Gigabyte MA10-ST0 with Intel Atom C3958 Released

The Gigabyte MA10-ST0 embedded server motherboard we first saw at Computex 2016, over one year ago. It is an embedded motherboard with a purpose: provide an awesome storage platform. Using the highest-end QuickAssist enabled SKU means that this motherboard also packs a ton of performance even with its diminutive stature.

Gigabyte MA10-ST0 Overview

The Gigabyte MA10-ST0 is a mITX, actively cooled motherboard that takes full advantage of the Intel Atom C3958 SoC.

Key stats include:

• Intel Atom C3958 SoC (16 cores, 16 threads, 31W TDP, 16MB L2 cache)
• Intel QuickAssist Technology (QAT) “high”
• Up to DDR4-2400 support
• 32GB eMMC flash memory
• Dual Channel RDIMM/ECC UDIMM DDR4, 4 x DIMMs
• 2 x 10Gb/s SFP+ and 2 x 1Gb/s LAN ports
• 1 x Dedicated management port
• 4 x SFF-8087 Mini-SAS up to 16 x SATA 6Gb/s ports
• 1 x PCIe Gen3 x8 slot
• Aspeed AST2400 remote management controller

The LAN configuration is the maximum that the Intel Atom C3958 will support as is the DDR4-2400 support. On Intel Atom C3000 series platforms, SoC networking above 20Gbps Intel has said will depend on packet size to achieve full throughput. We certainly like this configuration.

The AST2400 has been a popular choice for out of band management over the past few years. Most of the recently released Intel Xeon Scalable, Intel Xeon E3 V6 and AMD EPYC motherboards will utilize the AST2500 but there is relatively minor differences between the two from a user experience perspective. We expect Gigabyte to utilize the Avocent MergePoint management solution as they do for their other motherboard products.

A major and unique feature of the Gigabyte MA10-ST0 is the 32GB of eMMC flash memory. For those building, for example, a FreeNAS ZFS appliance, a Linux storage server with an embedded OS, or a hypervisor based hybrid NFV and storage converged platform the embedded eMMC allows you to utilize the onboard storage for embedded OSes.

We expect these motherboards to ship to retail channels in the mid-to-late September time frame.