Question 1

Are this motherboards only compatible with the Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 v3 and Haswell i3, or can it be used with more than just those two 1150 socket CPUs?

Accepted Answer

There is a complete cpu support list on the asrockrack site, if you visit the page for the C226M WS. Most cpus are Haswell, but there are 3 Broadwell xeons they also support on this board:

E3-1285 v4(G0)
E3-1285L v4(G0)
E3-1265L v4(G0)

Only those.

Question 2

I have a question regarding OS compatibility.  ASRock states that the since it is a workstation board the list of operating systems (Windows only) does not include linux distributions.  I am interested in whether anyone has any linux server distributions installed and running on a build with this motherboard?  I am particularly interested in any information on CentOS7 used with this board.

Accepted Answer

I'm using this with FreeNAS wich is FreeBSD and it works fine. Haven't really messed with Linux though. You can take the compatibility charts on the asrock site with a grain of salt. I'm using other components that aren't supposed to be compatible but work fine, such as Ram that's not listed on their charts.

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