ASUS recently released their Z8 series of server motherboards ranging in price from $260 to $550. This series features the Intel 5500 IOH and ICH10R chipsets plus a variety of options ranging from PCI-X support to SAS storage options. The first one to arrive in the labs is the Z8NA-D6C, which is their base board designed for the dual socket server or workstation market. The board features an ATX layout and support for SSI or ATX power supplies for those on a budget. The full run down on the specifications is listed below. Oh, did we mention the price? The Z8NA-D6C is going for $260 right now, not bad for an entry level dual socket server board when paired up with a couple of E5520 Nehalem 2.26GHz or E5504 2GHz 80W processors.
Gallery: ASUS Z8NA-D6C
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PC Reviewer - Monday, May 18, 2009 - link
add that with a 9800 gx2, and you got a decent buildhttp://pcreviewer.org/bfg-nvidia-geforce-9800-gx2-...">http://pcreviewer.org/bfg-nvidia-geforc...2-1gb-gd...
PC Reviewer - Monday, May 18, 2009 - link
lol nevermind, forgot i replied in this thread already...PC Reviewer - Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - link
Add this card to that motherboard...http://pcreviewer.org/bfg-nvidia-geforce-9800-gx2-...">http://pcreviewer.org/bfg-nvidia-geforc...2-1gb-gd...
and you got a beast
YGDRASSIL - Thursday, May 14, 2009 - link
9800 GX2 is old generation. The GTX295 also has two GPUs and is way faster. So add a GTX295 and you have a beast ;-))YGDRASSIL - Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - link
I think this might be a very good successor to the skulltrail line. Would love a review on anandtech to see if it is any good and whether you can use it to OC a couple of E5520's and get a very CPU rich workstation!lopri - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
This is a bargain for someone who needs a workstation or a server. For a dual-socket board, the price is simply incredible. It looks good, too.But for me, this only begs the question: Why is desktop X58 board is so expensive, when a dual-socket board with the same NB/SB can be offered for $250? Why does a $300 desktop board come with Realtek NICs, when they can make a dual-socket board with two Intel 82574 NICs?
Things like this is what brings distrust to educated consumers. Because the only reasons I can think of for such a discrepancy are non-technical ones.
But whatever. People who are looking to build/upgrade their servers must be very happy. Heck, maybe I'd buy one for a desktop (with a single CPU) if I needed to upgrade.
RagingDragon - Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - link
This board has much simpler power circuitry than most X58 desktop boards, has fewer back panel ports, and lacks: supplemental storage controllers, firewire, and integrated audio.This board is extremely minimalist; whereas, $300+ desktop X58 boards are over-engineered to support overclocking, and heavily loaded with features and supplemental controllers. While the supplemental controllers are cheap, they complicate board layout which makes design and possibly manufacturing more expensive (the additional circuit traces may require more board layers). The over engineering to support overclocking is probably the most expensive difference between this board and mid to high end desktop X58 boards. The defeatured low end X58 boards most comparable to this board cost about $200.
Furthermore, ASUS are relatively unknown in the server motherboard market (compared to say Tyan and Supermicro), so they pretty much have to cut profit margins and undercut their competitors prices to break into the server market.
emboss - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
OK, so the layout is pretty average, but for the price the feature set is pretty good.But ASUS workstation/server boards have a horrible reputation for being buggy (both hardware and BIOS), poorly built, and poorly supported (clueless support drones and BIOS bugs rarely fixed). The last 3 boards that I've bought all had major issues (like bandwidth to the PCI-X slots being in the order of 30 MB/sec) and were replaced at least once during their lifetime due to component failure (and don't get me started on the nightmare that is trying to get ASUS to replace a board).
If it was Tyan, Supermicro, or Intel I'd have no problem buying it ... but with ASUS, at the very least I'd wait a few months after release to get an idea of what's actually working.
has407 - Monday, May 11, 2009 - link
Been looking closely at this for a couple weeks now vs. a Core i7 system...The premium for the Z8NA-D6C and a single E5520 vs. a Core i7 920 system is ~$125-200. Granted the E5520 is a bit slower than the 920, and some of the i7 mobo's have other features.
But what the i7 system won't allow you to do is in a few months when E5520's are cheaper (or when you need or can justify it), pop in another CPU (and more memory of course).
The biggest cost constraint with that today is memory, as 4GB sticks are still very expensive. With 2GB sticks the initial single-CPU config is to limited to 6GB (3 slots), whereas most of the i7 mobos provide 6 slots so getting to 12GB is reasonably cheap.
So if you can get by with 6GB, the Z8NA-D6C + E5520 is a very attractive alternative to an i7 system, even if today you only use one of the CPU sockets.
Casper42 - Monday, May 11, 2009 - link
This is a SERVER board geniuses.They were able to cram 2 of the biggest, hottest and fastest processors on the planet, along with 6 DIMMs and 5 expansion slots all into an ATX form factor. This is nothing short of miraculous.
Go compare it to most of the X58 boards that only have 1 processor to contend with and you might see that this is a pretty good design.
The x16 slot gives you a video upgrade option over the onboard.
2 x x8 Slots for I/O Cards (RAID, etc)
1 PCI Slot for backwards compatibility with old stuff and an optional Audio Card.
This means you can use this machine as a File Server, Web Server, Citrix/Terminal Server, Low end CAD Station and even a content creation / Video Editing machine.
Pretty flexible machine if you ask me.