On Sun, 2005-06-26 at 23:47 -0400, Juan Carlos wrote:
Hello all..... I would like to know if anyone here has had good experience with this Supermicro motherboard..... http://supermicro.com/products/motherboard/P4/E7221/P8SCT.cfm I am thinking about using it in an entry level mail and file server with a 3ware card and 200 GB SATA drives. Cost is a factor here otherwise I would go for an Opteron board instead.
Yeah, a major limitation with AMD is that they don't have an "entry- level" mainboard with PCI-X -- not even one really for single Opteron (at least I haven't seen one). You're out at least $300 for an AMD8131 +8111 mainboard with dual-Opteron if you want PCI-X -- although you do get dual-PCI-X 1.0 channels (which is nice -- one for NIC, one for storage).
The Intel 7200 and 7500 series of chipsets are basically licenses of newer generation ServerWorks ServerSet IV chipsets -- at least the all- important "northbridge"/MCH components. The 7200 is the "entry" series compared to the 7500 which is more "professional-level."
Page 12 (labeled 1-6) of the manual shows the block diagram: http://supermicro.com/manuals/motherboard/E7221/MNL-0776.pdf
The dual-GbE provided by a BroadCom BM5721 is connected to a PCIe x1 channel (250MBps). Not as ideal as one connected to a PCI-X channel (533-1066MBps, assuming it wasn't shared), but much better than being connected to the "shared" PCI bus (and sharing a measly 133MBps).
And I assume you're going to put the 3Ware Escalade in the PCI-X slot. It's its own slot on its own, dedicated 133MHz PCI-X bus. The slot will slow down to 66MHz for PCI 2.2 compatibility using a 3Ware Escalade 8506-4 (which I assume you are going to go with, or maybe the 9500S-4).
Overall, it's a solid option, assuming the cost of the mainboard is not extremely ($100?). You also don't have to use ECC DDR2 SDRAM, although I'd recommend it.