ASUS Sneaks Out Intel W680 Based mATX Motherboard for LGA-1700 Workstations

[TheLostSwede]

For those looking to build something more professional than your average run of the mill PC, ASUS new Pro WS W680M-ACE SE motherboard might be the thing you've been looking for. The Intel W680 chipset based board sports a mATX form factor and packs in a range of rather unusual features that you more often would find on a board from Supermicro or Tyan than ASUS. One such feature is onboard BMC remote management via an ASpeed AST2600 SoC which features a pair of Arm Cortex A7 cores and a Cortex M3, as well as a dedicated 2D graphics chip. The board also sports a SlimSAS port which supports either four SATA drives or a single PCIe 4.0 x4 storage device, although ASUS doesn't support any cables in the box for the port.

As this is a workstation motherboard, it obviously supports ECC memory and in this case we're talking DDR5 with full transactional ECC support, rather than the on-die ECC that all DDR5 features. Other more common motherboard features include a pair of PCIe 4.0 x4 NMVe M.2 slots, a single PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, a PCIe 4.0 x4 slot and a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. The board also has a pair of 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port and a third 1 Gbps Ethernet port which is connected the AST2600, a 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, as well as a DisplayPort and HDMI port, plus a VGA port which again is connected to the AST2600. ASUS promises 24/7 reliability at ambient temperatures of up to 45 degrees C and a relative humidity of up to 80 percent. The board also comes with ASUS' Control Center Express, which is ASUS' IT management software. No word on pricing, but the ATX sized version retails for around US$330, suggesting that the mATX version should be somewhat cheaper.



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[Solaris17]

nice! a bmc is a massive plus! I really wish micro PCs like the latte panda came with them as well.

 

[TheLostSwede]

nice! a bmc is a massive plus! I really wish micro PCs like the latte panda came with them as well.

It takes up too much board space on something that small.

 

[InVasMani]

ASUS Pro WS W680-ACE seemed more unique with PCIE slots and lanes.

 

[Solaris17]

It takes up too much board space on something that small.

Oh I know but I’m still gonna be sad about it. besides the BMC is only part one. Then you have to learn how each manufacturer botched there IPMI implementation. I think the angriest I have gotten was Lenovo.

 

[aQi]

Seriously ?

 

[Alan Smithee]

IMHO this board is dead on arrival.

• Terrible slot layout. On a workstation board you need 10GbE plus at least another x4 slot for another card like a Thunderbolt adapter or a capture card. Most higher end GPUs are going to block the one x4 slot so all you really get is an x1.
• No onboard 10GbE (see above)
• Rotated socket which will cause some cooler compatibility issues with orientation
• The cabled NVMe port inexplicably uses SlimSAS instead of MiniSAS HD which is used by U.2 cables which came bundled with drives, so you're going to have to buy an SFF-8639 to SFF-8654 cable
• Related to above, the board only has 4 SATA connectors so if you need more, you have to consume the SlimSAS port for another 4 SATA which leaves you with only 2 M.2 slots
• The specs don't say whether the Intel 2.5 GbE is the broken i225-V or the newer i226-V

 

[samum]

• The specs don't say whether the Intel 2.5 GbE is the broken i225-V or the newer i226-V

You mean, the broken i225-V or the broken i226-V.

 

[thestryker6]

No word on pricing, but the ATX sized version retails for around US$330, suggesting that the mATX version should be somewhat cheaper.

The ATX one with the BMC is actually $410. Though it is an add on card so I doubt the premium on this MATX model would be as high.

IMHO this board is dead on arrival.

• Terrible slot layout. On a workstation board you need 10GbE plus at least another x4 slot for another card like a Thunderbolt adapter or a capture card. Most higher end GPUs are going to block the one x4 slot so all you really get is an x1.
• No onboard 10GbE (see above)
• Rotated socket which will cause some cooler compatibility issues with orientation
• The cabled NVMe port inexplicably uses SlimSAS instead of MiniSAS HD which is used by U.2 cables which came bundled with drives, so you're going to have to buy an SFF-8639 to SFF-8654 cable
• Related to above, the board only has 4 SATA connectors so if you need more, you have to consume the SlimSAS port for another 4 SATA which leaves you with only 2 M.2 slots
• The specs don't say whether the Intel 2.5 GbE is the broken i225-V or the newer i226-V

• All actual workstation GPUs are dual slot so it's not really a problem unless you're trying to use a full sized gaming GPU.
• I agree they should have integrated 10gb on the MATX model since there should be room by the BMC and it has the lanes available.
• I don't think it'll be too big of a problem unless you're trying to use a giant air cooler. At least there's a good reason why they did it and it's to fit the BMC in MATX whereas Gigabyte did it on their ATX board.
• I'm not sure why Asus uses SlimSAS and I would love to know why they do as they seem to be the only ones.
• This is another area where they should have changed from the ATX model and added in another 4 SATA ports since they're not using the PCIe lanes.
• It's going to be the i226 (I have the regular ATX model).

I think a lot of the more practical shortcomings are probably due to savings on the manufacturing side sadly. That being said I gotta believe the market for MATX on the workstation side is pretty small so it's possible these won't really matter.

 

[HBSound]

I am curious is anyone actually used this motherboard?

Pro WS W680M-ACE SE - Tech Specs｜Motherboards｜ASUS USA

Intel® W680 LGA 1700 Micro-ATX workstation motherboard, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, 2.5 Gb, SlimSAS, enhanced power and cooling solutions

www.asus.com

I see the valid points in everyone's thoughts.

The only thing I would have liked to see is 2 - 5.0 X 16 PCI at full loads. I am not sure why brands do not offer Intel i or AMD motherboards with Dual PCI slots with full load.

Does anyone know if this will work with the LGA1700 for the 14th Gen Processors?

Also, it would be nice to see the Intel i series of processors supporting ECC-registered RAM. That could have been a strong plus. Especially when dealing with a workstation board.

 

[thestryker6]

The only thing I would have liked to see is 2 - 5.0 X 16 PCI at full loads. I am not sure why brands do not offer Intel i or AMD motherboards with Dual PCI slots with full load.

Are you talking about two full x16 lane slots? If so they can't because AMD/Intel only have 16 lanes from CPU to PCIe slots. If you're just talking about PCIe 5.0 slots for both the ATX model has that, but I've not seen any MATX boards period with dual PCIe 5.0.

Does anyone know if this will work with the LGA1700 for the 14th Gen Processors?

There's no reason it shouldn't, but it would undoubtedly need a BIOS update.

Also, it would be nice to see the Intel i series of processors supporting ECC-registered RAM. That could have been a strong plus. Especially when dealing with a workstation board.

You mean RDIMMs? Intel and AMD have never supported those on the regular workstation CPUs only the more high end. ECC UDIMMs should be fine for most applications that you'd use a desktop class CPU for.

 

[HBSound]

Are you talking about two full x16 lane slots? If so they can't because AMD/Intel only have 16 lanes from CPU to PCIe slots. If you're just talking about PCIe 5.0 slots for both the ATX model has that, but I've not seen any MATX boards period with dual PCIe 5.0.


There's no reason it shouldn't, but it would undoubtedly need a BIOS update.


You mean RDIMMs? Intel and AMD have never supported those on the regular workstation CPUs only the more high end. ECC UDIMMs should be fine for most applications that you'd use a desktop class CPU for.

Thank you for your response.

I haven't come across any regular Intel or AMD motherboards that have PCIe 5.0 x 16 slots. If you use more than one PCIe slot, both slots will operate at 5.0 x 8.

I'm curious as to why a "workstation" board like this doesn't allow for full ECC-Registered memory. After researching online, I couldn't find any 48GB RAM with ECC support. Everything I found only went up to 32GB of RAM per stick.

Thanks.

 

[thestryker6]

Thank you for your response.

I haven't come across any regular Intel or AMD motherboards that have PCIe 5.0 x 16 slots. If you use more than one PCIe slot, both slots will operate at 5.0 x 8.

Like I said that's because the CPUs don't support it. The only way they could do it is with a PLX switch which would make the board cost an insane amount of money.

I'm curious as to why a "workstation" board like this doesn't allow for full ECC-Registered memory.

The CPUs don't support RDIMMs and historically this category never has.

After researching online, I couldn't find any 48GB RAM with ECC support. Everything I found only went up to 32GB of RAM per stick.

Thanks.

You can get 48GB, but it's extremely expensive at around $300 USD per stick as availability is still awful.

 

[HBSound]

Like I said that's because the CPUs don't support it. The only way they could do it is with a PLX switch which would make the board cost an insane amount of money.


The CPUs don't support RDIMMs and historically this category never has.


You can get 48GB, but it's extremely expensive at around $300 USD per stick as availability is still awful.

In the smaller format. Amazing solid motherboard, for sure.

Thank you so much!