At this time we’re going to take a look at a motherboard that would be the first of a brand new era for STH. The Supermicro A3SPI-4C-LN6PF is the primary Intel Atom C5000 “Parker Ridge” platform that now we have examined. This can be a new era of Intel Atom that’s the replace to the Intel Atom C3000 “Denverton” launched in 2017. Whereas this is probably not probably the most thrilling 4-core platform, we needed to point out off what’s new. What’s extra, lots of our readers could also be overlooking this new platform as a result of we discovered conflicting networking specs within the spec pages, guide, and elsewhere so it was time to analyze additional.
As a fast notice, this motherboard continues to be listed as “coming quickly” on Supermicro’s web site at this level, however we managed to get one early. So early that Supermicro doesn’t know now we have considered one of these. It might additionally imply that the documentation isn’t up to date but.
Supermicro A3SPI-4C-LN6PF Overview
The A3SPI-4C-LN6PF is a typical mITX platform. Meaning it’s 6.7″ x 6.7″.
Onboard, now we have the Intel Atom C5315. Supermicro makes use of quite a lot of SKUs, however that is the 4-core / 4 thread unit. Intel really sells the chip itself for $213.
That ought to seem to be fairly a bit. The Intel Atom C3558R is the earlier era 4-core mannequin, and that was $93. Intel has quite a lot of new options onboard, however the brand new half makes use of the up to date environment friendly core design and has new QAT. On the similar time, it has a a lot larger TDP (38W v. 17W) and fewer most PCIe Gen3 lanes (12 v. 20.)
Consequently, we consider the Intel Atom C5315 as a “funky” chip. It’s higher in some methods, however in others it doesn’t really feel like an unlimited improve over a 2017/ 2020 (the Intel Atom C3000 line was quietly refreshed in 2020 with the C3558R.) Nonetheless, that’s the chip that’s on this motherboard.
Powering the unit, although it is a mITX platform, Supermicro has each a conventional 24-pin ATX in addition to an 8-pin for DC enter (we used the DC enter and the platform usually ran sub-40W though with larger energy optics, extra drives, and so forth we might push it larger.
A very nice function of this motherboard is that it’s utilizing DDR4 reminiscence and RDIMMs. The Intel Atom C5315 has a de-rated pace of DDR4-2400 so we have been in a position to re-use some 16GB RIMMs we had. New servers use DDR5 and may solely use RDIMMs, so it is a welcome distinction with the platform. If you wish to be taught extra about reminiscence pace scaling, now we have this piece. We even have a chunk on server DDR5 RDIMMs v UDIMMs and a video for that overlaying each.
Beneath the CPU and SFP cages, we get an AST2500 BMC. That is the older era BMC because the Supermicro X12SDV-4C-SP6F we simply reviewed makes use of the newer ASPEED AST2600.
The M.2 slot is a M.2 2280 (80mm) slot that operates as PCIe Gen3 x4.
Alongside the underside, the PCIe slot might appear to be an x8 slot, nevertheless, it’s only a PCIe Gen3 x2 slot. Supermicro makes use of an open-ended slot, however the bandwidth isn’t excessive sufficient for twin port 25GbE adapters or something like that. With this motherboard, the very best pace PCIe slot is definitely the M.2 slot.
There’s a second B-key M.2 that could be a 3052 slot that’s PCIe Gen3 x2, USB 3.0, SATA III. That is designed for including networking. Beneath that, there’s a nano-SIM slot that we didn’t get to make use of.
M.2 storage has actually taken over right here. There’s a single SATA III “gold’ port that enables one to energy a SATA DOM with out a cable. The Oculink port is spec’d as SATA solely, and the cables are comparatively dear. It nearly seems like that was not a major function of the motherboard, so an Oculink connector was added simply to save lots of PCB area.
The first I/O of the motherboard has Supermicro’s conventional IPMI out-of-band administration port, two USB 3 ports, and a VGA port for administration.
The massive story although is the networking. 4 ports are all 1GbE ports. These are slightly completely different since they aren’t the Intel i210/i211 ports nor the i350 ports that now we have been accustomed to seeing for years. As a substitute, they use a Marvell PHY that’s clear to the OS, however the MAC is definitely the Intel E822-L constructed into the Atom C5315. The SFP cages are listed as SFP, not SFP+ on the spec web page in three locations (beneath the motherboard and #6 key options to the correct, and never proven within the networking part beneath.) They’re additionally listed as SFP within the motherboard guide.
Whereas the prospect of getting solely 1GbE (extra on testing the pace of these SFP ports later on this article) left us nervous, the chip does help Intel QuickAssist that now we have examined extensively. That is the Gen2 QAT, not the Gen3 that we get with the Snow Ridge P5300 elements.
There’s a lot right here, however we see this because the successor to the Intel Atom C3558 as a 4-core half within the Atom line for embedded home equipment.
Subsequent, allow us to get to administration.
