Has Intel Abandoned the HEDT Market?

zandor said:
Intel's desktop chips should support ECC. Making you buy a Xeon for a stability feature is brain-damaged.

All I really want is extra lanes for a 10+Gb NIC and lots more NVMe drives. Maybe a RAID controller, so the board should have 2+ 8x slots in addition to the 16X for the vid card. AMD & Intel could make me happy with a better top end desktop chipset. 1 16X slot for a vid card, the rest go to the "workstation" chipset, and the chipset has like 64 lanes or something. Yes it's a performance hit going through the chipset instead of straight to the CPU, but it's not that bad and I'll take it if I can use a desktop chip with a $600 board instead of having to buy a Xeon or EPYC setup.
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They do, actually. From a technical perspective, the circuitry has been there for a long time on -S/DT skus, but was often fused off or only available for certain low-end chips when installed in C-series chipset boards. The Xeon E3's (and later Xeon E's) were the same silicon and supported ECC. Presently, any 12th/13th gen supports ECC on a W680 board. It's more a manner of circuitry and BIOS than the CPU alone. Almost all AMD consumer CPUs have had ECC available, even if not officially supported, but it was a question of whether the boards were built with the extra bits necessary to enable it (and proving it is working is a whole other issue unto itself). Asrock even managed to make RDIMMs work with Core-X's on x299 hitting 2TB of memory, and then OC'd them.

I too have been upset with the direction of consumer boards and their expansion slots. Despite all those available lanes, full ATX boards seem to have 2 or 3 PCIe slots and the rest are m.2 or unused. Even the X299s began skimping. I'm using m.2 to x4 breakout cables on my board (with just 4 x16/x8 slots) to put everything I need in there. Here's hoping that the consumer-level W790s have overclocking and all the slots to go with them.
 
lopoetve said:
That will also depend on motherboards we get (enthusiast or just basic workstation boards), cooler support (other than basic ones), etc. Is it all like the Threadripper Pros, where you get workstation boards and nothing else, or something like the Dominus Extreme where you get a consumer focused board that handles a Xeon-W chip?
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If gigabyte makes another aorus xtreme for it that would be nice, I love mine but I never did end up building a rig with it lol just have it sitting in the case.
 
SUPERMICRO-INTEL-W790-1.jpg


https://videocardz.com/newz/supermicro-next-gen-intel-w790-xeon-hedt-motherboard-pictured-up-close
 
KazeoHin said:
LOL at that VRM and being called "HEDT"
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The author isn't claiming it's an enthusiast board. The BMC (VGA, still??) and shitty audio scream workstation segment.

That said, while the VRMs may not be what we like to see on an OC board, they will still push 350W into a 3495X all day long, which is what I'm doing with my 10980 and all the OC board engineering to go with it.
 
Grebuloner said:
The author isn't claiming it's an enthusiast board. The BMC (VGA, still??) and shitty audio scream workstation segment.

That said, while the VRMs may not be what we like to see on an OC board, they will still push 350W into a 3495X all day long, which is what I'm doing with my 10980 and all the OC board engineering to go with it.
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It’s a BMC; VGA is still the most common on those. No integrated video in the CPU, that’s either a one G200 or Rage video card with 8M of VRAM.
 
lopoetve said:
It’s a BMC; VGA is still the most common on those. No integrated video in the CPU, that’s either a one G200 or Rage video card with 8M of VRAM.
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To be sure, but it's 2023. The AST2600 supports DP.

It's time to move on, people!
 
Could be a prejudice on my part but I can understand people that would prefer analogue port for the servers debug monitor, I would want to remove a maximum of complexity if there is ever an emergency that make me plug a monitor on such computer.
 
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Grebuloner said:
To be sure, but it's 2023. The AST2600 supports DP.

It's time to move on, people!
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A lot of these end up in DC spaces - I haven't had an HDMI monitor, never mind DP, in a DC yet - and I've been doing that dance for 15 years. If I'm manually hooking into the BMC, something's either gone VERY wrong, or I'm doing the very first initial setup to the point of configuring the BMC IP. Once that's done, that port isn't touched unless "it's all broken" - and 99.9% of the systems in that room will only have VGA, so...

When used as a workstation, it'll have a real GPU in it - even if a basic GT710 or the like. That will have DP or HDMI. No one uses the BMC for anything but emergency troubleshooting or initial stage-0 configuration (IIRC, that BMC supports virtual media, so you're not even doing an OS install with it). Heck, the one time I tried to use it for something (was trying to do windows 2012 on an HP G8 for an imaging test - to build automation), it was almost unusable.
 
Grebuloner said:
To be sure, but it's 2023. The AST2600 supports DP.

It's time to move on, people!
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You have never had access to a proper datacenter, when saying stuff like that.
As long as VGA does the job IMPI/ILO/iDrac requires the console table will not change.

If it is not broken, do not "fix" it.
A datacenter aims for stability, stabilty and stability, not "features".
 
Grebuloner said:
To be sure, but it's 2023. The AST2600 supports DP.

It's time to move on, people!
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Piling on, having a single standard port for video for consoles on all servers is worth more than whatever you get from digital video, which could be dvi, hdmi, dp, or even usb-c if you're really masochistic or mini versions just cause. VGA isn't cool, but it still works. I'm a FreeBSD guy, so 80x24 text is all I need and VGA works just fine for that; but I can't imagine emergency access for any platform needing anything more than what VGA can do anyway.
 
HumanBias said:
You have never had access to a proper datacenter, when saying stuff like that.
As long as VGA does the job IMPI/ILO/iDrac requires the console table will not change.

If it is not broken, do not "fix" it.
A datacenter aims for stability, stabilty and stability, not "features".
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It's been a long, long time (as in VGA was also current for home computers).

I'll admit I'm on the wrong side of this, but it's still a bit surprising that it's such a non-issue after 35 years of use. Certainly everything could be locally accessed from a single RJ45 or USB port to a handheld terminal, but I suppose the pennies it costs to implement as-is is low enough.
 
Grebuloner said:
It's been a long, long time (as in VGA was also current for home computers).

I'll admit I'm on the wrong side of this, but it's still a bit surprising that it's such a non-issue after 35 years of use. Certainly everything could be locally accessed from a single RJ45 or USB port to a handheld terminal, but I suppose the pennies it costs to implement as-is is low enough.
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K.I.S.S also lays a part.
And the pain of having two types of console tables (VGA for legacy, DP/HDMI for newer systems.
I have never seen anything but VGA in DC's, not even DVI.
 
Grebuloner said:
It's been a long, long time (as in VGA was also current for home computers).

I'll admit I'm on the wrong side of this, but it's still a bit surprising that it's such a non-issue after 35 years of use. Certainly everything could be locally accessed from a single RJ45 or USB port to a handheld terminal, but I suppose the pennies it costs to implement as-is is low enough.
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Drivers on the USB ones are ... tricky, and the connectors are finicky as hell. I've got one of those, and there's lots of fiddling to make it work sometimes. A crash cart works, every time, even if the cable is dinged up (colors wonky? it's TEXT!) and the screens are $50-100 max, since they're just designed for the basics. It's all about "super reliable, super simple, super cheap" - and VGA is that. Old school all the way, but GUARANTEED there's a pile of the damned things in a corner somewhere - and a few dozen spare cables just in case. Idiot proof, basically. Drop it by accident? Meh, petty cash covers the replacement.

As for RJ45- some OSes don't play nice with serial connections :) And then you have to get everyone to agree on a serial standard (glares at dell).
 
The obvious issue is still across all those processors, not a single one boosts higher than 5Ghz
 
I know nothing about this, but I am curious to see how it will look to run in no DDR mode, workload that ran purely ont he 64gb of HBM2e memory, I could see why people would pay big price tag for something like that.
 
LukeTbk said:
I know nothing about this, but I am curious to see how it will look to run in no DDR mode, workload that ran purely ont he 64gb of HBM2e memory, I could see why people would pay big price tag for something like that.
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pretty sure HBM is going to be Sapphire Rapids-SP
 
LukeTbk said:
I know nothing about this, but I am curious to see how it will look to run in no DDR mode, workload that ran purely ont he 64gb of HBM2e memory, I could see why people would pay big price tag for something like that.
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German Muscle said:
pretty sure HBM is going to be Sapphire Rapids-SP
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This is accurate. It will be VERY expensive - it's designed for enterprise workloads.

that being said - me too! Would be hilarious to play with if you can :D
 
lopoetve said:
This is accurate. It will be VERY expensive - it's designed for enterprise workloads.

that being said - me too! Would be hilarious to play with if you can :D
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You braggart, you! Will they let you bench your systems at work?

Looks like ~$3000 premium for the HBM, though the IoD costs are also a part of that. Don't recall it actually costing remotely that much, but that was pre-2020.

As a "down the line" kind of guy of the server stuff, I'm curious if a company buys a permanent license for special CPU features if that gets baked into the CPU or remains in software or the motherboard.
 
Grebuloner said:
You braggart, you! Will they let you bench your systems at work?

Looks like ~$3000 premium for the HBM, though the IoD costs are also a part of that. Don't recall it actually costing remotely that much, but that was pre-2020.

As a "down the line" kind of guy of the server stuff, I'm curious if a company buys a permanent license for special CPU features if that gets baked into the CPU or remains in software or the motherboard.
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AFAIK it's installed in bios, so you're good to go if someone paid for it. And yes, if I acquire one I can play with it and post numbers - generally I get slightly older kit (my main CPUs are 8280L for the servers).
 
Nice. It's probably a stretch, but it'd certainly be great if Arctic made either a new block or adapter (assuming the current contact area is sufficient) for their Freezer II line. I'm not confident enough to do watercooling and maintain it. Only a few options in the 420 AIOs and what a price difference between Arctic and the others.
 
If AMD does not provide their best Epic chips unlocked, I may go Intel for my next workstation!

Any time I see a company hold back their best chips behind locked multipliers I take it as a lack of effort.
 
KazeoHin said:
If AMD does not provide their best Epic chips unlocked, I may go Intel for my next workstation!

Any time I see a company hold back their best chips behind locked multipliers I take it as a lack of effort.
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The TR Pros are still unlocked, though OC boards are not exactly common (Asus Sage for one) and definitely pricey. But I'm not sure if AMD is entirely to blame for that beyond pricing the chips well beyond a pill that most in the OC community was willing to swallow compared to the TR3ks.
 
Grebuloner said:
The TR Pros are still unlocked, though OC boards are not exactly common (Asus Sage for one) and definitely pricey. But I'm not sure if AMD is entirely to blame for that beyond pricing the chips well beyond a pill that most in the OC community was willing to swallow compared to the TR3ks.
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I still have a strong suspicion that the lack of HEDT was due to Intel not having competition, and all the chip shortages for AMD - sell the highest margin you can (the TR Pros).
 
At this point, I think the only details we're missing are availability dates, prices and the boards. Rather surprised at the general lack of board leaks, IMO. Just the one from Supermicro.
 
Grebuloner said:
At this point, I think the only details we're missing are availability dates, prices and the boards. Rather surprised at the general lack of board leaks, IMO. Just the one from Supermicro.
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Agreed. Some leaked hints around a SAGE board too. But that’s about it.
 
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