Does i5-12600k support Intel's 800 series NICs (e.g. E810-XXVDA4) via 16xPCIe 4?

[MitkoA]

Hi.

I am building a small networking server and want to combine the following components:

• CPU: 12600K (using the integrated graphics)
• NIC: The E810-XXVDA4 from Intel, which uses 16xPCIe4 lanes.
• SSD: Some 4xPCIe gen 5 unit.

I stumbled upon a review of the 12600K on tomshardware.com that suggests that Alder Lake might have an issue with providing 16 PCIe lanes to networking devices:

Alder Lake chips expose up to 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0 (technically for storage and graphics only, no networking devices)...

Could someone please elaborate on the networking device support? Are the 12600K's PCIe lanes somehow restricted when it comes to supporting networking devices? If so, could you please point to an official source of this info? (I couldn't find any mention on this on Intel's website).

Any pointers to more details are much appreciated, thanks.

[JosueO_Intel]

Hello MitkoA,

Thank you for posting on the Intel communities.  

I will proceed to check the issue internally and post back soon with more details. 

Regards,

Josue O.  

Intel Customer Support Technician

[JosueO_Intel]

Hello MitkoA,

I would like to let you know that there is no limitation on the CPU side to the type of add-in cards that can be used with PCIe 5.0 connections to the processor. 

You can check this information on the datasheet of the processor on pages 98 to 101

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134589/intel-core-i512600k-processor-20m-cache-up-to-4-90-ghz.html

Regards,

Josue O.  

Intel Customer Support Technician

[MitkoA]

Thank you very much, Josue. Much appreciated.

Cheers,
Mitko

[JosueO_Intel]

Hello MitkoA,

You are very welcome, I am glad to hear that the information was useful.

If you need any additional information, please submit a new question as this thread will no longer be monitored. 

Regards,

Josue O.  

Intel Customer Support Technician

[MitkoA]

A small update:

I got the NIC in question together with an i5-12400, but I do seem to be hitting some compatibility issue with them. I submitted a new question with more details.

[MitkoA]

Posting here in case anyone reads this thread. I tried the E810-XXVDA4 on two different motherboards: Gigabyte Z690I A Ultra (DDR5) and ASUS B660-I Gaming WiFi (DDR5). Neither could boot with the Intel NIC. Intel and ASUS support said that they can't provide any support because this is not a combination of products that they have verified.

I returned the NIC and bought a Broadcom BCM957504-P425G, which also has 4 x SFP28 ports. That one works just fine with both MBs.