Best Intel Xeon E 2100 Series Motherboards For Servers and Workstations

Intel has recently launched a new series of Xeon processors. The processors labeled Xeon E-2100, these are designed specifically for the entry-level servers and workstations. The new CPU will be replacing the Intel Xeon E3 series and will be based on the Intel’s Coffee Lake- S  architecture. The processors are expected to be available with 6 cores and 12 threads and are expected to offer better clock speeds compared to the previous generations.

The Intel Xeon E- 2100 CPU – An Overview

The Intel Xeon E- 2100 processors come with two additional cores when compared to its predecessors. The processor is available with fast DRAM speeds with ECC support. Other features include enhanced I/O, and advanced security and other reliability features.

There are ten of these CPUs in the Coffee lake series. They have either a 4 core or 6 core configuration. The complete details can be found in the following table.

Here is the new series of E-2100 CPUs.

The new range of Intel processors has been stated to be delivering an improvement of over 1.36 times better performance than the motherboards in the previous generation. If your machine has 64GB of DDR4 2666 RAM, you can gain the boost speeds up to 4.37 GHz with the Xeon E- 2100 motherboards. Intel has gone on record stating that the E- 2100 series will provide a powerful single-threaded application performance.

The Xeon E – 2100 processors also support the ECC RAM while they can also be used with a non-ECC RAM if you please.

Some of the essential elements that the E- 2100 series brings forth include

• Up to 6 cores and 12 threads
• Intel Turbo Boost technology 2.0
• Support for up to 40 PCI Express 3.0 Lanes
• Support for USB 3.1 Gen 2 that would provide you speeds up to 10 Gbps
• It supports Intel Optane memory.
• You can use up to 64 GB DDR4 ECC 2666 MHz memory
• The CPU supports the LGA 2251 socket

You will find that a host of processors as indicated in the above list come with the G suffix. The suffix means that the processor comes with the Intel Graphics UHD 630 included. The ones with no prefix will not have the graphics unit included.

Best Intel Xeon E 2100 Series Motherboards

With that information on board, let us now move ahead to find a few motherboards that have been announced.

ASUS WS C246 PRO Workstation ATX Motherboard

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The ATX motherboard offers you a host of features. Some of them can be summed up as

• multiple PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, M.2 slots a full 8x SATA III 6.0gbps ports
• Specific Asus features like postcode LEDs
• Memory capacity – 4 x DIMM, Max 64GB, DDR4 2666/2400/2133 MHz, ECC/ non-ECC UDIMM
• 4 USB 2.0 slots, 6 USB 3.0 slots and two USB 3.1 slots.

The product is believed to offer one of the best Input Output arrays in any platform that supports the new Xeon E- 2100 chipset.

ASUS WS C246M PRO Workstation mATX Motherboard

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The motherboard is designed for a smaller form factor. Many corporates prefer a smaller form factor to ensure lower costs. The ASUS WS C246M PRO Workstation mATX Motherboard has been specially designed for those needs.

Asus sacrifices a few PCIe slots to make up for the smaller footprint. A few features include

• They come with a flipped DIMM orientation.
• 4 x DIMM, Max 64GB, DDR4 2666/2400/2133 MHz, ECC/ non-ECC UDIMM
• 6 USB 2.0 ports, 4  USB 3.0 ports and 2 USB 3.1 ports
• Dual 1GbE plenty of display and audio outputs

The motherboard should ideally be the best option for almost all your requirements if you are looking for a smaller footprint.

ASRock Rack C246M WS Motherboard

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In fact, after Asus, this is yet another compact form factor motherboard in the mATX genre is launched by ASRock offers you multiple ranges of functionalities.

Here are the following features that would make it an exciting option  –

• Four DDR4-2666 DIMM slots
• 8x 7-pin SATA III 6.0gbps ports.
• PCIe 3.0 x16, x8 and x4 and M.2 storage
• HDMI, Display Port, 4x USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports and dual Intel LAN (Intel i210 and i219LM based.)

You have access to legacy Serial and VGA ports.

New SuperMicro range of Motherboards

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SuperMicro has announced the X11SCZ-F micro-ATX motherboard, and the motherboard supports Xeon E- 2100 standards and CPU. The motherboard has the following features –

• two hot-swap and two internal 2.5-inch hard drive bays
• Up to 64GB of 2666 MHz DDR4 memory
• Two GbE LAN ports, four USB 3.1 devices
• PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot, M.2 slot, and a dedicated IPMI 2.0 remote management port

The X11SCA workstation motherboard from SuperMicro comes with the following features and functionalities –

• It comes with a standard ATX form factor.
• 4 K video support
• The motherboard supports Intel E – 2100 processors.
• The motherboard comes with 64GB of either ECC or non-ECC DDR4-2666 memory
• It has DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI 2.0, DVI-D
• The motherboard does offer you dual M.2, U.2 storage options

The Concluding Thoughts

Those were a few motherboards announced by the partners of Intel. We would assume that most of them will be available by the end of the year. In fact, we would also expect the announcements from other Intel partners like Gigabyte and MSI quite soon.

We expect the Xeon E- 2100 series of processors to be available quite soon. The fourth quarter of 2018 should find a few OEM announcements from the likes of HP, Dell, and Lenovo. We would also expect the launch workstation motherboards soon from Intel partners.