The GIGABYTE MW51-HP0 Motherboard Review: Consumer Meets Workstation for Xeon W
by Gavin Bonshor on March 6, 2019 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Gigabyte
- Workstation
- server
- Xeon-W
- C422
- MW51-HP0
Board Features
At a high leve, the MW51-HP0 offers workstation features in an extensive CEB-sized package. Notably, the board is armed with a Broadcom PEX8747 PLX chip, which allows users to install up to four dual slot PCIe 3.0 x16 cards, or alternatively up to seven single slot cards. In this configuration the top slot always runs at x16, and the remaining six slots at x8.
A now aging Realtek ALC1150 HD audio codec proves the onboard audio, while a pair of Intel I210-AT GbE NICs provide the boards networking capabilities. Somehow GIGABYTE has managed to fit a single M.2 slot onto the stacked PCB with support for PCIe 3.0 x4 drives up to a size of M.2 22110 and allows users to use mini SAS hard drives via a U.2 connector. A total of ten SATA ports are present with two ports controlled by a Marvel 88SE9172 SATA controller which allow allows for two SATA DOM devices. The MW51-HP0 is also compatible with backplanes thanks to two SATA SPGIO connectors.
GIGABYTE MW51-HP0 CEB Motherboard | |||
Warranty Period | 3 Years | ||
Product Page | Link | ||
Price | $570 | ||
Size | CEB | ||
CPU Interface | LGA2066 | ||
Chipset | Intel C422 | ||
Memory Slots (DDR4) | Eight DDR4 Supporting 64 GB RDIMM & 128 GB LRDIMM Quad Channel Up to DDR4-2666 1.2 V |
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Video Outputs | N/A | ||
Network Connectivity | 2 x Intel I210 (1 GbE) | ||
Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC1150 | ||
PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 7 x PCIe 3.0 x16 (64 lanes total) | ||
PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH) | N/A | ||
Onboard SATA | Eight, RAID 0/1/5/10 with 2 x SATA DOM (Intel) Two, RAID 0/1/5/10 (Marvel 88SE9172) |
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Onboard M.2 | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 (M.2 2242-22100) | ||
Onboard U.2 | 1 x U.2 | ||
USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) | 1 x Type-A Rear Panel 1 x Type-C Rear Panel (5V/3A) |
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USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) | 8 x Type-A Rear Panel 2 x Header (four ports) |
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USB 2.0 | 1 x Header (two ports) | ||
Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin ATX 2 x 8-pin CPU 1 x 6-pin PCIe 1 x DDR 12 V |
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Fan Headers | 1 x CPU (4-pin) 5 x System (4-pin) |
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IO Panel | 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C 8 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A 2 x Network RJ45 (Intel) 5 x 3.5mm Audio Jacks (Realtek) 1 x S/PDIF Output (Realtek) 1 x PS/2 |
A total of six 4-pin fans headers are located around the board, with one dedicated to the CPU and the remaining five to chassis fans. Other onboard connections include two USB 3.1 G1 front panel headers offering four ports and single USB 2.0 header allowing for two ports. On the rear panel is a further ten USB ports split between two USB 3.1 G2 (Type-A and Type-C) and eight USB 3.0 Type-A ports. The MW51-HP0 also includes plenty jumpers including a clear CMOS jumper next to the BIOS battery, a BIOS recovery jumper, a Force ME update jumper, as well as a PMBus connector and two thermistor cable connectors.
Test Bed
As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
Test Setup | |||
Processor | Xeon W-2155 | ||
Motherboard | GIGABYTE MW51-HP0 (BIOS F9) | ||
Cooling | Corsair H110i 240mm AIO | ||
Power Supply | Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W Gold PSU | ||
Memory | Kingston 4x8GB DDR4 2666 CL19-19-19-443 RDIMM (KSM26RS8/8HAI) |
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Video Card | ASUS GTX 980 STRIX (1178/1279 Boost) | ||
Hard Drive | Crucial MX300 1TB | ||
Case | Open Benchtable BC1.1 (Silver) | ||
Operating System | Windows 10 RS3 inc. Spectre/Meltdown Patches |
Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.
33 Comments
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gavbon - Friday, March 8, 2019 - link
Hey, sorry! I have 32 core on the brain at the moment. Will edit when I'm on the train! Thanks for pointing it outMDD1963 - Wednesday, March 6, 2019 - link
With the W-3175X and this mainboard, I think I could assemble quite a snappy FreeNAS rig for home use! :/Xpl1c1t - Thursday, March 7, 2019 - link
"Note however that despite the naming, the new 28-core Intel Xeon W-3175X isn’t supported by the MW51-HP0 since that that chip uses a different socket." second paragraphgavbon - Friday, March 8, 2019 - link
The W-3175 is C621, but I'm going to be looking at the ROG Dominus Extreme at some point in the next month!Hixbot - Wednesday, March 6, 2019 - link
I cant help but drool at the thought of a 512MB RAM drive.jospoortvliet - Thursday, March 7, 2019 - link
Are there any half-decent professional/workstation Threadripper boards? Esp with the upcoming (based on leaked slides) threadripper 3, this would be very good to have... All vendors have gaming boards, for which Threadripper isn't very suitable.Cooe - Thursday, March 7, 2019 - link
Specifically what features are these so called "gaming" X399 boards missing that you absolutely need? People aren't buying them to game, & they really aren't designed for such. That just happen the dominant "aesthetic" in consumer motherboards atm.gavbon - Friday, March 8, 2019 - link
The Asrock X399 Phantom Gaming 6 board review is coming soon and in all honesty, gaming features these days are limited to NIC, audio and software.El Sama - Monday, March 11, 2019 - link
Never really did a custom build of a server, it's always whatever Dell offers in its webpage, with the three hours replacement warranty. This is interesting enough, but hardly changes anything. Maybe for a workstation it will fare better.timecop1818 - Saturday, March 30, 2019 - link
Wow that's a really shitty rear panel USB arrangement. basically all the USB3 ports are bandwidth limited with a bottleneck of 10gbps, since they're hooked up to a hub directly after South bridge, and the only separate chipset ports are wasted on "front panel" sockets. The same goes for USB2, and GL850 is one of the cheapest 2.0 hubs in existence, it's not even Multi TT, blah.anyway for half a grand cost board i certainly expected better USB engineering.