SUPERMICRO X9SRI-3F ATX Server Motherboard LGA 2011 DDR3 1600

Pros: Low cost, 8x SATA or SAS Ports via SCU, IMPI, 8x DIMM Slots

Cons: I purchased this board for a backup server in our office environment to run 4-5 VMs on Windows Server 2012. The first board came and I installed a Xeon E5-2603 CPU and 4x Kingston KVR16R11D4/8HC for a total of 32GB RAM. RAID was flaky, but finally was able to install Windows 2012 Server Standard after 3 tries. It was entirely unstable and only ran for 2 days before becoming unresponsive after running for 30 minutes or so. Contacted SuperMicro for help and they quickly RMA'd (still waiting for refund on the "advanced" exchange program though). Installed new board, same result. Continued troubleshooting and then was told my memory isn't on the compatibility list, so it could be that. Ordered different memory based on Micron MT36JSZF1G72PZ-1G4D1 and then it worked... for 4 days until this morning when I woke up and it was dead.

Other Thoughts: Would have been a great board, had it worked OK. I suspect that with some of the other reviews on here that this thing isn't ready for prime time yet or needs and Exact configuration by SuperMicro of CPU, Memory, HDDs.

Pros: 1. IPMI
2. Price
3. ATX Form factor

Cons: This thing was entirely unstable. With Ubuntu Server 12.04.1, Debian 6.06, and Parted Magic this thing would boot, run properly for a random amount of time, then simply freeze. It would no longer respond to any input or network activity. All the ram, installation media, and boot drives were tested. The BIOS was updated, even the IPMI firmware was updated, yet the issue still persisted.

Other Thoughts: If not for these problems, this would have been an amazing board. I have other SuperMicro boards in servers and those run swimmingly. Hopefully the replacement works out much better.