Supermicro A2SDi-8C+-HLN4F (Denverton: Atom C3758 w/ Gigabit)

[PrincePaul]

Nice.
Yeah I was thinking the same, already have a small noctua fan here. But I cant remove the current one. The heatsink itself is kinda glued on the cpu and there is a small bracket that holds the fan in place. which is secured by 4 tiny screws on the side. One of which is covered by the m2 slot, so no chance of getting the fan off....

If you have these screw holes as well in your heatsink I would just 3d print a bracket or fold a two little 90° aluminium brackets or so.

 

[johnp4]

Nice.
If you have these screw holes as well in your heatsink I would just 3d print a bracket or fold a two little 90° aluminium brackets or so.

I don't think my heatsink had the brackets, and I didn't notice the little screw holes at the time. Might have to consult my photos.

I (sort of) have access to a 3d-printer, so I was thinking I could print a shroud that fit snuggly and just held itself on by friction. Advantage would be that I could even print the duct so that it could accommodate a larger fan. If I ever go that route, I will definitely make the files available. I'm a 3d-printing newb, unfortunately.

EDIT

Consulting my photos, it does not have the brackets with the actual fan mounts, but I can't tell if there are screw holes to mount the angle-brackets. (Probably are, but I just didn't take a photo of that exact spot.)

EDIT 2:

Looking at the photos, are you sure about the heatsink being "glued" to the motherboard? It looks like you should be able to loosen the tension screws, and then give the heatsink a gentle twist to release it from the thermal compound.

 

[PrincePaul]

True a press fit bracket would be sufficient as well.
I know that they come without the bracket but as it is 50mm anyway you cant use it with the noctua.
But if you have the screw holes it would be much easier to fit something properly ;)

Keep us updated :D

 

[johnp4]

I know that they come without the bracket but as it is 50mm anyway you can't use it with the noctua.

Is that the 60mm or 40mm noctua you have pictured there?

Sounds like I'm going to have to pull out the motherboard and take some careful measurements. Makes me wish I had some calipers!

 

[PrincePaul]

60 mm. (nf-a6x25 pwm)
Should sit exactly where the heatsink screws are. haha yeah they come in handy :D

 

[MrToddsFriends]

60 mm. (nf-a6x25 pwm)
Should sit exactly where the heatsink screws are. haha yeah they come in handy :D

Maybe the discussion in this thread has some useful hints:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...eon-d-1521-overheating-on-stress-tests.62130/

 

[diskdiddler]

I ended up going with the really similar A2SDi-H-TF. Pretty much the same, but with 2 integrated 10GBaseT. I haven't got an opportunity to test the 10G, because my networking equipment is still all gigabit, though. Point of fact, my networking setup is mostly mesh wireless.

PrincePaul, can you tell me how the fan is physically secured to the heatsink? Mine did not come with a fan at all. I'm running it passive, and while temps seem fine, I know that it's not really designed for that. Thinking about getting a little noctua fan.

How have you found it so far? Working well?
Performance ok? How's the load on the system in general?

 

[johnp4]

How have you found it so far? Working well?
Performance ok? How's the load on the system in general?

I haven't got CPU load up higher than about 20%, I think that's for scrubs. Just not throwing much at it. CPU temps hover in the mid 50s, but my house is only 20C right now.

Network performance seems great, but like I said, my network is limited to gigabit.

Hard disk performance is also stellar. The limiting factor seems to be the drives I selected, not the platform in any way. (This is a huge step up from my previous configuration, where the CPU was so anemic that I couldn't get all the performance out of my drives.)

Running a Minecraft server for giggles. No performance hiccups, other than some weirdness with my ISP.

The rest of my build details are here: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/mini-itx-build-in-progress.60822/#post-434138

Let me know if you have any other questions.

I'm not doing any virtualization or compute-heavy stuff. I'd say probably look elsewhere if that's a requirement.

All-in-all, I'm really happy with the setup.

 

[diskdiddler]

Well 20% CPU use is pretty nice, 50c is fine, heck 70c is fine as long as it's absoloute maximum.

My primary curiosity is Plex transcoding, I'm still trying to find someone with one of these denverton systems who has some Plex content to transcode, preferably high res and bitrate. (Considering you've so many CPU cores, I'd expect it to not make a really bad impact)

 

[johnp4]

Well 20% CPU use is pretty nice, 50c is fine, heck 70c is fine as long as it's absoloute maximum.

My primary curiosity is Plex transcoding, I'm still trying to find someone with one of these denverton systems who has some Plex content to transcode, preferably high res and bitrate. (Considering you've so many CPU cores, I'd expect it to not make a really bad impact)

I have some raw 1:1 Bluray rips that I could feed through.

I don't usually transcode and just stream the raw data.

Not sure how the platform would handle it. Even though it has 8 cores, they're lower performance and low clock.

I could run a test if you give me an idea of what you're looking for.

 

[pro lamer]

I can't really say anything about performance except that it feels responsive. A network transferred file did around 110 MB per second, for sure limited by the gigabit ethernet router.

I ended up going with the really similar A2SDi-H-TF. Pretty much the same, (...)

Will you please run a passmark benchmark for it? Or any benchmark that can compare C3758 to Xeon D-1521?
I haven't come into any C3758 benchmark yet... :(

I'm planning a mini-itx build and considering Supermicro A2SDi-8C+-HLN4F or SuperMicro X10SDV-4C-TLN2FO since prices seem to be similar (or since now - maybe A2SDi-H-TF :) ).

 

[pro lamer]

But btw does anyone know for what this other connector is (P4)? Is it for a sata backplane?

I think it might be SGPIO side band, similar to the one here http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=555&area=en

The following may or may not apply (don't know, I'm not an expert, I've only found that post)

Drive LEDs should be controlled via SAS' sideband stuff

 

[Stux]

If you do some looking at x10sdv builds you will find people use 50->60mm adapters. There are some on thingyverse for 3d printing.

I found the built in fan sufficient for my purposes, but I can imagine changing it because if it’s horid whine at full speed

 

[johnp4]

I found the built in fan sufficient for my purposes, but I can imagine changing it because if it’s horid whine at full speed

The version of the motherboard I got did not include a fan at all. I believe the assumption is that you're supposed to put it in a server rack with high speed fans blowing directly over it, which I have not done.

EDIT

If you do some looking at x10sdv builds you will find people use 50->60mm adapters. There are some on thingyverse for 3d printing.

Do you have a link to one of these adapters? Thanks.

 

[Stux]

The version of the motherboard I got did not include a fan at all. I believe the assumption is that you're supposed to put it in a server rack with high speed fans blowing directly over it, which I have not done.

EDIT



Do you have a link to one of these adapters? Thanks.

https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...heatsink-information.10397/page-8#post-170468

https://tinkertry.com/superserver-combined-cpu-and-m2-cooling-fan

 

[diskdiddler]

I have some raw 1:1 Bluray rips that I could feed through.

I don't usually transcode and just stream the raw data.

Not sure how the platform would handle it. Even though it has 8 cores, they're lower performance and low clock.

I could run a test if you give me an idea of what you're looking for.

I’m not really sure the best way to go about it, do you have Plex in a jail?

Do you run any other high intense cpu operations on it?

 

[pro lamer]

Will you please run a passmark benchmark for it? Or any benchmark that can compare C3758 to Xeon D-1521?
I haven't come into any C3758 benchmark yet... :(

I rerun Google search and realized I had ignored this https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/search?utf8=✓&q=C3758 by mistake (EDIT: or the January and February results were uploaded with a delay so I wasn't able to see them in March if it's possible).

c3758 is reported as around 10000 points but I don't know yet what is the measure. I guess I'll learn this when I compare with other CPUs or when I just read more :) I haven't compared yet nor read much about that page/benchmark just because I wanted to post ASAP in case anyone else was looking for similar data..

 

[diskdiddler]

Anyone else built this system now? I'm actually having trouble finding this board even in stock at places like Amazon and Newegg, let alone my own country unfortunately.

I may have a chance to build a machine in the next month, possibly.
Curious to know how people find it.

 

[averyfreeman]

Nice.
Yeah I was thinking the same, already have a small noctua fan here. But I can't remove the current one. The heatsink itself is kinda glued on the cpu and there is a small bracket that holds the fan in place. which is secured by 4 tiny screws on the side. One of which is covered by the m2 slot, so no chance of getting the fan off....

Why don't you just unscrew the fan itself from the top and replace that instead of the whole heatsink? [puzzled look]

 

[averyfreeman]

https://www.servethehome.com/superm...ore-intel-atom-c3955-mitx-motherboard-review/

https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/atom/A2SDi-16C-HLN4F.cfm

(That's the 16-core version which is around $900 - the OP mentioned the 8-core version which is around $600)

Woos:
12 onboard SATA3 ports (or fewer depending on SKU)
Up to 256GB RDIMMs or 64GB UDIMMs (DDR4)
SR-IOV for onboard components
16 *assignable* PCIe lanes (12 for 2, 4-core models)
4 GbE or 2 GbE + 2 10GbE NICs depending on SKU
Sick new Redfish IPMI (no more Java)
*Observed* Idle 25w, Max Load 50w (but not a NUC!!!)


Boos:
Only x4 PCIe slot (open back for x8 or x16 cards though)
onboard m.2 only 3.0 x2 (should support more re: assignable)
m.2 does not support 22110 (makes my SM953 sad).
Onboard HBA doesn't support SAS