I would wonder who would buy this type of board, with the CPU soldered to it ? I mean, you're buying something that if is craps out, you have to change Mobo and CPU, and maybe RAM as well down the road... For the 8 Core atom chips, it wasn't a problem. That was ITX Sized, and more for SMB's. This is surely going to cost a packet, and I would expect it to be only a little cheaper (maybe) than a socketed version.

Evildead666:

I would wonder who would buy this type of board, with the CPU soldered to it ? I mean, you're buying something that if is craps out, you have to change Mobo and CPU, and maybe RAM as well down the road... For the 8 Core atom chips, it wasn't a problem. That was ITX Sized, and more for SMB's. This is surely going to cost a packet, and I would expect it to be only a little cheaper (maybe) than a socketed version.

It's for 1U file server mainly... low cost server as secondary use. Those CPU doesn't need hight frequency, but more thread... (also it's the "D" version of the CPU.) *edit* And there is itx version comming too

Evildead666:

I would wonder who would buy this type of board, with the CPU soldered to it ? I mean, you're buying something that if is craps out, you have to change Mobo and CPU, and maybe RAM as well down the road...

As far as I can tell, this is mostly meant to compete against ARM servers. Generally speaking, a lot of why you pay extra for server parts is the reliability, so aside from the fact that CPUs nowadays take years to fail even after heavily overclocking them, I'm sure these low-clocked CPUs will last a lifetime. Most people, even here, don't understand most server hardware, which is perfectly ok. A lot of it sounds stupid, overpriced, or impractical to the average person. Because of that, I always felt articles like this on a website focused on consumer-level hardware were doing the manufacturer more harm than good.

Evildead666:

I would wonder who would buy this type of board, with the CPU soldered to it ? I mean, you're buying something that if is craps out, you have to change Mobo and CPU, and maybe RAM as well down the road... For the 8 Core atom chips, it wasn't a problem. That was ITX Sized, and more for SMB's. This is surely going to cost a packet, and I would expect it to be only a little cheaper (maybe) than a socketed version.

Data centers.

The only problem I have with this board is the Soldered CPU. If that craps out, New Mobo and CPU is required, which is major hassle. What advantage does this have over the exact same specs, but with a socketed CPU ?

Evildead666:

The only problem I have with this board is the Soldered CPU. If that craps out, New Mobo and CPU is required, which is major hassle. What advantage does this have over the exact same specs, but with a socketed CPU ?

Out of curiosity, when was the last time you encountered a non-overclocked CPU that failed? Remember, the target demographic is mainframes. Not only are these low-power cores, but they're built for reliability, they're pretty much never going to move once they're installed, and they [should] be in an environment with controlled humidity and temperature. Products like these are bought in bulk of hundreds or thousands. Downtime is very expensive to companies, so if a system fails (particularly, an old one that's reaching the end of its life anyway), it's usually just cheaper to replace the whole thing than it is to spend the time debugging what went wrong and replacing the part. If the computer or part is under warranty, they just swap out the whole thing and ship it back to the manufacturer to get it replaced. Enterprise hardware tends to have pretty good warranties. Come to think of it, socketed server motherboards overall don't make much sense anymore. They're useful when you order custom-built machines or if you get a multi-socket motherboard where you intend to add processors later, but otherwise most companies aren't going to replace just the CPU.

schmidtbag:

Out of curiosity, when was the last time you encountered a non-overclocked CPU that failed? Remember, the target demographic is mainframes. Not only are these low-power cores, but they're built for reliability, they're pretty much never going to move once they're installed, and they [should] be in an environment with controlled humidity and temperature. Products like these are bought in bulk of hundreds or thousands. Downtime is very expensive to companies, so if a system fails (particularly, an old one that's reaching the end of its life anyway), it's usually just cheaper to replace the whole thing than it is to spend the time debugging what went wrong and replacing the part. If the computer or part is under warranty, they just swap out the whole thing and ship it back to the manufacturer to get it replaced. Enterprise hardware tends to have pretty good warranties. Come to think of it, socketed server motherboards overall don't make much sense anymore. They're useful when you order custom-built machines or if you get a multi-socket motherboard where you intend to add processors later, but otherwise most companies aren't going to replace just the CPU.

Hey, If Businesses want to spend more money on stuff that can't be repaired, they can do what they want. I wouldn't like a rack(s) of CPU's that could be problematic, or even have an inherent flaw in them, being soldered to my motherboard. What if the client wants to upgrade down the line ? "Oh, you'll have to change everything, even though you just need a CPU upgrade. And have considerable downtime for the change, and requalify all the Motherboards, instead of just the CPU's." I can also see : "By the way, the new CPU's use different memory, so you'll have to buy that as well". I find it troubling. Maybe its a niche thing, for a specific purpose, but I just find it strange.

Evildead666:

Hey, If Businesses want to spend more money on stuff that can't be repaired, they can do what they want. I wouldn't like a rack(s) of CPU's that could be problematic, or even have an inherent flaw in them, being soldered to my motherboard. What if the client wants to upgrade down the line ?

They don't spend more money on it - the reason these parts are so expensive is because the warranty covers their immediate replacement in the event something goes wrong. Also, you do know this is Intel we're talking about, right? They're not exactly known for their upgrade paths, especially on a system that already comes with 16 cores.

I find it troubling. Maybe its a niche thing, for a specific purpose, but I just find it strange.

It isn't niche, it's just un-heard of if you're looking at this from a consumer perspective. If this were a home server, I would totally be in agreement with you.

schmidtbag:

They don't spend more money on it - the reason these parts are so expensive is because the warranty covers their immediate replacement in the event something goes wrong. Also, you do know this is Intel we're talking about, right? They're not exactly known for their upgrade paths, especially on a system that already comes with 16 cores. It isn't niche, it's just un-heard of if you're looking at this from a consumer perspective. If this were a home server, I would totally be in agreement with you.

also it replace an already soldered CPU that had less core than this one ...

Evildead666:

Hey, If Businesses want to spend more money on stuff that can't be repaired, they can do what they want. I wouldn't like a rack(s) of CPU's that could be problematic, or even have an inherent flaw in them, being soldered to my motherboard. What if the client wants to upgrade down the line ? "Oh, you'll have to change everything, even though you just need a CPU upgrade. And have considerable downtime for the change, and requalify all the Motherboards, instead of just the CPU's." I can also see : "By the way, the new CPU's use different memory, so you'll have to buy that as well". I find it troubling. Maybe its a niche thing, for a specific purpose, but I just find it strange.

Just for info: soldered Xeon have really low fail ratio, lower than the regular one and are more slim wich is why they exist (1U is really not high) and are "inexpensive" if you are on a pro side (exemple: when i said "i need a quadro at 5000Euro" the boss said "ok if you need it"so if you made an easy math: 5000Euro divided on 4 year of legal use and making an entrance of money of around 1000Euro by month... it cost peanuts)... if it fail, you change and that's all.

Evildead666:

"Oh, you'll have to change everything, even though you just need a CPU upgrade. And have considerable downtime for the change, and requalify all the Motherboards, instead of just the CPU's."

Not the best reasoning for worrying about a soldered CPU, since even if it weren't, by the time you'd want to upgrade the CPU, it'd likely be more cost effective to buy a new motherboard/CPU as modern (at that time) CPUs will almost certainly not work on that motherboard anymore, regardless of the memory. Unless you buy bottom end, or the same socket is surprisingly being used for years (not likely, at least from Intel), then buying within the same family of CPUs is almost never cost effective.