• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

anyone run a supermicro board?

K

kmrivers

Golden Member
I am working on a workstation and I am battling between the:

Tyan K8WE
Supermicro H8DCE

They both have full x16 PCI-e slots fully supporting SLI.
The Tyan has the AMD8131 which adds in support for PCI-X slots while the Supermicro does not however. The Supermicro does take advantage of both the 2200 and 2050 by having 8 SATAII.

I am wondering if anyone knows about the quality, reliability, and support from supermicro. thanks.
 
Supermicro only started doing AMD relatively recently, don't publish them too well on their own web sites, and channel through OEM. I'd be suspicious. If the Tyan is comparable, I'd guess that it's a safer bet and go with it instead.
 
The Tyan uses both NVidia chips too, else it couldn't have 2x16 PCIE slots.
The extra AMD8131 does come handy when you look at serious storage or network add-ons - hardware RAID cards, multi-channel gigabit ethernet, etc. The Tyan's onboard dual-channel SCSI controller is on a PCI-X bus as well.
 
i didnt say that it didn't. the supermicro board has 8 SATA ports on board. Which would probably end my need for another card. Even so i would have 2 PCI-e x4 slots for expansion. All the 8131 does for the board is add some PCI-X slots. So the only benefit I am seeing on the Tyan is PCI-X and firewire, but i lose 4 SATA ports. I am just wondering if anyone runs a supermicro board and can tell me about their quality, etc.

And yeah it took me awhile to find the opteron boards on their site.
 
Originally posted by: kmrivers
i didnt say that it didn't. the supermicro board has 8 SATA ports on board. Which would probably end my need for another card. Even so i would have 2 PCI-e x4 slots for expansion. All the 8131 does for the board is add some PCI-X slots.
Click to expand...

... which is the entire point. You also get onboard dual-channel U320 SCSI, attached to one of the two PCI-X busses the AMD8131 provides.

One or two years down the line, it'll be more interesting to have PCIE 4x slots, but today's offerings in performance storage and ethernet are almost all PCI-X.
The SATA ports on the NVidia chips are all soft-RAID. That's handy, but nowhere near the performance figures from RAID controllers that bring a brain of their own.

 
Supermicro also has this board http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron/nForce/H8DC8.cfm
Buy Here
http://www.atacom.com/program/print_htm...&Item_code=MBK9_SUPE_AA_12&USER_ID=www

All i can say from experiance is that supermicro is top of the line up there with tyan and iwill when it comes to quality motherboards the early versions of the h8dce had some problems but they are mostly ironed out with the new revision,dont expect to overclock much minimal settings in bios but it is stable as hell.And there customer support is very quick and knowledgeble.Also i read that a company called Tatung actually makes supermicro boards
 
peter. i don't need scsi it is too experience. my data access patterns are not that of a server so i don't need that kind of 'speed'. I don't see a need anytime to get today's offerings in performance storage and ethernet. I am not running a server. I am running a workstation for graphics.

Also, the RAID on the nvidia chips(at least on the supermicro) is hardware for level 0, 1, and 0+1. All the rest is software. Besides even raid in some cases can't touch a raptor.


Indyboy, what made you go with the supermicro over a tyan or iwill. The H8DC8 is pretty much the same as the K8WE with SCSI, they also have the H8DCi which is like the K8WE without SCSI. I found a thread at 2cpu forums that i am reading through.

As far as overclocking goes, how much were you able to get? I am probably going with (2) Opteron 265's.

Right now the H8DCE is selling me. But it is going to take some more reading. Thanks.
 
All came down to what i needed .I had a couple of s/m boards before one i still have but it all came down to price at the time the tyan k8we was 100.00 or more and the iwill i did not really like so i got the h8dce from monarch
 
kmrivers, yes, it's all up to what suits your needs. Now that you know what both choices have to offer, it's entirely up to you to make your pick. SuperMicro certainly know just as well as Tyan how to make solid board designs, but as has been said, they currently don't do end user retail with their AMD64 stuff. That might be a problem should you need their support.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top