CWWK Q670 Gen 5 NAS 8-Bay Board Review

[@nascompares]

*SORRY* for the hazy lighting on this video! It was recorded JSUT before I headed to Taiepi for computex and my 'good kit' was all packed up and I was relying on my backup kit - which had a faulty light sensor that failed AFTER I checked everything was up and running.I plan on returning to this board for a larger video soon, and I will be double...no...TRIPLE checking the light levels on that one!!!!!! Have a great weekend all.

[@locnguyen97]

just saw this board a few days ago on another channel. this board is the final puzzle in my plan to build a Jonsbo N3 multimedia server

[@axelgenus]

Exactly my configuration. The board is going to be shipped next week and it is going to end up in my N3. I am still going to use an HBA because I have SAS drives but I will eventually replace them in time with SATA and use the x16 slot for an NMVE board.

[@BrondRando]

Exactly what I'm doing. I've got a huge case housing one of my UnRaid servers. This is going to shrink it greatly and save a lot of power.

[@zr0dfx]

Can’t wait to see the full build 😊

[@nascompares]

Full build will feature the (overdue) Silverstone CS382, Icydock Caddies and Linkreal pcie network card for ALOT more m.2 support. Stay tuned

[@fwiler]

Probably best itx board ever made. The fact that you can get vPro on it is fantastic. The only thing they could of done to make it perfect is add 10Gb. You can use a different cooler that extends higher if are worried about not fitting everything. Plus gen5 nvme for nas really isn't noticeable even if you had a 25Gb nic. Save some power, heat, and money using gen4.

[@nascompares]

It's a beast and a half, yeah

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

Есс?

[@GriffonWalker]

What does Vpro get you?

[@syskeytechnician3509]

@@BoraHorzaGobuchul no ECC. Intel gen 13/14/15 operates in ECC mode only when being combined with a W680 chipset.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

@@syskeytechnician3509 that was the answer to the implied question "what could be done better"

[@DReZiiLLa]

We need the review of this board ASAP!

[@sebagust]

Been looking at this board for a Jonsbo N3-build. But that RAM-slot looks really tight by the cpu cooler. No real need for the PCI-E slot or the gen5 port. But the BIOS looks a bit intimidating for a first build. Would you still recommend this board? As for now I'm looking at Gigabyte B760I as an alternative.

[@waynetaylor2784]

H670 is model without intel vpro and is about $20 cheaper. Also vrm doesn't support high end cpus, 13500t is recommended cpu.

[@clayroberge8402]

Great video! When you do a build with this motherboard can you take a measurement of the watts during idle and load?

[@Ancipital_]

Can't wait for the follow up. Thanks 👍🏻😊

[@zack.123.]

Thanks. But this video leaves a few things to be desired. It would be nice to see a full blown set up with this motherboard being fully populated

[@augurseer]

Love your videos

[@denvera1g1]

Imagine it was 4xgen3 drives on the back rather than 2x gen4 drives, sure it would need a 4.0 to 3.0 multiplexer but still that'd be pretty cool. I wish Optane hadnt died out, would love a gen5 optane drive to go in that 5.0 slot with 7GB/s and near RAM latencies for a special metadata drive, though for special metadata you really should have 2-3 drives.

[@kennethfeagins1414]

Many PLX will handle mismatched PCI revisions. In theory, you could plug in a bunch of Optane.

[@denvera1g1]

@@kennethfeagins1414 I nave 4 optane 905p on the hyper m.2 for my 7950x server, though that doesnt use a PLX.

[@Shaggadoo]

Will you please post a full build for this board? Thanks

[@Avico78]

I also find it missing, it could be very helpful for most of people getting here

[@SIENSNET778]

wow~Our already have restocked

[@denvera1g1]

Not a bad price, i remember picking up an asrock rack X470 mATX board with dual LAN and IPMI for around $260, boy was i ticked when the one with dual 10G went on sale for $299 and then shot back up to $500+ before i realized.

[@go0ot]

I was interested in their 4 bay nvme but Lots of reviews saying various CWWK NAS boards & routers etc stop working soon or arrive with some chip (function) not working. This workshop should focus on quality control more, need reputation to grow, not quick bucks by any means necessary. I'll stick with glinet products.

[@syskeytechnician3509]

I'd guess, if you populate then gen5 M2 slot, you will lose 8 lanes on the x16 slot. Intel does not have own gen5 PCIe lanes for SSDs like AM5, so board manufactorers need to chop them of from the GPU lanes by bifurcation. Means: placing a SSD of any gen in the gen5 M2 leaves you with a x8 PCIe only slot and that is not possible to bifurcate anymore. Every other Intel 1700 board works that way because of the CPU limitation.

[@nadtz]

Still planning out my NAS rebuild, I'd love to see one of these manufcturers put a 10gbe/SFP+ port and make the board a little bigger with 2 X8 slots instead of 1 X16 and all the M.2 on top. It's hard to cool some of the hotter running gen4 drives when it's on the bottom of the board. That said the addition of vpro is pretty huge, if you can live with the 2.5gbe this isn't bad for the money.

[@GriffonWalker]

I’m looking for something similar but full-size ATX with a few extra pci slots. Recommendations?

[@mastermoarman]

i cant seem to find any information or user manual on this bord. any one know of one? im would like a definate answer on bifurcation supprot

[@StephenJames-l9r]

171 Schmidt Lake

[@ChrisJackson-js8rd]

on the one hand they left the whole reference bios untouched and open to the buyer on the other hand, they definitely didn't do any test all those features. or indeed any of them i suspect. let alone combinations of features. its got an attractive set of ports and slots, but you would want to do some seriously stress and fault testing if you were going to use this to store critical or irreplaceable data.

[@spyda450]

Looks really similar to the Piesia NAS-H670(R100) albeit in a black motherboard color.

[@yitspaerl7255]

This asks for a Jonsbo case. Perfect match.

[@ovingefotografie2714]

Like this board! Based on you review I've purchased the H670 version and set it up with an i7-13700T, 96GB (2x48Gb) memory, 4x-mirror mode spinning disks, nmve SSDs and a Mellanox ConnectX-4 single 100Gbe. What I noticed though is that the single PCIEv5 slot shares recources with memory; when using the Mellanox NIC card (PCIEX 16x) the system will only read half of my memory and ignores the second bank. Switching to a ConnectX-3 card (PCIEX3 x8 2x10Gbe) it does work again..... I'm now trying to figure out how I can force the PCIe slot to work in PCIe 8x mode (as the 100Gbe Mellanox is a single 100Gbe one) but as you've mentoined, BIOS settings on this board are quite elaborate.... If anyone knows what settings to look at or play with I would appreciate that.

[@Galileocrafter]

can the x16 slot be bifurcated to x4/x4/x4/x4 ?

[@send2ady]

There is a jumper on the board who put the PCI in x8/x8 - looks like no x4/x4/x4/x4 - i keep digging

[@syskeytechnician3509]

No, Intel Socket 1700 cant't do x8x4x4 or x4x4x4x4 bifurcation in general. You would need a controller card with expensive PLX-like chip to do this.

[@Galileocrafter]

@@syskeytechnician3509 then this board is useless for me. Not even proper bifurcation support 🤮.

[@M4XD4B0ZZ]

Super interesting Board 😮

[@CptBlackEye]

Can you make any motherboard recommendations for SAS drives, or a decent motherboard with space for a SAS controller card? Love your videos!

[@RogerDeSalis]

Wanting to build a 10Gbe NAS with 2 x 2Tb NVME and 4 x 10Tb Rotating Rust. I am trying to figure out how to make the 4TB NVME as a cache fronting the older HDDs. And in the interests of low noise and low power, the 40Tb HDDs should spin down unless absolutely need for a transfer. Does such a thing exist? Thank you for reading this far.

[@GriffonWalker]

I’d love to see a picture of how the headers hooked up. I’m trying to get one of these to work nice green light on the MB, but the switch won’t work for me to power up. :(

[@Damcho81]

Can the x16 slot do dual x8 bifurcation? Also the link on Ali for this motherboard doesn't work for me and can't find it anywhere searching for it manual on Ali.

[@PeterBrockie]

You can set it to x8x8 using a jumper next to the clear CMOS jumper. I think it was labeled "2x8". I really wish x4x4x4x4 was an option on consumer chipsets, but x8x8 isn't terrible.

​@@PeterBrockieAMD boards usually can do it. Some older intel boards can do 8x+4x+4x at least.

[@syskeytechnician3509]

Unfortunately, 11th gen was the last able to do x8x4x4, since gen12 limited to x8x8. And: x4x4x4x4 they were never able to do.

[@ElGoldito08]

This looks Great to build my N3 NAS, just a quick question, since you know the N3 and this board, what is the best/biggest CPU Cooler to get to avoid interfering with RAM or PCIe Slot? I'm thinking on going with i5 12500, unless you can provide a better recommendation. Thanks in advance for your advice and of course, looking forward to see the Build :-) Cheers

[@fuxilacgaming1431]

Hi, Just so you know, constructor does not recommend using a huge CPU on this motherboard, cause of it’s vrm cooler that is not efficient. (Limitation is between 65W-125W of TDP from what i’ve seen, so it is even recommended to use an Intel T, wich are the same CPU as all others from intel, but limited at 30W of TDP (Here the 13500T is recommended))

[@3dexperiments]

What a great board for NAS/Homelab build.

[@nascompares]

It's hench as F, yeah

[@MichaelBushey]

No, it doesn't support ECC

[@3dexperiments]

@@MichaelBushey For my needs, ECC isn't necessary.

[@edwardhsieh4644]

Very curious what idle power can be achieved. Can this even get to low c states? The bios spaghetti does not inspire confidence...

[@zxrenew5642]

Quite fancy one of these.

[@christians1266]

I'm also interested in this tiny beast, but I've got two major questions. What Sata Controller does this board use? JMB or AsMedia? Want to use it with unraid and the JMB often causes problems with power efficient builds. Second: how good are the VRM, the data sheet said max 65 Watt TDP, is it usable with an 14600 or higher, or are we stuck with the "T-Series"?

[@pixelsafoison]

45w ? Hmm ... Was it on idle ? If not then that board isn't suitable for the EU

[@lennartweinzierl2061]

From his written Review: "Straight out the gate, just using three M.2 NVMes on the system (full benchmarking, Gen 4 and Gen 5) the system hit around 45W utilization." I am also looking for the "doing nothing" Idle Power.

[@danieltwodevs]

please wipe your camera lense or open a window - else... thanks for the great video! :)

[@sc0or]

Excuse me, 3 what (hundred)? May I purchase a normal motherboard with 4 sata for $50, a normal cpu for $50, a pcie to sata for $20 into one slot, a pcie to nvme for $20 into another one, and be happy. Because 6-8 3.5" drives require so big case, and psu, that literally any motherboard will fit.

[@timshaw8072]

Thank you for the video - Newbie question - For a newbie, installing Truenas Scale on a board like this with the 3 M2.nvme slots - what would you do for the boot drive/s ? I have read it is recommended to have a mirrored config, but then I also read the boot drives can only have the os on them ..

[@mnadamn]

You can use one of the 8 sata ports with a 2.5"ssd

[@user-kg6uj6ji5p]

I added this board to my wishlist, i'll watch other video to see if it's good or nah

[@nascompares]

That vid will be in about 3 weeks (Computex has delayed EVERYTHING on my schedule, sorry man)

[@yoelai]

I got this board, plus an i5 12500T from AliExpress. The board did not want to boot, it beeps when I power it on. CWWK support said that either memory is incompatible or CPU is not seated correctly. Board keeps beeping even without the memory installed. I am returning both the board and the CPU, even though it is more likely the board is bad. Anyone else had an issue like this?

[@Die_Quelle]

I just ordered the Board. Can you recommend some CPU coolers that won't block the udimm slot? I planning to use a jonsbo n4 - since the n3 will take a month or so. Maybe i will get the n3 anyway but if the n4 is the only option i have to fit a top blower cpu cooler. Any recommendations? And did you try the intel stock cooler? Thanks for testing and thanks for your review post!

[@VladManolache_]

Noctua L9i / L9x65 are both small enough.

[@PlayingItWrong]

I always aim for matx, but this genuinely would allow some shrinkage without making sacrifices, assuming everything fits.

[@nascompares]

Exactly. When I say it on just specs tables, I just ASSUMED it was MATX... when I spotted ITX, I did a double take and smashed the buy button so hard, the screen almost cracked...

[@Samppa1987]

Will a intel pentium 12/13/14th gen work on it as well? 🤔

[@lyianx]

I'm reeeeally looking for something like this, but for AM4, so i can put my 3950x to use :(

[@GriffonWalker]

So what’s the difference between the NAS Board-Q670+vPro and the NAS Board-Q670? About 30 bucks difference but I can’t find a difference at least on the Amazon listing.

[@nadtz]

One comes with vPro the other doesn't.

[@axelgenus]

Can you explain how the whole “low power CPU (T series) suggested” thing works? Shall my i3-14100 cause the VRM to fry?

[@lowellalleman]

Looking through Intel's specs, the T series run a bit slower (lower frequency) and the base/turbo power goes from 65/154W down to 35/92W (i13500 vs 13500T.). I'd also like to better understand how this works and what the restrictions are. I looked, but wasn't unable to find any of the T series available for sale. I read a comment suggesting that a similar effect could be triggered by lowering some voltages.... Effectively underclocking the CPU. Which sounded interesting, but I haven't attempted to research yet. Maybe there are other thermal throttling limits that can be set to get a similar effect, shift more work to the E cores, or something like that...

[@axelgenus]

@@lowellalleman I was actually planning to just disable CPU boost. When I’ll get the board (shipped on June 22), Im going to look at the VRM to understand how much juice they can provide.

[@augurseer]

Sweet

[@GFDthatsMe]

Have a 13700k. Have 8x16 tb hdds. Was thinking about this board or the meg z690i. Which is better in your opinion?

[@fuxilacgaming1431]

Hi, Just so you know, constructor does not recommend using a huge CPU on this motherboard, cause of it’s vrm cooler that is not efficient. (Limitation is between 65W-125W of TDP from what i’ve seen, so it is even recommended to use an Intel T, wich are the same CPU as all others from intel, but limited at 30W of TDP (Here the 13500T is recommended))

[@khaled-Elmasry]

has support for Windows server 2022 standard?

[@djordje1999]

Why trusted brands don't make some of these boards.. I want this but from ASUS..

[@user-kg6uj6ji5p]

Then, ask Asus to replicate this board lol

[@tttomtxhc]

People know by now that ASUS should not be a trusted brand

[@nascompares]

Sure they are! *Pays $500 to get my non faulty $300 laptop back* .... Why wouldn't I trust them? *Kicks computer into the F-ing moon*

[@robertlee6338]

CWWK is contract manufactur and makes about ten million motherboards a year for other brands. CWWK only sells few hundred thousand as CWWK

[@robertlee6338]

Technically CWWK makes more motherboards a year than MSI sells in a year

[@gelerth123]

Hi I have a spare i8700k on a m-atx mother board. I wanna do a proxmox machine out of it, any recommendations for a matx case?

[@wojtek-33]

All depends if you are going to use a bunch of hard drives or just a couple SSDs.

[@kristof9497]

nice MB.

[@tttomtxhc]

ECC support? Curious to see the list of supported CPUs

[@nascompares]

Unlikely, most LGA1700 processors aren't, sadly

[@anastasy2]

Q670 chipset doesn't support ECC. But 13500+ or 14500+ cpu does support ecc with proper chipset (W680)

[@trippvanmunch]

Non-ECC ram is a deal killer for me. Otherwise a near perfect mini-ITX motherboard.

[@AtanasPaunoff]

The effort is nice but the result... If this could had at least 1 more PCI-E slot even x8 would be so nice. Also memory slots would be nice to be more than these 2 :) So for example if NAS could support at least 256 GB memory, 100Gbe NIC and 12G sas adapter all at once then it's the working choice, otherwise no thanks :)

[@wojtek-33]

It's itx...

[@AtanasPaunoff]

@@wojtek-33 That's one of my meanings, it shouldn't be ITX obviously since it's a huge drawback :)

[@MrAlBester]

When there's a AM5 or AM4 equivalent wake me up 🥱🥱🥱

[@RedcubeX24]

Why would you prefer AM4/5?

[@MrAlBester]

@@RedcubeX24 mostly cause i got extra Ryzen 5000, 3000 CPUs (from upgrading friends and clients rigs ) and will be going AM5 come Ryzen 9000

[@syskeytechnician3509]

@@RedcubeX24 Because AM4+5 can do ECC-Ram and also x8x4x4 and x4x4x4x4 Bifurcation. Intel 1700 cant to any other bifurcation then x8x8 and ECC only with W680 chipset.

[@RedcubeX24]

@@syskeytechnician3509 mhm true. But the intel chips have way lower idle consumption, so especially in countries with high Energy costs that is a huge factor (roughly 0.46€ / kWh where I live)

[@nadtz]

@@RedcubeX24 A lot of people would take higher power consumption to have ECC, especially for a NAS but with energy prices like that I can totally understand wanting lower power use..

[@SfehGshjdn-z4u]

Moore Larry Miller Susan Perez Matthew

[@HanifaMoni-z3c]

Jones Anthony Hernandez Michael Martinez Susan

[@felipe8514-m7y]

200$ is pretty premium price for a Chinese Motherboard

[@frankwong9486]

Supermicro/asrock rack version will like 800/600 dollars 😂

[@Arneby]

When will we get a 'smallish' system with at least 4 NVMe Gen 5 x4 slots and ECC support?

[@BandanazX]

CWWK missed the mark. Maybe if it had a built in mobile CPU at that price it would satisfy some needs... but for $200 you might as well get a bigger motherboard and not kneecap yourself with expansion especially for 100G networking and a 16 drive HBA. ITX is great and all but if you are putting 8 drives into a case, you probably have room for a full sized motherboard.

[@nascompares]

I mean, given their history of the pre attached SoC boards of late, I see your point. But also, this card can only really hit it's top end use with a particularly high end CPU. They would need to only bundle some 13th gen processors to really make it work...else they would roll out lesser coy choices and immediately be selling a NAS mobo that has it's wings clipped. The other issue...sticking a 13th Gen Intel in this or the like would massively inflate the price...making some users think "I'll just got MATX then".. it'd be catch 22

[@BandanazX]

@@nascompares I disagree. An i3 is more than enough for a NAS. If they had an 8 core mobile CPU soldered on, that would be great for efficiency. But as it is, it's kneecapped with only 2 RAM slots, and 1 PCIe x16 slot... so its not really a good 'server' or workstation. The 8 SATA ports is it's only parlor trick and that basically relegates it to a low end NAS. Like I said, CWWK missed the mark and gave us a bunch of things that only amount to a half baked use case.

[@PalindromicAnt]

@@BandanazX I am actually on the fence between this motherboard and something along the lines of Gigabyte B660M-D2H with Core i3-13100 that will fit my needs (Unraid NAS, Dockers, maybe VMs). My main problem is that this board is Chinese - I factor in no-support, an unknown product lifetime and the price difference.

[@anastasy2]

Jonsbo N3 case anyone? Btw exotic mb with laptop cpu usually have terrible aspm management, so it will just consume more power than this motherboard with a desktop cpu.

[@BandanazX]

@@PalindromicAnt Building a NAS from new parts mostly doesn't make sense. Get a used Haswell or newer system for dirt cheap.. like $50ish and save the rest for drives, RAM, and HBA... maybe a case. Also I'd suggest TrueNAS scale instead of unraid but you do you.

[@WilliamCarter-cb7ee]

Word for thoughts to 0hraseth3 math into language common up

[@honestgoat]

To me THE number one limiter in "NAS" boards these days is networking. This board should ABSOLUTELY have a 10gb NIC built in and a 1gb Management port. 2.5gb is outdated AF for "do it yourself" NAS's. Especially when the board has so much high speed storage capability and so much bandwidth available from the CPU. The PCIe slot should NOT be 16x. It should be 8x. PCIe 5.0x8 is more than enough bandwidth for literally anything you want to put in that slot. Including even the latest most powerful video cards. And the PCIe 5.0 M.2 is also a pointless waste on a board made for NAS's. Should have just been another Gen4x4 or even 2 more Gen 4x4's for the same bandwidth. The extra bandwidth should have been dedicated to 10gb networking and perhaps even some U.2 or Mini SAS or even both. The slot NEEDS to be left available for Storage, HBA's or a GPU for compute or encoding/decoding. But with only 2.5gb, you would have to waste the PCIe5.0 slot on simple bloody networking. I keep seeing these boards come out and only ever be NEARLY the perfect home server board. And this is once again the case. How do manufacturers consistently continue to fail in this arena. This board could have been excellent if only it had friggin 10gb onboard. What a shame, what a waste. This board is a big "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" from me. Such a shame.

[@MichaelBushey]

I find 2.5GB networking to be overkill (but nice) for a spinning rust NAS. I don't come remotely close to maxing out the 1GB NIC on my 45 bay file server. If you have a NAS with a dozen NVME SSD's then sure, you want 10GB.

[@honestgoat]

​@@MichaelBushey If you cant saturate a 1Gb NIC with 45 HDD's brother, you've done something very, very, VERY wrong. I don't even know how that's possible, no matter what configuration you have the drives in. A single SATA3 HDD will provide a sequential transfer speed of about 100-125MBs. That's a 1Gb NIC right there. With 45 drives, you should be able to saturate a 40Gb network connection. Even a 4 bay consumer NAS with 4 HDD's in RAID5 can get you about 400-500MBs (read) on a large file transfer. So even a 2.5Gb NIC will not utilise the full speed of the array when transferring a large file. Hence my comment that 2.5Gb NIC's are "outdated AF" in NAS applications. 12xNVMe drives with lets say ~3000MB's R/W (average PCIE3.0 NVMe drive) will give you ~36000MB's. You could literally saturate a 400Gb connection with that. A 10Gb NIC is nowhere near utilising the performance of that array. A single NVMe PCIe3.0 drive will saturate a 10Gb NIC. Even a cheap shitty one. In my NAS server, I have 12x16TB HDD's and 8x4TB SATA3 2.5" SSD's. The 12 HDD's alone more than max out my 10Gb connection. And the SSD array is not even getting close to being fully utilised by the 10Gb NIC on large transfers. I'm actually about to upgrade my network to 40Gb. Well at least between the NAS and the servers as well as my main PC. 1Gb is completely deprecated and totally redundant in ANY NAS scenario. They shouldn't be used for anything other than management. And 2.5Gb is now outdated. As I showed earlier, even 4 spinning rust drives in a consumer NAS can max out a 2.5Gb NIC. Even 2x2.5Gb NIC's aggregated are only just gonna get you there. I know these are ideal speeds during sequential transfers and you wont always be transferring that fast. But the vast majority of NAS's are used for mass storage and backups. So considering most backup applications these days are going to compress the files for back up and transfer one large archive, sequential transfers are super common. Solid state arrays can be used more efficiently with R/W operations, but a NAS with HDD's in it is still going to need a high speed network connection. And none of this is even getting into NVMe caching or filesystems like ZFS where RAM is used as cache. And yes, I'm still talking home use. So yeah, I maintain that 10Gb NIC's should standard on ANY motherboard which has been designed for NAS use. And 10GbE is backwards compatible with 5Gb/2.5Gb/1Gb/100Mb. So there is no downside other than price. But if they were made the standard, they would be manufactured in drastically larger batches, thereby reducing the additional cost. Possibly even negating it. And all modern CPU's, even embedded ones have enough bandwidth to accommodate 10Gb networking.

[@WilliamCarter-cb7ee]

AC to SC from DC to ERf split the audio into 2hub avi channels btle the audio and jack the video using red-ultra and direct the load to local motor batt and feed generator overtick to bay field battery and garage outhaust and waste or straight down the drain pipe if ceramic with as it is service box treatment wifi over the electric over btle and red light multi accutrainable semi conduct directional ocusig and direct load energy as packets of dloadable energy. Watss son

[@BerNieSLU]

Great video as usual, thanks for the test bench idea, kzbin.info/www/bejne/fKGQfaB_aLxpf6c

[@robertlee6338]

Pointless unless you have 25gbe minimum

[@sekritskworl-sekrit_studios]

What do you mean by Gen 5?! Gen 5 Intel?! Gen 5 DDR?! WHAT?!

[@bamx23]

Thanks for a review! Really interested to see how this all work together in that video in the future! I am actually waiting this board to be shipped now :)

[@nascompares]

Nice! Also, cheers for the positive vibes man

[@ChristieMerlin]

405 Felipe Bridge

[@mikem4008]

I just got this board and cannot get any of the m2 slots to work. And cwwk isn’t responding after over a week