lanes with the slot. Two of the others are PCIe Gen4 x4 and one is PCIe Gen4 x4 or 4x SATA III all from the W680 PCH.
On the rear of the motherboard, we get legacy VGA and serial ports. We additionally get a administration port powered by the ASPEED AST2600 BMC. There are additionally two USB 3.2 Gen1 ports. Maybe essentially the most distinctive is that we get DisplayPort and HDMI ports as a result of the Intel Core processors usually have onboard graphics. That is the show output for these.
Maybe essentially the most fascinating story although is the networking. We get two Intel i210 1GbE ports. Then on this platform, we get two 10Gbase-T ports from an Intel X710. That may be a higher-end NIC than the X550 sequence so that is very nice. Having each 1GbE and 10GbE onboard will imply that many can use the PCIe Gen5 x16 slot for GPUs as a substitute of for NICs.
This can be a actually fascinating platform general. Subsequent, allow us to get to the administration.
