Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation-Ready Supermicro W790 Motherboard Pictured & Detailed
The Supermicro X13SWA-TF is a next-generation motherboard that was leaked out by Videocardz a while ago. This motherboard is one of the first Intel W790 chipset designs that will offer support for Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation CPUs which are due for launch in the first half of 2023. This new leak gives us a better and close-up look at the motherboard along with details such as memory and PCIe lanes offered on the two Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation families.
— 포시포시 (@harukaze5719) December 31, 2022 The Supermicro X13SWA-TF was listed last month with a price of $960 US. The motherboard features the new LGA 4677 socket (Socket P) which will support the latest Xeon CPUs branded under Intel Sapphire Rapids-WS family. The CPU gets power from an 8+2 phase power delivery which is juiced up by a dual 8-pin power connector layout. The motherboard supports Xeon processors with up to 350W TDPs (supported with SMC dedicated heatsink or water cooler). As for the memory layout, the Supermicro W790 motherboard features a total of 16 DDR5 DIMM slots, supporting 8-channel memory (2DPC) for up to 1 TB/4 TB of memory (64 GB RDIMM / 3DS). Since the DDR5 memory moves the voltage regulation to the DIMMs rather than being housed on the board itself, we can’t spot any DRAM VRMs on the sides of the motherboard like the previous-gen design. In terms of memory speeds, the default DDR5 frequency is set to DDR5-4800 for 1DPC & DDR5-4400 for 2DPC in both 8 and 4-channel memory configurations. Moving forward to the expansion, the Supermicro W790 motherboard features a total of 6 PCIe x16 slots which should be using the Gen5 protocol since Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon chips offer PCIe Gen 5.0 capabilities. One thing to note is that the Sapphire Rapids-WS Xeon CPU lineup will come in two lines of flavors, the Xeon W-3000 line will feature 112-lane support while the Xeon W-2000 line will get 64-lane support. Supermicro X13SWA-TF W790 Motherboard I/O (Image Credits: Chiphell Forums): There are also three M.2 slots on the board which should be Gen5 compliant too. There are 8 SATA III ports, two U.2 ports, and a good selection of I/O at the back. Supermicro, just like many other manufacturers will be offering this and several other W790-class motherboards close to launch. I/O includes a single 10GbE (Marvell AQC113C) & an Intel i210-AT 1GbE controller on the motherboard along with a share IPMI. Intel will be sharing more information on the Sapphire Rapids WS family in the coming months.