Based on a forum thread and reader interest, I stopped by the Jetway booth at Computex 2016. There I saw a very interesting platform with a total of 12x 1GbE ports. The Jetway JNF592-Q170 is a Skylake based platform that is intended for network appliance applications.
In the Jetway booth we saw the Jetway JNF592-Q170 along with a PCIe x4 side port board with 4x 1GbE ports. This setup was spotted in our forums so we wanted to get an in-person look.
One can see that by adding the PCIe port to the side of the motherboard, and by flipping which side of the card the components and I/O ports are on, the company is able to have the expansion board ports line up with the motherboard PCB. When this is put into a 1U or desktop enclosure, this allows the unit to look clean with all of the RJ-45 connectors being parallel.
We did ask the Jetway representatives about 10GbE and were told that is under development. We did see the boards for sale on Amazon
Jetway JNF592-Q170 Key Specs
Here are a few of the key specs for those looking to build network appliances with the board:
- Socket LGA1151 for 6th generation Core i3/ i5/ i7 processors
- 2x DDR3L SODIMM slots
- 8x onboard 1GbE (7x Intel i211-at and 1x Intel i219-LM)
- mPCIe slot
- SIM card slot
- 6x SATA III ports
- Side port PCIe for 4x 1GbE – JETC4B / JETC4G
The expansion cards have a 4x Intel i211-at network controllers onboard with the card on display having bypass functionality. Bypass functionality is especially useful for firewall and proxy appliances. Here is a link to the full specs.
