The Supermicro X11SCA-W Motherboard Review: For Entry Level Xeon

System Performance

Not all motherboards are created equal. On the face of it, they should all perform the same and differ only in the functionality they provide - however, this is not the case. The obvious pointers are power consumption, but also the ability for the manufacturer to optimize USB speed, audio quality (based on audio codec), POST time and latency. This can come down to manufacturing process and prowess, so these are tested.

Power Consumption

Power consumption was tested on the system while in a single ASUS GTX 980 GPU configuration with a wall meter connected to the Thermaltake 1200W power supply. This power supply has ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.

While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our test bed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.

Both the Intel Core i7-8700K and Xeon E-2186G processors have a similar power draw thanks to a similar base core frequency (3.8 vs 3.7 GHz respectively) and a turbo frequency of 4.7 GHz. At long idle, the X11SCA-W displays great performance with a more middle of the road showing at idle. At load however, the X11SCA-W does power up pretty high with a power draw of 151 W; it sits just between the recently reviewed ASRock Z390 Taichi and the ASUS ROG Maximus X Apex boards.

As noted in our CPU review of this processor, this motherboard tends to stick to Intel's recommended power settings, whereas consumer motherboards ignore the 'long power' standard. Our power test takes an early power reading, so we don't see it here, however it will come across in the benchmarks.

Non-UEFI POST Time

Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we look at the POST Boot Time using a stopwatch. This is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.)

Prosumer motherboards such as the Supermicro X11SCA-W are notoriously slow at POSTing. This is usually a consequence of a longer booting sequence and less focus on optimization. The X11SCA-W did however manage to boot in 28 seconds with various controllers disabled such as the Intel networking controllers and Realtek ALC888S audio codec.

DPC Latency

Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests such as audio will be further down the line. If the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled.

If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time. This can lead to an empty audio buffer and characteristic audible pauses, pops and clicks. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is taken processing DPCs from driver invocation. The lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds.

It's very apparent from the above figures that Supermicro hasn't optimized the X11SCA-W for DPC latency; this is a server focused motherboard and not really marketed towards sound engineers or content creators.