I was recently looking for a low-power small form factor box and was initially thinking of the supermicro SuperServer 5017A-EF, which seemed a good fit. Unfortunately, the fairly new atom SoC in that box isn't currently supported, nor is the crappy "not-quite-AHCI" Marvell sata controller. So, I'm thinking of putting something together from parts instead.
I'm looking at the supermicro X9SCL-F motherboard which has an Intel C202 PCH chipset and 2 gigabit interfaces (Intel 82579LM and 82574L), combined with a Core i3-3220T, stuffed in a 510T-203B chassis. I see from the em man page and the list archives that those two Intel ethernet chipsets seem reasonably well supported. I couldn't find any specific mention of the C202 chipset, but I believe the Intel AHCI SATA interface is actually AHCI compliant, so trust it would work fine with the standard ahci driver. The i3 processor has a 35w TDP versus the atom's 8.5w, but actually working with openbsd is a bit more important than saving a few watts :). According to the Intel ARK this i3 processor should support ECC memory when installed on a board with a server class chipset. I really appreciated the heads up I got last week about the unsupported atom, that definitely saved me from ordering a box I couldn't use 8-/, so if anybody sees any potential issues with this combination for an openBSD server I'd appreciate hearing about it :). Thanks much.
