The ASRock Rack EPYCD8-2T Motherboard Review: From Naples to Rome

Board Features

The ASRock Rack EPYCD8-2T is a single socket LGA 4094 ATX motherboard designed for the workstation and server market. It has compatibility with both the AMD EYPC 7001 and 7002 family, which means this model supports up to 64 cores. On the memory front, the EYPCD8-2T has eight memory slots with support for up to 1 TB of DDR4-3200 system memory including both LRDIMM or RDIMM. RDIMM support is limited to 32 GB, 16 GB, and 8 GB modules, while LRDIMM supported includes 128 GB and 64 GB modules. Users can install up to nine SATA devices with two miniSAS ports which offer four ports each, and a single SATA DOM connector. Also present is two PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots which support both NVMe and SATA drives. While this board doesn't include standard U.2 ports, ASRock Rack has included two Oculink U.2 slots for users wishing to use U.2 drives. The ASRock Rack EPYCD8-2T also has seven PCIe 3.0 slots, with four full-length and three-half length slots which operate at x16/x8/x16/x8/x16/x8/x16. Each full-length PCIe 3.0 slot runs at x16, with the half-lengths limited to PCIe 3.0 x8.

ASRock is using the Aspeed AST2500 BMC controller which adds a single D-sub video output on the rear panel, while a Realtek RTL82111E Gigabit Ethernet controller is used for the boards dedicated IPMI connection. Also on the rear panel is a pair of USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports, although users needing more USB can get an additional two USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports, and two USB 2.0 ports from front panel headers. For the networking, the included Intel X550 dual 10 G Ethernet controller adds two Ethernet ports on the rear panel for premium networks. Finishing off the rear panel is a single serial port and an ID button which comes equipped with an LED. Adapted for premium 1U chassis, there are seven 6-pin fan headers in total, with one dedicated to a CPU cooler and six for chassis fans.

Test Bed

As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

For direct comparisons with consumer boards, we're using a 16-core processor.

Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.

Many thanks to...

We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.

Hardware Providers
Sapphire RX 460 Nitro	MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC	Crucial MX300 + MX500 SSDs	Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs
G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX	Crucial Ballistix DDR4	Silverstone Coolers	Silverstone Fans