Introducing Supermicro's first Xeon D-1567, you asked for it, 12 core mini tower with even more CPU capacity strikes balance between performance, power, and cost
Sep 15 2016 Update - pre-orders of this new 12 core Bundle now available, with shipments expected to start in early October.
This past winter, you may recall my observation that Supermicro's announcements of new Xeon D systems was conspicuously missing any new mini-tower form factor systems. Moreover, there was no Xeon D-1567 in the entire new product line-up.
Just a quick re-cap: the 45 watt Xeon D-1541 is 2.1/2.7 GHz with 4 cores, and the 65 watt Xeon D-1567 is 2.1/2.7GHz with 12 cores, detailed here. With virtualization, overall peformance is expected to scale rather linearly, given the all-important L3 cache is also bumped up from 12 MB to 18 MB.
So in May 2016, I threw an open vote to all of you, my valued TinkerTry readers, figuring there might be value in seeing what you want for your home labs. While my first SurveyMonkey method was far from perfect, the results are still interesting, seen at:
Today, here at VMworld 2016 US, I'm actually demonstrating an engineering sample of the Xeon D-1567, not quite in the CSE-721TQ-250B mini-tower yet, but still quite fun to have a quick look at for the next week or so. Always nice to be able to show folks something first!
So I close with the news that Wiredzone will begin taking orders for this SYS-5028D-TN4T-12C system very soon, hopefully by this weekend. Yes, there will be a convenient bundle, much like the popular Bundle 2.
Well, it's very nearly the same-everything as the heavily tested SYS-5028D-TN4T - same motherboard, same power supply, same BIOS. The only difference being a different CPU affixed to the SoC design. That said, you can be sure I'll still be carefully TinkerTrying the first-in-world SYS-5028D-TN4T-12C that I'm purchasing for my home lab.
At the Supermicro booth at VMworld, I was able to confirm that it is very much their intent to get all Xeon D-1500 systems they sell onto the VMware Compatibility Guide, just like they've done for the SYS-5028D-TN4T. This is good for all home lab enthusiasts who happen to value VMware compatibility.
At VMworld 2016, I'll be spending much of Wednesday demonstrating this little vSphere cluster to folks, and I sure do look forward to it. Everywhere I go to present, the feedback has been quite positive, which sure makes sharing my recent refinements to the affordable home lab (see build list) so very fun to finally be able to share.
Sep 01 2016 Update
The bare-bones Xeon D-1567 system is now available for pre-order now at Wiredzone, with the TinkerTry'd Bundle pre-order page expected on Sep 2nd. Shipments for all SYS-5028D-TN4T-12C systems are expected to start in 3-4 weeks.
Sep 15 2016 Update
The Bundle Xeon D-1567 system is now available for pre-order, with shipment expected to start in early October, see details for US here and for EU [here]().
