ASRock Shows Off its X99 WS Workstation Motherboard

From having worked on a number of WS boards, my immediate observations would be:

- Primary PCIe slot too high up. Hefty GPU cards can clash with air coolers,
and even with DIMMs.

- Bottom slot is right next to all sorts of board-edge items; make the board
longer! It's a WS board for grud's sake, it's going to be used in bigger cases.

- Power/reset/debug and I/O panel pins are all on the bottom edge - the whole
lot will be obscured by a large GPU, can't see debug code on powerup, front
panel pins are hard to connect, etc. Move the debug and reset/power to the
top/right of the board, and again, make the board longer so a 2-slot GPU in
the bottom slot won't block all these bottom-edge items.

These issues really can become a total pain with WS-type boards, especially in
quad-GPU setups. The ASUS M4E has its power/reset buttons in the right place,
but its WS boards suffer from the same bottom-edge issues.

I don't understand why WS boards are always made to be so short.
Indeed, I'd regard a real WS board as one which was extra long to allow for
triple slot spacing with 4 GPUs, PLEX switches for 4-way @ x16, and x1/x4
slots inbetween the main slots. It would also help a lot if case vendors could
find a way of allowing one to adjust the vertical position of the mbd so it can
be put lower down to allow for larger water coolers up top (eg. Aerocool
XPredator would benefit from this), ie. a repositionable backplate zone. Thus,
a case with 10 slots at the back could be adjusted to have the mbd 2 slots
further down, leaving 8 slots (often what is needed for quad-GPU) and more
room at the top.

Ian.

Gentlemen?,
The upcoming ASRock X99 WS, LGA 2011 workstation motherboard employing the X99 chipset is very welcome, especially given the 10 SATA III connections and the new Ultra M.2 port. The C602 chipset as far as I know supports two SATA III ports.

Also welcome is the row of six PCIe x16 slots which take advantage of the 40 PCIe lanes of Xeon E5 as compared to the 16 lanes of LGA1150 (Xeon E3). I'm quite certain that not all six slots may run at x16 simultaneously, but the flexibility in configuration and card placement is an attractive feature.

One aspect of the ASRock X99 WS that I question is along the same lines as mentioned by mapesdhs, that of a seeimngly crowded layout. Workstations are increasingly used for long slogs of calculations using every core and CUDA (MATLAB), demanding video editing /processing, and rendering. Running renderings recently on an HP z420, the Quadro 4000 touched 105C and the E5-1620 83C. The new Haswell-E's will be include Xeon E5's of 8, 10, 12, 14 , 16, and 18 cores. The demanding uses and the presence of all those cores add to a lot of potential heat. Even though the voltages for the CPUs and DDR4 are gradually reduced- DDR4 is 1.2V, generous cooling should be a high priority and not necessary to measure and calculate to the the last mm. Those RAM slots would probably be useable only with RAM without heat spreaders. Perhaps DDR4 doesn't need it, but after five years with 83-90C DDR2- I err on the side of caution. As storage becomes less expensive, workstation are also using larger 1+0 RAIDs, demanding larger cases anyway. If I were to use this board, I would use closed loop liquid cooling and a large, airy case, so I would rather see this one as an E-ATX board with some space between the CPU and RAM and in general less crowded.

Still, if the performance is as good as it might be and the price is reasonable- under $350, it looks to be very good and a new 8-core Xeon E5-1660 v3 at 3.5/ 3.9GHz, a PCIe SSD, 64GB of 1866 DDR4, a Quadro K5000 or Firepro W7000 could make me very happy.

I'll look forward to Tom's giving this one a test drive, especially with regards to Ultra M.2.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

P.S. It's not terribly important, but I wish Intel would change their Xeon designation system and drop the v2 , v3 when the CPU's are substantially different. For example, when the six-core E5-1660 v2 becomes the eight-core E5-1660 v3 on a completely different die, why not call it simply E5-1680 or similar?

bambiboom writes:
> Also welcome is the row of six PCIe x16 slots which take advantage of the 40 PCIe lanes of Xeon E5
> as compared to the 16 lanes of LGA1150 (Xeon E3). I'm quite certain that not all six slots may run at
> x16 simultaneously, but the flexibility in configuration and card placement is an attractive feature.

One would hope they've set it up akin to the X79 Extreme 11, but we shall see.


> ... Running renderings recently on an HP z420, the Quadro 4000 touched 105C and the E5-1620 83C. ...

The stock cooler on the Q4K is rubbish. Replace it with something better. I've done this several times;
using a Gelic Icy Vision II, load temps dropped by 45C. Using a Zalman VF1000, load temps dropped
by 25C. The former does take up 3 slots, but that's ok if you're not using the affected slots. The Zalman
cooler uses just 2 slots, but it's harder to find (I got one 2nd hand from an old 4870 card). An added
benefit: both solutions massively reduce noise levels, especially the Icy Vision II.

As for the CPU, use water cooling. I've been using Corsair H100i and H110s for all X79 builds,
works very well, good temps and low noise (I don't use the stock fans though).


> ... If I were to use this board, I would use closed loop liquid cooling and a large, airy case,
> so I would rather see this one as an E-ATX board with some space between the CPU and
> RAM and in general less crowded.

So far I've been using Cooler Master HAF 932 cases and one Aerocool XPredator, but they
both have limitations. My next build will be with a Nanoxia Deep Silence (NDS) 6. It's huge,
so plenty of space inside, but I will have to modify it to have wheels for easier movement.
bambiboom, have a look at the specs, and check some reviews.
specs, and check some reviews. Note that although it's a
bit pricey, I always replace stock fans in cases with NDS fans anyway, so the overall cost
will be about the same since this unit already has the desired fans.


> Still, if the performance is as good as it might be and the price is reasonable- under $350,
> it looks to be very good and a new 8-core Xeon E5-1660 v3 at 3.5/ 3.9GHz, a PCIe SSD,
> 64GB of 1866 DDR4, a Quadro K5000 or Firepro W7000 could make me very happy.

Is that with ECC RAM? If not, get the 5930K instead, easily better than a 10-core XEON
once oc'd. Btw, the K5000 is about 3X faster than the Q4000, I've tested both recently.


> I'll look forward to Tom's giving this one a test drive, especially with regards to Ultra M.2.

The newer storage tech is a definite improvement. And I read yesterday that it will
support at least 128GB RAM.


> eight-core E5-1660 v3 on a completely different die, why not call it simply E5-1680 or similar?

I agree, but then lots of modern tech marketing names are really dumb.

Ian.

13975557 said:

bambiboom writes:
> Also welcome is the row of six PCIe x16 slots which take advantage of the 40 PCIe lanes of Xeon E5
> as compared to the 16 lanes of LGA1150 (Xeon E3). I'm quite certain that not all six slots may run at
> x16 simultaneously, but the flexibility in configuration and card placement is an attractive feature.

One would hope they've set it up akin to the X79 Extreme 11, but we shall see.


> ... Running renderings recently on an HP z420, the Quadro 4000 touched 105C and the E5-1620 83C. ...

The stock cooler on the Q4K is rubbish. Replace it with something better. I've done this several times;
using a Gelic Icy Vision II, load temps dropped by 45C. Using a Zalman VF1000, load temps dropped
by 25C. The former does take up 3 slots, but that's ok if you're not using the affected slots. The Zalman
cooler uses just 2 slots, but it's harder to find (I got one 2nd hand from an old 4870 card). An added
benefit: both solutions massively reduce noise levels, especially the Icy Vision II.

As for the CPU, use water cooling. I've been using Corsair H100i and H110s for all X79 builds,
works very well, good temps and low noise (I don't use the stock fans though).


> ... If I were to use this board, I would use closed loop liquid cooling and a large, airy case,
> so I would rather see this one as an E-ATX board with some space between the CPU and
> RAM and in general less crowded.

So far I've been using Cooler Master HAF 932 cases and one Aerocool XPredator, but they
both have limitations. My next build will be with a Nanoxia Deep Silence (NDS) 6. It's huge,
so plenty of space inside, but I will have to modify it to have wheels for easier movement.
bambiboom, have a look at the specs, and check some reviews.
specs, and check some reviews. Note that although it's a
bit pricey, I always replace stock fans in cases with NDS fans anyway, so the overall cost
will be about the same since this unit already has the desired fans.


> Still, if the performance is as good as it might be and the price is reasonable- under $350,
> it looks to be very good and a new 8-core Xeon E5-1660 v3 at 3.5/ 3.9GHz, a PCIe SSD,
> 64GB of 1866 DDR4, a Quadro K5000 or Firepro W7000 could make me very happy.

Is that with ECC RAM? If not, get the 5930K instead, easily better than a 10-core XEON
once oc'd. Btw, the K5000 is about 3X faster than the Q4000, I've tested both recently.


> I'll look forward to Tom's giving this one a test drive, especially with regards to Ultra M.2.

The newer storage tech is a definite improvement. And I read yesterday that it will
support at least 128GB RAM.


> eight-core E5-1660 v3 on a completely different die, why not call it simply E5-1680 or similar?

I agree, but then lots of modern tech marketing names are really dumb.

Ian.

Ian,
Motherboard design been interesting in the last couple of years as evidenced by the different approaches to workstation motherboard makers such as ASRock and ASUS as compared to makers such as Supermicro and Tyan, that is, makers who make a full range of boards and makers who tend to be known for workstation boards. The ASRock X99 WS is very promising, but does show slight signs of concessions and marketing appeal to a broader market. Supermicro and Tyan workstation boards are more closely focused. Perhaps Tom's might have a features / performance comparison of workstation boards with a high performance consumer / gaming board as reference?

The cooling problem with the Quadro 4000 seems to be that it's a single height card with limited LFM whereas the double height Quadro 5000 doesn't have this. I've considered the Gelid Icy Vision and a month ago, cancelled an order at the last minute, concerned about fan noise. What was your experience with the Gelid? I've transferred all my rendering work to a dual Xeon Dell Precision T5400- it can sit in the corner and use all those cores. Also, next Spring, when changing to a 2560 X 1440 monitor, I'll also move to a more powerful GPU, perhaps a K5000 or W7000. The W7000, though has also been criticized for marginal cooling.

Yes, Nanoxia cases are interesting designs, not expensive, and packed with attention to sound and cooling. I'm a fan of the very sober, giant, and infinitely optioned CaseLabs, but the Nanoxia is a consideration.

ECC: As I will be running structural, gas flow, thermal simulations, and waveform analysis /processing (MATLAB), all my future systems will have ECC RAM.

Cheers,

BambiBoom