[CentOS] What do you think about this motherboard?

Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith at ieee.org
Mon Jun 27 07:37:31 UTC 2005


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.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                     b.j.smith at ieee.org 
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