Question 1

-Does this motherboard support registered memory?

Accepted Answer

No, this motherboard only supports unbuffered (i.e. "unregistered") memory.  I put 32GB of unbuffered ECC memory in mine and it works like a charm, though.

As a side-note, my only disappointment with this board was my oversight of its C224 chipset, which doesn't appear to be compatible with the Intel Xeon integrated graphics.  Not a big deal, because the motherboard has its own on-board ASPEED graphics (with shoddy drivers), but I had a hell of a time installing some recent development software -- the installation windows were all "wonky", and the only thing I could blame was the motherboard's ASPEED graphics.

If I were to do it over again, I'd make sure to get an Asus motherboard that supported the C226 chipset in order to take advantage of the Haswell Xeon's onboard GPU.

I know that wasn't your original question, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyways... but it's definitely a board for unregistered ECC memory only.

Question 2

How many SATA 3.0Gb/s and SATA 6.0Gb/s ports are on the motherboard?  The specs on newegg and asus say there's only 6 ports total but the picture looks like there's 16 total.

Accepted Answer

There are 6 'on-board' SATA ports and 8 Pike activated ports. 14 for the board. YOU NEED A PIKE CARD TO USE THESE 8 PIKE PORTS ALONG THE BOTTOM OF THE BOARD. Sorry for caps, but it's a really important to know.

By 'on-board' I mean they are supplied by the motherboard chipset. 2 of the 'on-board' SATA ports are 3 gbps (the black colored ports), the other 4 are 6 gbps. The Pike slot ports are SATA/SAS at 6 gbps. The Pike ports work fine with SATA drives (I use them with WD reds), but they do support SAS drives unlike the 'on-board' ports. If you aren't planning on using hardware RAID, the PIKE 2008 card works great and can expose the drives properly as JBOD (just a bunch of disks) for Software RAID.

Question 3

Does the Onboard Video require the CPU to also have integrated video?

I want to pair this motherboard with an Intel Xeon E3-1275V3 , but the Asus states the this CPU does not provide video for this motherboard? Do I have to go with an Intel Xeon E3-1280V3?

Accepted Answer

This board will work with the 1275, but since it has no video outputs you won't be able to make use of the integrated video part and it would be disabled.

I went with a e3-1270v3 for this board and an add-on video card.

Question 4

Does this motherboard have an onboard TPM?

Accepted Answer

The P9D-C/4L has a header for a TPM, but does not include the TPM.  (The same is true for the P9D-E/4L.

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