C236

When we learned that Intel would be restricting Skylake based Xeon E3 CPUs to motherboards using server chipsets only, there was a small outcry from a community that has routinely picked the E3 processors over the consumer counterparts. This is because server chipset based motherboards come with very specialized feature sets, are not concerned with looks or things such as bundles or software packages, and are often limited in XMP support. A few motherboard manufacturers have released server motherboards in the consumer style to fill the gap, but first up we wanted to look at one of the ‘typical’ server products before hitting the new hybrids. This review focuses on the MW31-SP0, a GIGABYTE Server motherboard using the C236 chipset.