The ASRock Rack EPYCD8-2T Motherboard Review: From Naples to Rome
by Gavin Bonshor on April 20, 2020 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- Workstation
- server
- ASRock Rack
- Naples
- Rome
- EPYC 7351P
- EPYCD8-2T
ASRock Rack EPYCD8-2T Conclusion
Professional grade motherboards are a completely different playing field when it comes to the consumer-focused models. The main differences aside from featuring much plainer and archaic aesthetics, come via the onboard controller set. This includes the use of BMC controllers to allow users to connect for vital maintenance and monitoring from distant locations. ASRock Rack has been around since 2013 and until 2018, it produced models for Intel. The first board created for AMD';s EPYC from ASRock Rack was the EPYCD8, with the primary difference between that and the EPYCD8-2T coming through its choice of primary networking controller. The newer EPYCD8-2T includes an Intel X550 Dual 10 G Ethernet controller which adds two ports on the rear. Everything else between both models remains unchanged.
The ASRock EPYCD8-2T includes seven PCIe 3.0 slots, which is an is an impressive feat given the board is ATX. They run in a x16/x8/x16/x8/x16/x8/x16 configuration, with the four full-length slots running at the full x16 bandwidth, and the half-length slots running at x8. One of the biggest benefits of AMD's EPYC is that each processor has 128 available PCIe lanes, which the ASRock model takes full advantage of. Also benefiting from the PCIe capability is two PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots, with two Oculink slots for U.2 drives, with support for up to nine SATA devices via two mini SAS HD ports, with a single SATA DOM powered connector.
The ASRock EPYCD8-2T has seven PCIe 3.0 slots
To connect remotely to a system using this model, users can access it over a network using a Realtek RTL8211E Gigabit Ethernet port designed for the boards IPMI. The Aspeed AST2500 BMC adds a D-sub 2D video output on the rear panel which allows users to run without a graphics card installed. The management interface itself is very well-rounded with a clean GUI and offers plenty of server-level functions. The memory support includes eight slots which support up to DDR4-3200 of RDIMM and LRDIMM ECC memory and a maximum capacity of up to 1 TB.
Looking at the performance, and the EPYCD8-2T is very competitive from a computational standpoint. The real difference came in our power consumption testing which puts it as the more power-efficient model when compared directly to the GIGABYTE model. Another highly positive result came in our DPC latency testing, with the lowest latency achieved from any model tested over the last few years. This makes the EPYCD8-2T very suitable for an audio workstation, despite not including any onboard audio; audio producers generally use much higher grade audio equipment anyway. Results in our POST time testing were also favourable with the ASRock board booting into Windows around 20 seconds quicker than the GIGABYTE counterpart.
Bigger sized boards such as E-ATX models can cram more memory slots on, but the EPYCD8-2T is 'ahead' of its size in terms of specifications with its great storage capability spearheaded by dual PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots, and support for up to nine SATA drives. The ASRock EPYCD8-2T retails for $498 with dual 10 G Ethernet, or alternatively users satisfied with dual Gigabit Ethernet can save some budget with the EYPCD8 ($460) coming in at around $40 cheaper. For comparative purposes, the larger E-ATX sized GIGABYTE MZ31-AR0 which we previously reviewed retails for $565, had more memory slots (16 versus 8) and offering up to 2 TB. Being ATX means the ASRock EPYCD8-2T is compatible with more chassis types, including 1U chassis, and conventional desktop cases.
Overall the ASRock Rack EPYCD8-2T is a solid single-socket EPYC solution for users not interested in PCIe 4.0 but still want plenty of PCIe and storage availability in a single socket ATX form factor.
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SampsonJackson - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
That is absolutely incorrect. We do it with Infiniband cards via RDMA and easily saturate multiple 100Gbps cards. Der8auer demonstrated ~28GB/s on a RAID0 using Threadripper 1st gen (~224Gbps) and was only limited by the RAID driver thread saturating a CPU core.. further scaling is possible using the inbox NVMe driver (up to endpoint/bus saturation). Are these realistic workloads? No. Is it possible? No problem.vFunct - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
CPUs on media servers have been saturating 100G for years now. Netflix is doing that, for example. https://netflixtechblog.com/serving-100-gbps-from-...vFunct - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
And they're delivering 200gbps now: https://wccftech.com/netflix-evaluating-replacing-...brunis.dk - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
I think ASSRock should just rename themselves to ASRack for simplicity.kobblestown - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
What's with the 6-pin fan connectors? Can I plug a regular 4-pin PWM fan into it?dotes12 - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
I looked up the user manual and yes, it's keyed so that both a normal 3-pin and 4-pin fan will work with the 6-pin motherboard connector without an adapter. It appears that the extra two pins are used for a temperature sensor that's built into the fan. Per the manual, pin 5 is labeled "Sensor" and pin 6 is labeled "NC", and the custom fan speed has an option called "Smart Fan Temp Control" where you can have it increase a specific fan speed based on the temperature the fan is reporting.kobblestown - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
Oh, that's cool. Thanks for checking it out.cygnus1 - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
I was originally going to say "WTF are they thinking releasing such a high end AMD board in 2020 that doesn't support PCIe 4.0 when the appropriate CPU is installed. What a waste." But then I realized this board is about a year old already. As others mentioned below, the ROMED8-2T is almost the replacement for this year old board being reviewed. The biggest thing missing from that one is the x16 slots. And for whatever reason they didn't leave the x8 slots open ended to allow for x16 cards to fit.WaltC - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
This motherboard is a cheap EPYC *server* mboard, and that is all it is...;) Keyword being "cheap"--paring down the system bus to PCIe3.x cuts the system bandwidth in half, compared with 4.0, which translates to manufacturing a lower-cost mboard relative to the layers needed to properly support the signal integrity of a PCIe4.0 system bus. A PCIe3.x system bus also requires less power than PCIex4. It's easy to forget, I suppose, that PCIe4 is *double* the bandwidth of PCIe3. But as a cheap server mboard, PCIe4 may not be a better fit than PCIe3.x.This "review" is a bit strange, imo...;) Not only does it directly compare different mboards, but it also compares those mboards running different CPUs, as well, as if to illustrate some obscure point. I would have done things a bit differently, like, for instance, restricting my choice of motherboards to those server boards capable of running this CPU--and *actually running* the EPYC CPU featured here...;) Maybe throw in a couple of system bandwidth tests and applications to illustrate advantages of the increased bandwidth PCIe4x brings to the table, along with extra costs, etc. Otherwise, what one winds up comparing are CPUs instead of motherboards, imo. As server mboards go, this one is not "high end" at all--it's actually a "budget" server mboard, imo--hence the compromises with system bus bandwidth, etc. Simply put, this mboard was not designed to "compete" with "enthusiast-class" retail mboards used for gaming--as should be obvious. People looking for budget-class server motherboards for EPYC-class cpus won't care about PCIe4, the "colors" used, RGB, multi-GPUs, etc. Those things add to cost and energy consumption, and, of course, superficial color schemes/RGB offer no power efficiency or performance enhancements of any kind.
mjz_5 - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
I hope it’s running the enterprise version of Windows 10 because that has better performance for high core count computers.