The Supermicro X11SCA-W Motherboard Review: For Entry Level Xeon

Supermicro X11SCA-W Conclusion

The Supermicro X11SCA-W is an ATX form factor motherboard based on the Intel C246 chipset. The main purpose of this green board is geared towards commercialuse as well as also being suitable for a workstation with a total of eight SATA ports, a pair of M.2 slots and a single U.2 port. Some of the Supermicro exclusive features of the X11SCA-W include the handy SuperDoctor 5 software which allows users to monitor various aspects of their installed hardware from an easy to understand browser-based GUI; it should be noted SuperDoctor 5 is Windows based. The X11SCA-W is part of a family of motherboards, so for example users looking for a BMC management interface will have to opt for the more comprehensive, but equally more expensive Supermicro X11SCA-F model.

Supermicro has a total of four available C246 motherboards including the X11SCA-W ($285), the X11SCZ-F ($320) and the base X11SCA model ($270), with minor differences between them. The X11SCA-F ($290) does add IPMI remote access monitoring due to an additional baseboard management controller, but unlike the X11SCA-W, wireless networking capabilities aren't integrated as this is the only current model from their C246 stack that features this. The only non ATX model from this range is the Supermicro X11SCZ-F which has a similar set of specifications to the X11SCA-F with additional support for RTC wakeup but has fewer PCIe slots due to its micro-ATX form factor.

There isn't a wide variety of competition in the consumer-server market with ASUS having released a pair of C246 boards, the ATX ASUS WS C246 PRO ($328) and the micro-ATX sized ASUS WS C246M PRO ($313) to the market. This puts the Supermicro X11SCA- W as one of the cheaper desktop C246 options available.

Touching on the aesthetics of the Supermicro X11SCA-W, the green PCB is very reminiscent of an older socket motherboard. Stylistically the design is a bit of a mismatch with a solid green PCB and steel PCIe armor protection on the two full-length PCIe 3.0 slots. This really depends on a user's system plan as the boards standard ATX form factor means it'll fit in the vast majority of cases; this is a plus point given the board is targeted at consumers building a server, or a commercial system. 

The list of available connections on the rear panel is relatively standard for a board of this calibre, with some USB connectivity assisted by a trio of video outputs. The video output selection consists of a DisplayPort, HDMI and a DVI-D port, which is there to make use of the integrated graphics of the Xeon E-2100 series. On the USB side of things is a pair of USB 3.1 Gen2 ports with both a Type-C and Type-A port present, as well as two USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports. Users looking to expand upon this can do so due to two front panel headers; a USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 which offer two additional ports each. Supermicro has opted for an older audio solution with a Realtek ALC888S which powers the five 3.5 mm audio jacks and single S/PDIF optical output. One of the main physical features is the inclusion of two LAN ports with an Intel I219LM and an Intel I211AT. These two Gigabit LAN ports allow for teaming.

On the performance front, the Supermicro X11SCA-11 was good all around from our testing. It didn't experience too many curveballs from our updated benchmarking suite for 2019. As we used an Intel Xeon E-2186G processor which the C246 chipset is designed for, it didn't stray too much in regards to specifications from our usual Core i7-8700K; the proof is in the pudding with comparative performance across the majority of our test results. The POST test times showed the worst result so far out of the Z370 and Z390 boards we compared against, but commercial boards have a tendency to have longer booting cycles than more their consumer-focused counterparts.

For an open debate on using certain chipsets specifically for their use such as using C246 for servers and Z370 for gaming, the gaming performance was similar when we used with the same graphics card as the Z370 and Z390 boards. Although it is always technically possible to game on a commercial chipset based motherboard such as this one without a performance hit, some users might feel the extra cost associated for more professional based features might not be worth it and prefer more consumer focused product.

The Supermicro X11SCA-W is a very competent socket LGA1151 motherboard for Xeon E processors. There is no glitz or glamour here, with Supermicro hoping that its expertise in server products carries over into its commercial line. From a personal perspective, with this sort of product usually a BMC is preferred over the WiFi, which makes the X11SCA-F look more appetising. Supermicro still needs to work on its BIOS and software offerings in the long term to catch up to other motherboard vendors, although such considerations might not be relevant when deploying Xeon E systems at the scale of hundreds or thousands.

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