SUPERMICRO MBD-X8STI-O LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Xeon Server Motherboard

Pros: Supermicro makes quality products. Good layout, good options on this board.

Cons: This is the second Supermicro product I've purchased recently that had a key missing item - something they want to nickle and dime you for. This time it's the HFC mounting bracket that goes under the mobo - sells separately for around $8 + shipping, and you can't get it through Newegg. If you use a plastic push-in mounting option HFC you won't need it, but any server grade board shouldn't be using that.

Other Thoughts: I'm still a fan of SuperMicro, in fact I own 14 of their 1U barebones servers, but this is getting ridiculous. Last time it was no SATA cables provided with a barebones server that had hotswap bays! This time HFC mounting bracket. It's not that it's just missing from my box - the manual tells you to go buy it.

Pros: Roomy board layout, easy access to everything, plenty of fan headers, good bios upgrade utilities, lots of integrated capabilities.

Cons: This board is very finicky about the memory that it will work with. I had to go through three memory types before I found one that would be stable. But that's not the end of it. The PCIe bus is very flaky, and (even after a bios flash) continues to issue NMIs to the cards that are plugged into it. The board's error logs are useless at helping debug the problems. I'm ordering a different board, and eating the loss on this one - I spent so long trying to stabilize it that I went over the time I had to return it. Lesson learned.

Other Thoughts: If you want to run this board without using the PCIe slot, then it may be a solid computer.

Pros: Good layout. High quality components. So far it's very stable.

Cons: Other reviewer pointed out that current PCIE 2.0 X16 cards do not fit. That is correct. They should, and it is a major issue with this board since we are using it in a workstation build. This difficulty was eliminated with a few seconds of careful Dremel tool work trimming the some meat from the tab on the vid card. Not for the faint of heart (and probably not good for the warranty), but it worked fine. Same comment with the PCI slot - 3.3V PCI? No idea why they would bother to add that slot at all. Primarily useless. Not enough USB headers out the back; you're forced to port the internals out of the case. Supermicro is still forcing us to manually set jumpers and decipher diagrams in order to get all of our plugs in the right place. This last bit isn't that big of a deal, but the competition has them beat in this respect.

Other Thoughts: This is a good quality board, and for a traditional server application it could be decent. However, without SAS on this version and lacking a reasonable amount of expansion slots this board really comes up short for versatility and forward compatibility.

Pros: Good solid board w/ basics covered

Cons: PCI-e x16 connector is not compatible with modern graphics cards. The x8 connector is placed such that these cards do not plug in. The little foot of the modern x16 graphics card (which is to prevent placement in the wrong slot) hits the x8 connector and does not allow these cards to plug in. Other MB x16 connectors are compatible with the graphics cards.

also note, the PCI connector is 3v variety only. so don't use 5v PCI card

Other Thoughts: Newegg should note the compatibility of PCI cards (5V, 3v, both).

Pros: I bought elsewhere because I needed the F version with remote management and the Egg didn't have one. But if you don't need that, this is the same board sans the remote management and it is quite good. Paired with a 3680 Xeon or the i7 equivalent, it makes for a very nice server or workstation.

Cons: none