The workstation server market is one that has been neglected in the mainstream technical media. Yes there are a few “upper-end” sites that cover the workstation arena but they tend be a little snobby at times and almost always talk over the heads of the average consumer. So we are going to try and bring some of that talk to you in plain English. To kick things off we have a very nice product. This is the first Dual socket 1366 motherboard in a standard ATX package. It has been brought to you by the Asus Work Station team. These guys are a very talented bunch and have made some workstation products that can even compete head to head with some of the Republic of Games boards that Asus has. So let’s introduce to you the Asus Z8NA-D6C.
The Box and Goodies - The Z8NA-D6C has a box that is very clean; well fairly clean. The outer shell has great imagery and certainly gives the impression of a fast product. Unfortunately there is a front flap and opening that up was a bit shocking.
Under the flap was some VERY large text. It seemed to be shouting out the features on the Z8NA-D6C. Granted (as you can see from the picture) there are some excellent features. Not the last of which is the support for two 1366 Xeon CPUs each with their own bank of memory. The memory support is also great. You do not have to limit yourself to ECC or Registered RAM but you can use standard DDR3 in this system.
The back of the box shows a picture of the board as well as a fairly detailed spec sheet. Once you get finished with the outer shell you can strip it off to reveal a box that looks exactly like what you just finished looking at (with the exception of the flap of course). Opening up that box yields a slim amount of accessories. But under that thin layer is something quite special.
