Hi folks -
I’m planning on finally ordering the HL-15 but I have a few sanity check questions. I’d be ordering the fully built and burned in config, most likely in the default bronze/16GB config on the X11SPH-nCTPF (SFP) mobo and noctua fans, and then immediately upgrade the CPU and RAM. I just have a bunch of (hopefully) quick sanity-check questions before I click buy
What’s the current lead time for the fully burned-in base config?
Am I correct in thinking that I can fit a 9.5" RTX A4000 video card in there? (I’ve seen conflicting dimensions)
With the way the PCIe card slots and corresponding lanes are, can I use that A4000 video card (which I already have it) along with two of the Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2M2 PCIe Add-On Cards? I think that, in this config, it would bump the graphics card down to a x8 but should still work for transcoding
would the cooler that comes with the Xeon Bronze CPU be the same one that would come with the Xeon Gold?
I think it’s typically been 1-2 weeks after they got through all the preorders. Can’t say officially, though.
The card itself is the same depth as an ATX motherboard, the only potential issue would be with the power connector being on the end, not the top. There is only about an extra inch between the end of the card and the fans, You might need a right-angle power cable/adapter. Or, the GPU PCIe slot lines up with the space between two of the fans, so some people have been able to get an end power connector cable nestled in between the two fans.
I don’t think so. I think you can bifurcate Slot 3 to x4x4, but between Slots 5 and 6, if they are bifurcated as x8x8 you can’t then bifurcate one of them further to x4x4. Inserting x16 PCIe card disables second slot. There would be other ways of getting four NVMe SSDs, but two of those cards, I don’t think is one of them.
I hadn’t see that x16 override aspect, and it wasn’t obvious in the manual. I’ll look for other ways to get more NVMe. It’s not a deal breaker but I’d at least like to have a good plan.
If you already resigned yourself to the GPU running at x8, you could put the GPU in Slot 3 and a 4-SSD carrier card in Slot 6. You should be able to bifurcate slot 6 as x4x4x4x4 with slot 5 empty. You can also get NVMe cards that have PCIe switches on them and don’t require bifurcation, but those tend to cost a lot more and would have potential performance bottlenecks.
