The Intel W480 Motherboard Overview: LGA1200 For Xeon W-1200
by Gavin Bonshor on June 24, 2020 9:00 AM ESTGIGABYTE W480 Vision D
For Intel's more workstation focused W480 chipset, at time of writing, GIGABYTE has unveiled three models with two ATX sized model and one micro-ATX model. The more premium of the two ATX sized boards is the GIGABYTE W480 Vision D, with its black PCB and striking white PCIe armor and heatsinks for a robust and classic contrasting look. Some of the boards feature set includes dual Thunderbolt 3 Type-C connectivity on the rear panel, three PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots, with dual Ethernet on the rear including an Intel 2.5 GbE controller, and an Intel Wi-Fi 6 interface.
The GIGABYTE W480 Vision D has a solid feature set which includes three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which run at x16, x8/x8, and x8/x8/+x4, with a single PCIe 3.0 slot. Underneath the visually pleasing PCIe slot armor is the three PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots, with six SATA ports also present which includes support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. The W480 Vision D has four memory slots with official support for both ECC and non-ECC memory, with a maximum capacity of up to 128 GB and speeds of up to DDR4-2933.
Looking at the rear panel, the GIGABYTE W480 Vision D includes dual Thunderbolt 3 Type-C ports with a single DisplayPort video input to assist. Also present are two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports, with a front-panel USB 3.2 G2 Type-C front panel header present for users that require more Type-C connectivity. The networking consists of two Ethernet ports including an Intel 2.5 GbE and Intel Gigabit controller pairing, with an Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 interface which also provides support for BT 5.1 devices. Finishing off the rear panel are five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output controlled by a Realtek ALC1220-VB HD audio codec and a single HDMI 1.4 video output.
The GIGABYTE W480 Vision D is undoubtedly one of the best looking W480 models announced and should fit a multitude of system configurations with its black and white contrasting design. Combining this with a solid premium feature set with dual Thunderbolt 3 Type-C and plenty of USB 3.2 G2 Type-A on the rear panel is suitable for content creators and workstation users with lots of USB devices. The W480 Vision D is also one of the only models to include three PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots which is a huge plus point for the board and sets it apart from a small handful of premium models from the big four consumer-focused vendors.
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timecop1818 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
nobody cares about pcie4, and definitely not the target audience for this cpu/boards.PixyMisa - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Intel doesn't offer PCIe 4.0 on any of their CPUs yet. Not even Cooper Lake, which launched last week.Foeketijn - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
Even if they would be PCIe 2.0 they would sell. Current xeon servers are still also sold with iron drives.The box will say, Intel and Xeon, Windows server will run on it, and the barebone is less then 600 bucks. All potential customer needs.
Foeketijn - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
Because the whole server is going to cost way less then 1 Epyc CPU.dragosmp - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
DFII fondly remember a Lanparty Nforce4 AM2 board
Most their good folks went to Biostar, I seem to remember, and then to Gigabyte. Glad to see they're still around as a company, although they may not have anything to do with the DFI of old
Foeketijn - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
Ah, a man of culture! Those where the hardware times. The times when the chipset mattered, and the latest CPU could do things you couldn't do with last years CPU. When the midrange GPU was affordable and still beat last years high end GPU.Having said that. On the CPU front AMD is making life interesting a bit lately.
bolkhov - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Gavin,Regarding Supermicro X12SAE: it is NOT the only ATX W480 model from Supermicro; the second one is X12SCA-F. Its main difference is BMC (hence the "-F"), thus, the IPMI/BMC mentioned in X12SAE docs are about X12SCA-F.
In X11 lineup these mobos' predecessors were X11SAE/X11SAE-F (Skylake/Kaby) and X11SCA/X11SCA-F (Coffee). For some unknown reason in the X12 lineup this pair was separated, and current Supermicro's site is, to put it mildly, not very informative/straightforward/useful (previous version had much better information accessibility), so it isn't easy to grasp the whole W480 lineup.
Foeketijn - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
This chipset is for people who need a server. Which CPU? Intel I guess.I am wondering why so many motherboard are made. Maybe because they are a drop in replacement for the consumer chipset. So R&D cost are minimal.
In the end 99% of those chipsets are sold by HP/Dell/Lenovo in less then 1000 bucks windows server boxes.
If only those 3 would make the same Ryzen based servers like Asrockrack. Then still the bulk would be intel, since in this branch, hardware minded people are scarce (you did your 3 year IT course, and now you can maintain a Windows Server, as long everything goes as planned).
bolkhov - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
BTW, regarding ASUS Pro WS W480-Ace:according to User Manual, two Display Port connectors on the rear panel are NOT outputs, but are INPUTS, for those TB3s. Probably to connect discrete GPU outputs, for those to be tunneled to TB3s.
Dunno if iGPU output pipes are routed to TB3s internally or if HDMI is the only iGPU output; the User Manual keeps silence about it.
Mr Perfect - Saturday, June 27, 2020 - link
That ASRock W480 Creator has the most impressive rear IO I've ever seen. Why don't high end desktop boards have a set like that?