Since Intel has made sure that the Xeon E3-1200 v5 CPU is not supported by standard desktop chipsets, by allowing only to work on select chipsets, it appears that motherboard makers, like ASUS and Gigabyte, decided to launch desktop motherboards based on C232 chipset.

While the Intel Xeon E3-1230 v2, based on Ivy Bridge architecture, and Intel Xeon E3-1230 v3, based on Haswell architecture, were one of the best selling CPUs and supported standard desktop chipsets, Intel has decided to kill such support for Xeon E3-1200 v5 series, based on Skylake architecture. This made it impossible for motherboard manufacturers to support such CPU on a standard desktop motherboard and leaving them with only one choice, to make a classic desktop motherboard based on a chipset that supports such CPUs.

According to a report from Computerbase.de, ASUS revealed its C232 Pro Gaming V5 motherboard based on Intel's C232 chipset, which uses ASUS typical ROG black/red color scheme, has a hefty VRM and features Supreme FX audio part. The rest of the features include two PCI-Express x16 3.0, two PCI-Express x1 and two standard PCI slots, six SATA 6Gbps ports and an M.2 slot, Gigabit Ethernet and plenty of USB ports, one of them being the USB 3.1 Type-C port. The back I/O part might look a bit strange since it lacks any video outputs, due to the fact that Xeon CPUs do not have an active iGPU.

Gigabyte did a similar thing with its GA-X150-PLUS WS and the GA-X150M-PLUS WS. Available in standard ATX and micro-ATX form factors, the larger will have slightly less "gaming" oriented features but feature a SATA-Express port. The GA-X150M-PLUS WS on the other hand is a more budget oriented motherboard and has no M.2 port and only two RAM slots.

Those that are keen on running an Intel Xeon E3-1200 v5 Skylake CPU but need a classic desktop motherboard, now have a chance to do so with a couple of classic desktop motherboard and we are sure we will see more of these from various motherboard manufacturers.









Source: Computerbase.de.