Intel S3420GPRX ATX Server Motherboard LGA 1156 Intel 3420 DDR3 1333/1066

Pros: Great motherboard, very fast, 5 Gigabit Ethernet ports!

Cons: This motherboard is designed for a specific 1U or 2U Intel case. There is no IO plate and the unit has only 1 PCI-e slot (for a riser card, but will work with a single device).

Other Thoughts: Board will mount in any standard rack mount 1U/2U with a PCI-e riser card as long as you are fine with no IO cover. Lots of net ports, great for setting up teamed nics. Also has 6 SATA ports with built in RAID 0/1/5/10.

Pros: none

Cons: The board does not ship with an I/O plate. Intel will not send you one. They won't even sell you one. I had to pay $20 to get one from another online store. Secondly, Intel's site won't tell you what memory has been confirmed to work or in what configuration. As it turns out (several thousand dollars later) you can't run 6 unbuffered DIMMS on this board. It would have been nice to know that beforehand but their site won't tell you.

Other Thoughts: Intel's support is the worst I have ever experienced and I say this as a 15 year veteran sysadmin.