Review on ASUS WS C246M PRO: Advanced LGA1151 ECC DDR4 M.2 C246 Server Workstation Micro ATX Motherboard for 8th Gen Intel Core CPUs by Brandon Wynen

I bought this board to use as a GPU - Compute node to use a Linux HPC cluster and possibly a head node. This may adequately meet my needs. My main concerns with the board relate to the design/quality of the hardware. Pros: BIOS. The options were amazing. It has many features that make it easy to use as a server or compute node, especially ipmi and bmc. Whatever you want, this board probably has it. Except for one feature that I absolutely want to have (more on that later). Cons: HW QUALITY. The [literally] first day I used the board, I plugged in a USB keyboard and mouse. The USB receiver has been in the slot since day one (see image). Luckily it wasn't a USB stick or anything else that got stuck. HW DESIGN. I prefer m.2 SSD. Installing m.2 on this board is incredibly difficult due to the odd design choice. The m.2 slot is located in the back corner of the board and uses the smallest screw I've ever seen in my life - even smaller than the average m.2 screw. Not only does this mean that the drive is incredibly difficult to screw in, but the odd placement means the tiny screw will fall into the corner *below* the m.2 bar if you don't screw it in correctly the first time (see ). Unless you have tiny baby hands, you *make* a mistake the first time. And the 2nd BIOS. While there are admittedly many BIOS configurations, there is one missing configuration that pretty much defeats my entire purpose for this board: disabling GPU output. When using an external GPU, the board will output from the GPU by default unless/until you disable output in the operating system. This is normal for a Windows gaming system. The problem is that I'm using higher level cards (emphasis on plural) on Linux and I'm also using the integrated GPU on the CPU. This means I need to enable all GPUs but don't need external GPU output. I can't set it in the bios. For example, if I'm using a no-output GPU (like Tesla or Quadro without an adapter), I can't see the screen, so I can't install the drivers. Annoyances (non-violating terms): Load order options appear strange. It loads by category, not by device. For example, you cannot boot in the order USB (disk category), then PXE (network boot category) as the second option, then SSD (disk category), and third boot option. usb and/or ssd (HDD category) should be ok, then pxe; or pxe then usb/ssd. Not critical, but strange. BOOT SPEED: This board boots significantly slower than most boards I've seen. And by "boot" I just mean accessing the BIOS screen. It doesn't matter to me since I'm using this on an always-on server. Overall, I would only recommend this board for casual or average users/admins. I'm giving it 3 stars because I don't expect most people to do the crazy HPC stuff I do. I ended up switching the board to Gigabyte and using the Asus board as my daily Windows machine. that is not true. The options are in the bios but they are not configurable. These features apply to the Asus Pro-Se version. Disabling the GPU is possible with a BIOS update, but is not a trivial operation. Still, my 3 stars stay - mainly because of the M.2 screw and its position, and also because my USB receiver gets stuck. One benefit of this board is the integrated power button, which is handy for me as I don't always use computer cases and find the jumper method annoying. Another advantage of this board is that it has VGA, HDMI and DP outputs (Gigabyte mATX board has no HDMI but has 2 M.2 and GPU slots). I will most likely use this board as either a regular desktop PC or as a NAS as it has 8 SATA ports.