ASRock Rack E3C236D4M-4L - Worth buying used?

Hi guys,

So today I got offered an ASRock Rack E3C236D4M-4L ATX Mobo.
These are generic, used, atx, c236 boards, was in an 1U Systems and had Xeon E3 1270 V6 on it with 32GB DDR4 ECC 2400 UDIMM.

So then I looked closer at the Mobo and there are a few “flags” that I generally dislike. Thats why im not entirely sure if this thing has even a value or is some OEM Stuff that I should avoid.

Con:

  1. Networking is done by 3x Intel I210 and 1x Intel I219 (no typo).
  2. Expanding is only possible with 1x PCIe3 x16 and x4
  3. There are two weird mezzanine slots on there, but I cant find reliable info on their homepage. What are they for?

Pro:

  1. Enterprise gear, optimized for airflow and 24/7
  2. IPMI with AST2400 (ASRock Rack Stuff, but better then nothing)
  3. 7-digit display for trouble shooting, always a great thing!
  4. 8x SATA3, which makes it handy for a small NAS.
  5. the two weird mezzanine slots.

Can a few of your help me shed some light? Is this something worth buying second handed and what is a good price for such a C236 ATX Board w/o I/O shield and stuff.
I personally would guess around €150

The chipset is almost 7 years old, so you can’t expect the latest intel adapters. They should still be solid though.

IIRC the E3 Xeon line is basically desktop i5/i7 chips with ECC memory. This is likely why you have so few PCIe lanes here. Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1270 v6 - max 16 PCIe lanes from CPU.

These are for PCIe expansion slots for dedicated modules, or perhaps pcie riser cards. An example of a dedicated module - https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=M599#Specifications.

I’d recommend checking out the block diagram in the manual for more details on how it all connects.

Just FYI this can actually be a con. Desktop motherboards will have lower power components, and larger heatsinks, so that most cooling is not dependant on airflow. Servers often use smaller heatsinks because they assume they’re under constant, high flow air.

That being said, it’s mainly an issue for server cpu coolers and high power devices, like ethernet cards and storage cards. For this CPU it’ll be fine in a desktop case.

I’d look up the value of each component on ebay (or similar) and see how it all fits together. Just the RAM seems to be worth €150 here.

However if you want more PCIe lanes I’d probably be looking elsewhere.

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