New intel W790 chipset

[Jamberry]

I did not know where to put this, hope this is the right place for this semi off topic news :)

Intel announced to the new W790 chipset, which could be pretty interesting for home lab builders.
Supermicro announced an interesting board with 8 SATA Ports, 2x U.2 and 4x m.2. and 10Gbit Networking.

X13SWA-TF | Motherboards | Products | Supermicro

 

[Etorix]

I'd say three-quarters off-topic rather than semi.
Home lab = Server

The server chipset in this generation is C741 (succeeding C621 and C621A for reasons known only to Intel's Ministry of Confusing Nomenclatures), working with 4th generation Xeon Scalable. And DDR5 RDIMM, which will likely put it above the average home user wallet.

W790 is the counterpart for mid- and high-end workstations, working with Xeon W-2400 and W-3400. It's not meant for servers (case in point: Aquantia AQC113 NIC on the X13SWA… and just about every other W790 board save for Asus Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE).
Although both platforms use the LGA4677 socket, it's not apparent whether they are compatible.

 

[Ericloewe]

As far as I can tell, they are compatible, but some boards are designed with the W-2xxx line in mind, to save space and cut costs. Of course, this being Intel, expect artificial firmware limitations.

 

[Etorix]

Yes, W790 boards designed for W-2400 (AsRock W790 WS, Asus Pro W790-ACE, Supermicro X13SRA-TF) will not make use of the eight memory channels and of all 112 PCIe lines of a W-3400. Conversely, W790 boards designed for W-3400 may be limited with a W-2400 (Supermicro X13SWA-TF is not too bad and "just" looses three of its six PCIe slots but Asus Pro W790-SAGE SE also loses two M.2 slots has no storage hanging on the CPU with a W-2400).

The question is whether one can use a "regular" Sapphire Rapids Xeon Scalable in a W790 motherboard. Supermicro listed both 3rd generation Xeon Scalable and Xeon W-3300 as compatible CPU for the X12SPA-TF. I see no mention of Xeon Scalable with these W790 boards, so it's possible that Intel has strictly bifurcated server (C741 + Xeon Scalable) and workstation (W790 + Xeon W-x400) as it did for LGA1200 with C256 + Xeon E-2300 and W480/W580 + Xeon W-1200/W-1300.