SUPERMICRO X9SRA Single Socket R (LGA 2011) E5 ATX Workstation/Server Motherboard DDR3 1600 12xUSB, 2x PCI-E 3.0 x16

Pros: Great feature set.

One of the few server LGA2011 boards out there.

Cons: After about two months, half the RAM slots failed. Does not error, but does not use RAM installed in them.

Onboard "RAID" is software based.

No onboard graphics.

Other Thoughts: Looks like RAM slot failure is common for LGA2011 server boards.

Pros: Decent when working, works well with good DIMM slots. Works well with the i7 Extreme Processor.

Cons: Several DIMM slots did not work. After I RMA'd, I received a new motherboard with the same issues. The bad DIMM slots are even in the same place, which makes me think it wasn't even tested, just rubberbanded.

I'm kind of surprised, usually Supermicro is a good place to get server grade motherboards. Not sure if I will RMA again, I'll just refund this for a Sabertooth workstation.

Pros: Well i haven't found one yet, except the SM brand.

Cons: Received board after 3 hours i opened to fire it up, connected every thing no post.

Played trial and error and elimination game, remove this and remove that all combinations, no post.

Confirmed as DOA and returned, newegg successfully processed it .

real Cons
1. You need Super micro heatsink.
2. Different mounts, you can live with but why ?

Pros: Fast boot, multiple sata inputs on board. onboard audio which i need,

Cons: 2 dimms caused non post, only accepting remaining 6 slots, no onboard video. Non-traditional heatsink mount (should be made more clear by Newegg IMO).

Other Thoughts: I bought this from Newegg as open box unit, and wondering if the Dimm slot problem I encountered was the issue why it was returned. I was careful with the board mount as I saw that as an issue with nontraditional ATX mounting holes. Still I have 8gb kingston unbuffered memory (6 sticks=48gb) which is plenty for my needs, and I'll keep the board. This is my first experience with an Intel build, and I was confused about and had to return a lga 2011 CPUs because I was unfamiliar with their nomenclature. Very confusing, but the xeon chip I bought, although expensive, is blisteringly fast, and probably more than I'll ever need in terms of processing power. This machine will run 24/7 and back up several home machines as well as distribute audio and video.

Pros: Works out of the box. The BIOS is a bit sparse.

Had an issue with it only detecting 16/48 gb of ram, but I read the other reviews and found a MB support poking the first bank of RAM. I took that out and it detected it all.

Cons: None so far

Pros: Not yet anyway!

Cons: push the power button, nothing happened. (yes, power supply is good)
spent 14.35 shipping fee to get the replacement.

Pros: USB 3.0, SATA 6G with RAID support, Dual PCI-Express 3.0 slot, Xeon support, RAM support up to 256GB, sound output, all the high end features with in an ATX form. Whats not to love?

Cons: The board does NOT have holes around the CPU slot, instead it has Supermicro heatsink mounting. Therefore many of LGA 2011 cooling solution on market are out, including the likes of Corsair H100 (not unless you want to mod your mobo).
I end up getting Supermicro SNK-P0050AP4 for CPU cooling, has been working great ever since, never saw my Xeon E5 over 40C even under full load rendering job.

Other Thoughts: My build:
Case: Antec 900 V3
RAM: Kingston KVR16R11D4K4/64 x 2
CPU: Xeon E5-2650
HDD: Samsung 830 x 2 in RAID 0, Seagate 3TB x 2
GPU: ATI W8000
PSU: Corsair AX1200 Gold

Even though their own SNK-P0050AP4 works GREAT, I wish Supermicro made their CPU slot more compatible with other aftermarket LGA 2011 cooling solution.

Even though this is ATX board, the mounting is a little different than standard ATX mobo, so observe your mounting point and adjust accordingly BEFORE you mount, and everything will be fine.

Intel RSTe (not RST) driver is required when installing Windows on RAID 0, which did not mention in the manual.

Conclusion: My previous i7 computer took hours to render a mere 15 minutes video, now it only take minutes!
If you want ultra-highend desktop in ATX size, this board is definitely one of the best choice!
I dont think I will be replacing anything for a VERY long time...80GB RAMdrive is just too good!

Pros: This board is rock solid.

Plenty of features for workstation users with USBs, SATAs 3 and 6gb, sound, PCIe 3.0 and more
The board looks, sounds, and feels sturdy. The bios certainly is not slow at all. Instead, I have to pound the keyboard with delete key or I miss the BIOS, it just go too fast.
The board recognized everything right upboot.
The board came with those jumpers at default setting for Workstation user, so really, all I had to do was to stuff it up.

I did not build a PC in last 7 years but I must say the manual is pretty well done, it helped me to get up to date with minimal headache!
The motherboard snuggles really well in a Raven RV03, no issue whatsoever with mounting holes but no mount hole for between memory bank and CPU 8 power connector. No drama, the board powers up like a charm.

I am happy new Supermicro customer, they got my vote

Cons: Expand memory test brand, the memory was not easy to find, or at least Newegg does not carry it.

Other Thoughts: I have an overkill setup but I know I will not buy anything for awhile.
Motherboard: X9SRA - Newegg
CPU: Xeon E5-1620 - Not from Newegg, they do not sell it.
Memory: 4*16 gigs MEM-DR316L-SL01-ER16 Not from Newegg, they do not sell these.
Case: Raven R03
HDD: Samsung SSD 128 and Seagate Constellation 500gb
With this I also have a Ati firepro 7900 with a samsung 23 inch 3D in tri def.

Rock on for modeling and animating like crazy and frenetically mold in mudbox or zbrush.
Overkill indeed but I was so tired of my 7 years old setup jolted twice by lightning, had lost most of USBs, the mainboard was running on safe mode only, it was so slow, hanging up if I had too many modifiers or polygons while also rattling sounds that 80mm can make when they are just too old.
I had to do something... Supermicro made it happen :P

Pros: Really easy to work with, and other than the case audio connections, ports are in very convenient spots. Installed E5-1660 and 64GB ECC on two different systems, and things are running blazingly fast under win 7 and linux

Cons: The mounting points are unusual, and my consumer case needed some modding

Other Thoughts: The issue with DIMM slots noted in other review is most likely due to bent pins or grounding because of contact with mounting offsets in case. Putting memory in the slots 4 A/B lead to a non-post with one of my two new systems. I was ready to RMA, but decided it was too much of a coincidence having exactly the same problem, so I pounded flat an unaligned mounting support in my case, and things have been working great for the past 24 hours.

Pros: - USB 3.0.
- 12 USB ports on the motherboard.
- Dedicated (separate) chipset for each Gigabit Ethernet port.
- Sound! - Not usually necessary for a server though.

Cons: - No video.
- No IPMI (remote management).
- Each Gigabit Ethernet chipset is a different model. On my ESXi install it recognized one and not the other. You can install a community supported driver though.
- Non standard ATX holes, although this seems to be common to Supermicro. Check your case throughly.

Other Thoughts: DIMM slots 4A and 4B were dead for me. RMA'd this and got the X9SRI-F instead. New board works great. The X9SRI-F has 2 USB ports in the back and a 3rd vertical USB port to put a USB stick inside the case. Also has several USB heads to add more USB ports later on.

Overall the pluses of this board is USB 3.0 and sound. Not worth it IMO when you loose video and IPMI. If you need PCI slots the X9SRE is just like the X9SRI-F, plus 3 PCI slots.

POST seems to take a little long. But this seems to be constant with Supermicro.

If you have a 3-pin Power LED connector use pins 1-4 on JD1. Seems to be a typo in the manual where it tells you to connect an external speaker to 1-4. The speaker is actually attached to 4-7.