As of June 22nd, it appears you can place your order and expect shipments to start June 23rd.
Broadwell-DE Xeon D-1540 advanced CPU features table
As I mentioned recently, the venerable Intel I-350 gigabit NIC works nicely with ESXi 6.0, and will likely be on an updated VMware HCL (Hardware Compatibility List), right alongside the existing 5.5 listing. I've been using my Intel I350T2 extensively in my home lab, with the bundled drivers, and it can even be easily made to work with ESXi 5.1. That dual port PCIe card uses about 4 watts.
Now let's look at 10GbE. Normally, it takes 7-14 watts just to power two 10GbE network ports, on a PCIe card. Imagine that instead of a card, you add those 10GB ports right into a tiny new 6.7 inch x 6.7 inch (17cm x 17cm) mITX motherboard that bundles a Xeon D-1500 processor family CPU with it. Fast, and efficient. The Broadwell-DE is a completely new 45 watt max power draw design that packs in a lot of capability. It's designed to take on the low end of the server world, and bundling the CPU and motherboard like this is called:
This is Intel's first-ever Xeon SoC (CPU+mobo combo). Along with Intel's Xeon D-1500 announcement came today's Supermicro X10SDV-TLN4F announcement, with key features highlighted here:
dual 10GbE ports*
dual 1GbE ports (based on Intel I-350)
six SATA 6Gbps ports
one M.2 slot
IPMI with KVM, on a dedicated 5th ethernet port (ability to remotely control server, including power, over web UI)
ability to handle up to 4 x 32GB, which is 128GB total, in 4 DIMM slots
*The X10SDV-F is identical, other than it sheds about $80 to $100 in cost, while also losing the dual 10GbE ports.
One request we hear often in the forums is for the power of Intel Xeon E5 in the mITX form factor. Broadwell-DE is the answer. For those wanting to build converged appliances such as VM hosts, virtualized router/ firewall appliances, and virtualized storage all in one box, Broadwell-DE will instantly be at the top of the list.
Sounds like a home virtualization enthusiast's dream, no? Even with all 4 DIMM slots loaded with RAM, likely to use less than 100 watts. Given this platform is designed with a virtualization audience in mind, I doubt it'll be long before the whole bundle is on the VMware HCL, and will likely work really nicely with Microsoft Hyper-V as well, of course.
What's the catch?
Image of X10SDV-TLN4F courtesy of Supermicro
motherboard/CPU combos based on Broadwell-DE don't arrive in volume until April 2015
they're likely to be in the $800 to $1000 range, but remember, that's the motherboard/cpu/heatsink/cooling fan combo
jury out on what it'd cost to get to 64GB or 128GB (most gear has been stuck at 32GB max for years now, see also my many rants)
For now, here's a list of the small systems also announced today that includes:
Note, most of these systems are generally not supported by VMware in any way, and are not on the VMware Compatibility Guide.
It should be interesting to see what finally winds up being an affordable way to get way past 32GB of RAM this year, with screaming fast local SSD (or even better, PCIe M.2) lumped into one VMFS or vSAN datastore. Yum!
Follow what happens next over at Patrick's Intel Xeon D-1500 Series Discussion, and stay tuned to TinkerTry in 2015, to see what platform I chose to replace my trusty Z68 based vZilla with. While it's been running very well since April 2011, pretty much 24x7, I want to break past that 32GB barrier affordably, allowing me to juggle more VMs. Why?
The Intel Xeon Processor D-1500 product family offers advanced technology in a highly cost-effective package," said Lisa Spelman, General Manager of Intel's Datacenter Products Group. "Utilizing Intel's 14nm process technology, the new Broadwell-DE SoC features a 64-bit architecture with up to 8 cores running under 45W. With experienced partners such as Supermicro developing high density platforms for our new processor family, customers will have a wide range of solutions that deliver performance within budgetary constraints.
Yesterday, Apple announced the new MacBook, with a single USB-C port, shipping now. So yes, USB 3.1 speeds are now here, in a mass market product. For a fun look back at my interface predictions, seen in the Aug 24 2013 TinkerTry infographic.
click the image above to read the full article
What does this mean for fast external storage options for the home lab enthusiast? Hard to say yet whether USB-C (Type C connector) will become prevalent, given how long that pesky USB physical socket has been around. Not hard to imagine the interface on future microservers though. See just how far William Lam has taken his home lab USB 3.0 vSAN (don't miss the comments), and his work with Thunderbolt and ESXi. See also, just-published at TinkerTry:
Upon restarting everything just worked. There are some part of the machine information that were not visible, which is typical in pre-production gear like this Supermicro X10SDV-F. We can see 8x CPUs at 1.9GHz which is the base clock of the pre-release version of the Intel Xeon D-1540 (the shipping version is 100MHz faster.) DirectPath I/O is supported and we have a 64GB RAM 8 CPU/ 16 thread ESXi 6.0 node idling at 22w now that we have better right-sized cooling. That is really awesome for anyone who has been looking for low power ESXi nodes.
Some of the shine came off the new announcements today, with this new post in the STH forum:
Patrick said:
For now, the quad core version is also a 45w TDP part. There were only two launch SoCs but there are other variants coming in the next quarter or two.
Here is the Intel Xeon D-1520 page: ARK | Intel Xeon Processor D-1520 (6M Cache, 2.20 GHz)
dba said:
Darn. I read the link from EffrafaxOfWug (here) which said 20W. Intel Ark is certainly more authoritative, so 45W it is. That's still quite good considering the dual 10GbE, etc. but not quite as impressive.
What happens when you bundle the motherboard, CPU, and enclosure? Yes, Supermicro also took the tiny mITX X10SDV-TLN4F motherboard/CPU and pre-installed it into a compact enclosure with a 250 watt power supply, sold as the SuperServer 5028D-TN4T Mini-tower.
SuperServer 5028D-TN4T Mini-Tower
Also notice that the tested Hynix memory is now listed by Supermicro for these new motherboards, which come bare-bones with no RAM, of course. So, to get to 64GB total using 4 16GB DDR4-2133 ECC DIMMs, it'll currently cost you about $200 x 4 = $800 on Amazon.
Finally, pre-orders for this Mini-tower don't seem to be available anywhere quite yet, but there is a listing at eSAITECH here.
The Supermicro list of authorized resellers might not be the more familiar manes like Amazon and Newegg that you're used to. But that's ok. The good news is that they don't all require you to uplift their profit with bundled DIMMs and/or drives, and one doesn't even charge for ground shipments to US customers. I had to spend a lot of time going through the list of North American distributors to get to this point, and glad to share what I learned.
In my extensive research, only one of the dozens of US resellers is claiming it will be available soon. Very soon. Tomorrow, June 23, 2015 actually, with all of the the others saying 2-3 weeks out, special order, or bundled deals only.
Who is the reseller I've chosen? It's Wiredzone. They take credit cards or PayPal, and seem to have an excellent reputation, with a ResellerRatings report of 9.87 out of 10 here.
I have placed my order today, and I should have more details to report soon, including any ship-date details I receive.
After 6 successful years testing then shipping well over 1,000 Xeon D Bundles, Wiredzone had to stop selling them in mid-2021 due to cost, supply, and logistics challenges. So far, Xeon D-1700/2700 (Ice Lake D) was a minor refresh for 2023, with Xeon D-1800/2800 (Granite Rapids D) refresh looking a little better for 2024. More cores, but still just PCIe Gen4 and DDR4. Looking ahead, I'm glad it's Pat Gelsinger at Intel's helm. I'm also grateful to have had the honor of working at VMware when Pat was the CIO there. I'll leave it at that, given the whole Broadcom thing.
