Agree, with most here, as one can see in my tread, where I try to locate a reasonably priced AM5 motherboard for a media server. It need a few slots for 20/50 server NICs which are typical 8x 2.0/3.0/4.0, SATA and few free slots, so I can add U.2 controller later or what SSD wins the future for the low-end media storage.
Good AMD CPUs are plenty, but all the motherboards need to up-sell to the highest gaming outfitted board they can get away with. It’s a server, so OC and power stages at 4 times the biggest CPUs need is just wasted stuff and money.
Treadripper is not viable for this use, due to costs and overperformance for my need.
On the Intel side I can go with W680 and when Arrow Lake launches, a W880, which is still expensive at 450€-500€, and there are good options from Supermicro, Asus and Asroc. The money goes to functions not gaming geil, or RGBs and I those functions has value for me now, or in futureproofing the investment with connectivity like dum PCIe slots. Can someone make a version where the M.2 lanes can be shifted to actual PCIe slots?
However the longevity of socket 1851 is questionable, so it would be written off, unlike the AM5. AL may be more energy efficient than the RL, but that is also it, and then the nightmare with the E-cores, making AMDs CPUs much more attractive. So as good as Intel is on the motherboard side, as bad as they are on CPU and the longevity of the platform. I understand whyt they add more PCIE lanes to the CPU, but its also a trick to get us to splurge on the next platform, and the next. If they promised 2-3 gens and I could start with a P-core only CPU, I’d be fine with the investment.
As with AMD, if they had a W680 like motherboard, instead of expensive gaming stuff, I likewise spend 500€ on that, and likely a bit extra on the CPU, as the platform is longer lived.
Ideally, a home server for an apartment resides in a cupboard and is cheap, silent and efficient (power prices) in turning power into its services.
I know I should just get a prebuild NAS and STFU, but I hate prebuild NASs, because they are inflexible, noisy, use more power than an individually configured system, and are inflexible.
So I would very much like a W680 motherboard for my AM5 Epyc CPU, for home server.
Plueaaaszze!
/rantoff