Gigabyte recently launched its new Haswell series motherboards for the Intel Xeon E3-1200 V3 series. Gigabyte has been making aggressive moves in the server space recently. One thing Gigabyte is doing to differentiate their offerings is enabling 1866MHz memory support. More on this to come but it is a differentiator. Gigabyte is among the list of vendors starting their transition to the Intel i210 series gigabit Ethernet controllers. With their Haswell motherboards, Gigabyte has decided to begin a transition away from the Intel 82574L.
Gigabyte GA-6LXSV Motherboard
Gigabyte is releasing a multipurpose ATX motherboard. The Gigabyte GA-6LXSV has the standard LGA1150 socket and four DIMM slots. Gigabyte added four Intel i210 gigabit Ethernet controllers plus a dedicated management LAN port. Using the Intel C224 chipset, Gigabyte gets 4x SATA 6.0gbps ports as well as 2x SATA 3.0gbps ports. The expansion slot configuration is PCIe 3.0 x16, x8, x4 and x1 (electrical) slots all in PCIe x16 physical slots. Gigabyte also includes three PCI expansion slots for those with legacy cards still wanting to use them with Haswell Xeons.
Overall, the Gigabyte GA-6LXSV seems to be a motherboard that can serve as a cornerstone of many different configurations. Four gigabit LAN ports combined with a Haswell Intel Xeon E3-1200 V3 series CPU should provide solid networking for the platform. Hit the toggle box for specs below.
[toggle_box title=”Gigabyte GA-6LXSV Specs” width=”Width of toggle box”]
| Dimension |
ATX 244W x 305H (mm) |
| CPU |
Single LGA 1150 socket Supports Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 V3 product family Supports 4th gen Intel Core processor family |
| Chipset |
Intel C224 |
| Memory |
4 x DIMM slots Supports unbuffered ECC or non-ECC UDIMM modules Supports single rank and dual rank UDIMM modules Up to 32GB 1866/1600/1333MHz |
| LAN |
Quad GbE LAN controller (Intel I210) 1 x Management LAN |
| Video |
Integrated in Aspeed AST2300 2D Video Graphic Adapter with PCIe bus interface 1920×1200@60Hz 32bpp |
| SATA |
4 x SATA III 6Gbs ports 2 x SATA II 3Gbs ports |
| RAID |
Intel RAID 0/1/10/5 |
| Expansion Slots |
1 x PCIe x16 (@Gen3 x16 bus) slot 1 x PCIe x16 (@Gen3 x8 bus) slot 1 x PCIe x16 (@Gen3 x4 bus) slot 1 x PCIe x16 (@Gen2 x1 bus) slot 3 x PCI slots |
| Internal I/O |
1 x USB 3.0 header 1 x USB 2.0 header 1 x USB 2.0 Type A port 1 x COM header 1 x SGPIO header 4 x System fan headers |
| External I/O |
4 x USB 3.0 ports 2 x USB 2.0 ports 1 x PS/2 port 1 x VGA 1 x COM 5 x RJ45 1 x ID Switch button |
| Server Management |
Aspeed AST2300 IPMI 2.0 iKVM |
| PSU connectors |
1 x 24 pin power connector 1 x 8 pin power connector |
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Gigabyte GA-LASS Motherboard
The Gigabyte GA-LASS is a microATX motherboard focused on low-end server applications for the Intel Xeon E3-1200 V3 Haswell series processors. The key in the Gigabyte GA-LASS motherboard is keeping costs to a minimum which is important for low end dedicated servers and similar applications. What will be very interesting is this motherboard paired with Haswell Intel Core i3 and Pentium parts when they hit shelves. Low costs dictate the use of the Intel C222 chipset as well as only a single Intel i210 gigabit NIC. The Gigabyte GA-LASS also utilizes the Aspeed AST1300 in its base configuration with an option to order with an Aspeed AST2300.
With its small form factor and low cost, this may be a useful motherboard especially in the dedicated server arena.
[toggle_box title=”Gigabyte GA-LASS Specs” width=”Width of toggle box”]
| Dimension |
microATX 244W x 224H (mm) |
| CPU |
Single LGA 1150 socket Supports Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 V3 product family Supports 4th gen Intel Core processor family |
| Chipset |
Intel® C222 |
| Memory |
4 x DIMM slots Supports unbuffered ECC or non-ECC UDIMM modules Supports single rank and dual rank UDIMM modules Up to 32GB 1600/1333MHz |
| LAN |
GbE LAN controller (Intel I210) |
| Video |
Integrated in Aspeed AST1300 2D Video Graphic Adapter with PCIe bus interface 1920×1200@60Hz 32bpp (Aspeed AST2300 in option) |
| SATA |
2 x SATA III 6Gbs ports 4 x SATA II 3Gbs ports |
| RAID |
Intel RAID 0/1/10/5 |
| Expansion Slots |
1 x PCIe x16 (@Gen3 x16 bus) slot 1 x PCIe x8 (@Gen2 x4 bus) slot 1 x PCIe x8 (@Gen2 x1 bus) slot 1 x PCIe x4 (@Gen2 x1 bus) slot |
| Internal I/O |
1 x USB 3.0 header 1 x USB 2.0 Type A port 1 x COM header 4 x System fan headers |
| External I/O |
6 x USB 2.0 ports 1 x VGA 1 x COM 1 x RJ45 |
| Server Management |
Aspeed AST2300 with IPMI 2.0 and iKVM in option |
| PSU connectors |
1 x 24 pin power connector 1 x 8 pin power connector |
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Overall it is great to see Gigabyte working to build unique features into their motherboards. For those looking, we have a forum resource listing the Haswell Intel Xeon E3-1200 V3 motherboards from Gigabyte and other vendors.
I’d be excited by this if it wasn’t for the PCI slots. Really, in 2013 are they still needed?
Oh…and the fact that it’s probably going to be be impossible to get one here in Australia for my planned new home server (B2B product and all that).