The Intel W480 Motherboard Overview: LGA1200 For Xeon W-1200
by Gavin Bonshor on June 24, 2020 9:00 AM ESTGIGABYTE W480 Vision D
For Intel's more workstation focused W480 chipset, at time of writing, GIGABYTE has unveiled three models with two ATX sized model and one micro-ATX model. The more premium of the two ATX sized boards is the GIGABYTE W480 Vision D, with its black PCB and striking white PCIe armor and heatsinks for a robust and classic contrasting look. Some of the boards feature set includes dual Thunderbolt 3 Type-C connectivity on the rear panel, three PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots, with dual Ethernet on the rear including an Intel 2.5 GbE controller, and an Intel Wi-Fi 6 interface.
The GIGABYTE W480 Vision D has a solid feature set which includes three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which run at x16, x8/x8, and x8/x8/+x4, with a single PCIe 3.0 slot. Underneath the visually pleasing PCIe slot armor is the three PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots, with six SATA ports also present which includes support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. The W480 Vision D has four memory slots with official support for both ECC and non-ECC memory, with a maximum capacity of up to 128 GB and speeds of up to DDR4-2933.
Looking at the rear panel, the GIGABYTE W480 Vision D includes dual Thunderbolt 3 Type-C ports with a single DisplayPort video input to assist. Also present are two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports, with a front-panel USB 3.2 G2 Type-C front panel header present for users that require more Type-C connectivity. The networking consists of two Ethernet ports including an Intel 2.5 GbE and Intel Gigabit controller pairing, with an Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 interface which also provides support for BT 5.1 devices. Finishing off the rear panel are five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output controlled by a Realtek ALC1220-VB HD audio codec and a single HDMI 1.4 video output.
The GIGABYTE W480 Vision D is undoubtedly one of the best looking W480 models announced and should fit a multitude of system configurations with its black and white contrasting design. Combining this with a solid premium feature set with dual Thunderbolt 3 Type-C and plenty of USB 3.2 G2 Type-A on the rear panel is suitable for content creators and workstation users with lots of USB devices. The W480 Vision D is also one of the only models to include three PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots which is a huge plus point for the board and sets it apart from a small handful of premium models from the big four consumer-focused vendors.
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YB1064 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Underwhelming at best. Why would anybody go for this over EPYC?Jorgp2 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
Lolextide - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
This doesn't even compete with Threadripper, much less Epyc. This chipset allows you to use LGA1200 Xeons which are identical to the 10th gen Core series plus ECC support -- which is essentially what you get with regular Ryzen line -- except the regular ryzen line goes to 16 cores and ECC is only "semi official"foobaz - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
The Xeon has one minor advantage over Ryzen - the Xeon does both ECC and integrated graphics. Ryzen APUs can't do ECC, so if you want ECC, you need to pair a Ryzen without integrated graphics with either a discrete GPU or a motherboard with onboard graphics like the X470D4U.PixyMisa - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
For a server though, you want BMC, so you want a motherboard like the X470D4U.And for a workstation, in most cases you want discrete graphics.
abeetz - Sunday, January 23, 2022 - link
For one, the W480 Vision W from Gigabyte includes AMT, as far as I can tell. Some are selling it as a workstation board, and the W-1370 / 1370P CPUs are positioned as workstation processors. But I don't see any downside to using this as a pretty beefy server. It does have a fancy audio section, but that in itself shouldn't disqualify server use. Happy to get anyone else's take on this here. Saying this, of course, because I was able to get a hold of that motherboard + W-1370P CPU, both currently rare, and am considering them as a server for a small business whose network I run.abeetz - Sunday, January 23, 2022 - link
Correction - I meant that some are selling it as a SERVER board...0ldman79 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
When you're talking servers the dinky GPU doesn't factor in.The price difference between the Intel and AMD line they can more than afford to toss in any motherboard-integrated GPU they can think of.
I'd say 99% of the time the server GPU is only used during initial setup and config. Everything is remote managed.
I even go so far as to disconnect the mouse, keyboard and monitor on almost every server I set up. Keeps the business owner's kids from screwing with it.
The iGPU is not a deciding factor in a server purchase.
eek2121 - Wednesday, June 24, 2020 - link
I don’t know about that. Ryzen chips can do ECC, I actually haven’t looked at whether the APUs have a different memory controller, but all Ryzen chips support ECC. My X570 board let’s me enable it via the BIOS (F20a, AMD CBS menu).Slash3 - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
Pro series APUs do support ECC, but non-Pro APUs do not.