Supermicro X11SPM-TPF Rev 2 Topology
Since this is an Intel Xeon Scalable single-socket system, the topology is very straightforward. There is a single NUMA domain:
One item we wanted to point out is that the onboard SFP+ networking is being provided by the Intel C622 PCH. Those are the two network adapter references at the bottom of this diagram.
Supermicro likewise has other versions of the motherboard that contain different features. For example, the X11SPM-TF is a 10Gbase-T variant of this platform which uses the Intel X557-AT2 for the PHY instead of the Inphi CS4227. The X11SPM-F uses the lower-cost Intel C621 PCH since it does not have 10GbE capabilities. Those three variants give different options to those who may be looking for different networking than we reviewed here.
Final Words
At just under $400 street price, the Supermicro X11SPM-TPF is a platform that should give several of our readers pause. That is only about $50 more than the least expensive 1GbE Intel Xeon Scalable motherboards on the market today. That $50 buys dual 10GbE networking which is a vast improvement over 1GbE. It is hard to add a new dual SFP+ adapter for $50 which needs to be a consideration.
With the mATX form factor, one trades a few features for compactness. For example, there are fewer PCIe and DIMM slots than we may see on larger motherboards. We also would have liked to see a second M.2 slot onboard. Reducing the longest dimension of the motherboard from 12 inches to 9.6 inches means that there is more room in compact chassis. It also means a larger set of chassis are available to the platform than a full ATX motherboard would have access to.
Overall, this is a great platform for those who are buying in the Intel Xeon Bronze, Silver, or low to midrange Gold processors. The system follows this generation of Intel platform closely which means it will likely be well supported for some time. While Supermicro did not take many risks aside from the size, delivering a solid and low-cost platform is still a great result.
I wonder what percentage of STH reviews get a 9.3 rating. I bet it’s high.
– Ryan
I think STH reviews are pre-informed choices that Patrick knows fit a niche in the first place. Hence, the 9+ reviews ar emany.
In this case if you need a mATX intel cpu mainboard…Tyan? Gigabyte? Asus? Asrack? I think we’d only consider Supermicro or maybe Gigabyte in a server deployments built in house. If an Asus or Asrack were reviewed it might be more interesting but I don’t know it would change my mind.
It’s my impression these reviews are done because STH is running a lab for their own internal deployments and just publishing the results as a sort of side-project-blog. It probably makes them some money for ads and gets them noticed for what they can do, but I don’t think the reviews themselves are the primary “product” of the STH site.
Just some thoughts.
First, Matt I think you are right. If you think about it, there are three primary filters. Servers are so competitive and relatively standardized that a 5/10 or 7/10 product will never come to market. Our team does curate a bit in terms of what we want to review. We do not waste time on silly products. Vendors do not want us to review products that are poorly designed. On the consumer side, there is more market diversity. On the server-side, anything below an 8/10 cannot be sold. Most companies would not want to have the bottom half of their portfolio reviewed as well.
On the lab for internal deployments bit. It actually takes a ton of time/ money/ effort to get these reviews done. For example, with this motherboard, we need multiple CPUs, 6x 32GB DDR4-2933 sticks, SSDs, a chassis, PDU, power meters, network switches and gear, and more. We have a fairly good system for getting reviews done, but it is far from a side project. For some context, we are the largest site that is dedicated to independent data center hardware reviews at this point. By page views, it is not even close. I actually see reviews as central to what we do. Good topic for my Q4 Letter from the Editor.
Ryan – we provide a ton of free data/ views to our readers that is basically unavailable otherwise. If you want more detail, it is there. We are not doing the write 500 words, use all stock photos, and give products an award model. I think the natural selection process probably biases the ratings higher as you gather. Given the three logical filters to us doing a review, it is what you would expect, right?
I have it in config with 4108, 196mb ram , 2 lsi host bus adapters and 16 hdds + m2 ssd for the os. Software raid array .With teamed Ethernets , it saturates 10gbe. File’s filler.
My build, works already 11 months without headache .
on 2nd page:
“Storage HDDs: 4x 10TB Western Digital Red”
is it enough storage? ;P
Patrick, I did not mean my comment to be insulting. I really appreciate what you’ve built here. I am a data scientist, heading up the engineering team at a new R&D center for a multinational consultancy and STH is the only computer hardware site aimed at people like me (I am not a gamer). I look at STH every day. The thing is, when you spend all day thinking about data, metrics, scores, etc, you can’t really turn that off. I noticed what seemed to be a gaussian distribution of scores around 9.3 with low variance at STH and thought I would mention it here because, to me, understanding what scores mean involves looking at how they are distributed. I also thought it was kind of funny. To be honest the scores are not the important part of your work for me, it’s all the technical detail and context about the marketplace. STH is wonderful, thank you for it.
Hi, did you measure the power consumption in watts with a 12 Volt dc adapter under vmware esx 6.7, thanks, stefan?
Hi, I am on the evaluation for my new Home Server, and this practically motherboard will my prefered one. Now, I saw on the supermicro website, that the version -TF and -TPF has the chipset C622 instead of the C621 from the lower spec -F version. That is realated to the compatibility from the OS side. So why I can not put Windows 10 pro on the two 10G LAN versions?
@patrick Thankyou for the great work that STH is doing. I don’t buy any hardware without searching STH first.
I also regularly check in on STH for tech trends & updates.
I almost purchased this Supermicro motherboard MBD-X11SPM-TF (& later the X11SPH-nCTF) the until I saw the ASROCK EPC621D6U-2T.
Asrock seems to have understood the need to reduce the sata cabling from the motherboard to the HDD backplane without the need for hardware RAID.
Will you be reviewing the ASROCK EPC621D6U-2T anytime soon?
Hi Tony. ASRR is a small outfit so getting things done such as reviews is very difficult as there are often no test units available.