Supermicro W790 motherboard pictured, E-ATX designed to fit Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation CPUs

Supermicro’s next-generation W790 motherboard for Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon CPUs has been photographed again, only this time in more detail.

Supermicro W790 Workstation-ready Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon motherboard pictured and detailed

The Supermicro X13SWA-TF is a next-generation motherboard that was leaked by Videocardz a while ago. This motherboard is one of the first Intel W790 chipset designs that will offer support for Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon CPUs that are scheduled to be released in the first half of 2023. This new leak gives us a better, close-up look at the motherboard, along with details like memory and PCIe lanes. Available in two Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation families.

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The Supermicro X13SWA-TF was listed last month with a price tag of US$960. The motherboard features the new LGA 4677 Socket (Socket P) which will support the latest branded Xeon CPUs within the Intel Sapphire Rapids-WS family. The CPU gets its power from an 8 + 2 phase power delivery which is enhanced by a dual 8-pin power connector layout. The motherboard supports Xeon processors with up to 350W TDPs (supported by a dedicated SMC heatsink or water cooler).

For the memory layout, the Supermicro W790 motherboard features a total of 16 DDR5 DIMM slots, supporting up to 1TB/4TB of 8-channel (2DPC) memory (64GB RDIMM/3DS). Since DDR5 passes voltage regulation to the DIMMs instead of being placed on the board itself, we can’t say which DRAM VRMs are on the sides of the motherboard like the previous generation design. In terms of memory speeds, the default DDR5 frequency is set to DDR5-4800 for 1DPC and DDR5-4400 for 2DPC in both 8- and 4-channel memory configurations.

Going further in expansion, the Supermicro W790 motherboard features a total of 6 PCIe x16 slots which must use the Gen5 protocol since the Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon chips offer PCIe Gen 5.0 capabilities. One thing to note is that the Sapphire Rapids-WS Xeon CPU lineup will come in two flavor lines, the Xeon W-3000 line will feature 112 lane support while the Xeon W-2000 line will have 64 lane support.

Supermicro X13SWA-TF W790 motherboard I/O (Image credits: Chiphell Forums):

There are also three M.2 slots on the board which should be Gen5 compatible as well. There are 8 SATA III ports, 2 U.2 ports, and a good selection of I/O ports on the back. Supermicro, just like many other manufacturers, will offer this and many other W790-class motherboards about to launch. I/O includes one 10Gb (Marvell AQC113C) and one Intel i210-AT 1GbE controller on the motherboard along with shared IPMI. Intel will share more information about the Sapphire Rapids WS family in the coming months.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 5000 vs. Intel Sapphire Rapids-X HEDT Processors: