Supermicro X13SAN-H Block Diagram
Here is the block diagram for the system.
While the Intel Core i7-1265UE has an extra two P-cores versus an 8-core Alder Lake-N part, it also has a lot more in terms of PCIe I/O with more PCIe lanes and PCIe Gen4 support. We have seen some lower-end systems try to maximize the I/O of lower-end chips, but at some point, this just has a lot more I/O. Also, we can see the four display outputs because the GPU in this system is much more powerful.
Supermicro X13SAN-H Power Consumption
We know folks will want to know the power consumption of this motherboard, but we usually discuss power consumption in terms of system power.
The package power consumption ranges from around 5W at idle to 28W for about 15 seconds before throttling back down to 15W for longer-term. In the video (there is a power consumption section with a chapter marker.) We show how this works on the system. It is a low-power platform and perhaps lower power than we were expecting.
Final Words
Overall, the Supermicro X13SAN-H has a lot of expansion and I/O for such a compact platform. It also has a focus on fanless operation, or perhaps quiet fan operation, which is great to see. The motherboard targets the embedded segment, so that is often a requirement.
Pricing is higher for this board. The processor itself is around $429 and the complete motherboard is around $840 street price. For a consumer-level device, this would be expensive. For the embedded market, this can make a lot of sense. Adding a Hailo-8 AI accelerator gives a decent CPU with solid I/O as well as the Intel Iris XE video encode/ decode pipelines and low-power AI inference acceleration all on a small board. It is hard not to appreciate how many types of applications can be useful in a fanless case.
The Supermicro X13SAN-H is a fun piece of technology. It has a solid low-power Intel processor that is designed for fanless operation. There is a good amount of PCIe, USB, and even serial I/O onboard. The best part might be that it is small enough that it fits in the footprint of a 3.5″ hard drive.
Patrick nice write up and looks like a fun board. A minor comment on something.. Page 2 the 7zip compression test graph.. It always easy to see the placement on single item graphs as you use blue for the rest and black for the test item. On dual value graphs like the 7zip one the tested item disappears in the sea of blue/black lines. Perhaps dual value graphs could use a color other than blue for tested item allowing them to be read as easily as the rest if your content.
Minor I know, but your site is so good its hard to find fault with it :)
On the conclusion, I’m sure you mean a ‘quiet’ fan, rather than ‘quite’ a fan. But otherwise excellent article!
@Terry Wallace I have suggested that they bold or color the label of the tested device on the vertical axis, to assist in differentiating between the results.
Very good information and very well written. What I’d like to know is if there are windows server drivers. In the embedded market windows server essentials is highly favored.