Pros: If you're reading this review, you're you probably have this motherboard along with several other dual socket 2011-V3 motherboards tabbed open right now. Let me save you some time: this is the one you want to buy. Don't get the ASUS or Gigabyte dual sockets. Those companies both offer exactly one of those motherboards, the ASUS takes ages to post (simply because the BIOS bantha poodoo) and the Gigabyte is stability issues, and it makes sense: those companies do not make enterprise/workstation class motherboards, so avoid their single attempts at doing so. Supermicro *only* makes enterprise/workstation/server motherboards, and they've been doing this for many years. Sure, their motherboards aren't as pretty, but the quality is top notch. You have to hold these boards in your hands to understand just how high quality they are. Down to the silkscreen and extra thick solder mask, they're beautiful in a much more tangible way - not just fluff and pomp like 'gamer' motherboard stylings. This board in particular is probably not what you want if you're building a server, but is wonderful for workstations. I am running dual E5-2690v4s with 64GB of Registered DDR4 2133 (Kingston Value Ram...it's on newegg. $193 for 32GB, make sure you get registered ECC, unregistered will not work). So, a quick breakdown: 1. Has phat audio, including S/PDIF optical audio out. 2. Does not have integrated video, which often causes problems with certain OSes when there is also discreet graphics. 3. 16 Memory slots for all teh rams, and they are spaced a nice distance from the CPU slots so most CPU coolers will not stand in the way. I added 4 more sticks to my machine later, and the slots were easily accessible without removing any part of the CPU coolers. 4. Dat USB. 4 USB 3.0 and 2 USB 3.0 ports are on the back, plus it has an additional dual USB 3.0 header for front plates, along with dual USB 2.0 broken out to a header as well. It also has an actual USB port directly on the mother board, but internal, so you can stash a thumb drive or whatever plugged in there as an emergency boot loader etc. You will want not for USB. None of the ports are hubbed, they all have dedicated controllers. 5. Dat Ethernet. Dual Intel 210 GbE will let you get you webbed up to the intertubes. Great if you want hardware separation between the external Internet and a LAN-only internal network. 6. Lots of little expansion options. Thunderbolt like a bad mf, TPM module, all that. 7. Just a butload of storage IO. Has two entire SATA controllers, both with hardware 0,1,and 5 RAID. A few of the SATA ports might be blocked by a sufficiently long PCIE card in slot 0, but the PCIE slot is extra tall so you if you use right angle SATA cables on the ports, then there is no problem and all ports can be used. 8. This thing has more 4 pin PWM fan connectors than Canada has meeses. Mooses? Moose. It straight up has _8_ PWM fan connectors, and an additional 8 tach fan connectors, for 16 fans total. It also has internal temperature sensing, overheat indicator, chassis intrusion detection. 9. BIOS is great. Tons of options. You can literally configure everything. Comes with the latest (v2.0) BIOS. 10. Everything is hot pluggable. And I mean everything. You can hotplug ___PCI Express cards___. As in remove and install them while the system is booted and running. Hard drives are similarly hot pluggable. Make sure your OS supports this before attempting, otherwise Bad Things may happen.

Cons: Some of these reviewers don't seem to understand that when you buy something, you generally receive what you buy. So when they buy a motherboard without SLI, and they get a motherboard without SLI, this is so unexpected to them that they come to leave a bad review. The secret is you have to order a motherboard that says it supports SLI to get a motherboard to that supports SLI. This concept is apparently far too cognitively difficult for some reviewers that they actually blame their own mistake on Supermicro and leave a bad review. Anyway, just to be clear: 1. This motherboard does not have SLI. Nor does it say it does, and there is no reason to assume it does. So if you need SLI, there is a slightly more expensive version of this board that does support SLI. 2. No SAS, but you can get versions that do. But I mean, for the price, that is not really a con, just something to be aware of.

Pros: Supports ECC LRDIMM and the less expensive RDIMM memory modules. This is perfect for professional applications, running multiple virtual machines, and leveraging all of the power the Intel E5-2600 v3 series brings to the table. CPU Support – Supports Intel E5-2600 v3 processors with (up to 18 cores) large core counts. Truly spectacular power efficiency and thermal characteristics. (Installed x2 Intel E5-2637 v3 3.5GHz) Software – Excellent for resource intensive professional applications (Adobe, AutoDesk), software developers, and large custom CPU-GPU applications. User Quick Install Sheet – This is new since my last Supermicro motherboard install and was helpful.

Cons: Possible Slot Clearance Issue - The PCIe x16 slot in front of the SATA connectors will conflict with long cards. I plan to move my video card (Titan X) into this slot once I implement water-cooling and will need to deal with this issue. No Hardcopy User Manual – Yes including up-to-date printed manuals may cause logistics issues, but not having it added extra hassle to installing this motherboard. I had to read the manual online with my laptop (amid my computer parts sprawl) and finally got fed up and printed the manual. What the heck Supermicro?

Overall Review: I purchased this board for a general professional workstation upgrade; I am upgrading from the Supermicro C7X58. The X10DAi is a wonderful and stable board. I selected this board mainly for CPU-GPU application development, large memory and core counts, and use with common professional applications. Yes, I dabble with games (it’s fine for that), but this board is by definition for workstations and hardcore gamers might want to look elsewhere. It will take me a few years to fully build-out my implementation because of the memory costs. If you plan select this board, do realize it is a long-term investment. I would strongly recommend buying “starter” memory until LRDIMM prices stabilize. I installed 32GB of RDIMM (Crucial 4GB modules, CT2K4G4RFS8213) which will hold me over until LRDIMM fall further…which they are doing thank goodness. I will max out at 512GB (32GB modules).

Pros: Dual CPUs. Fast. with both CPUs all 16-lanes are 16-lane 3.0 PCI-E Slots. ECC RAM for workstation. On-board sound (workstation), on-board dual NICS (Redundancy plus teaming), tons of USB 3. TRIM support for SSD on onboard intel RAID (IRST). Lots of RAM support. Thunderbolt support. Solid feel (heavy board, won't doesn't feel cheap). Solid. Good Tech Support (Fast through email)

Cons: Needs info clarification (which i checked with SuperMicro: *REQUIRES* Registered RAM. ECC RDIMM or LRDIMM *PERIOD*. No SLI Support/CrossFireX. Requires PAIR'd CPUs. Requires both CPUs for all PCI-E Slots to be available. Also, the bios for people not knowing a lot about what workstations/servers use in features will get lost. A lot of items people may not know how to setup. Requires expensive RAM, but then again, that can be a good thing (Stable RAM), THIS IS EE-ATX!!! A supermicro standard. Will not fit in most EATX cases. do a search, it's not a standard EATX. I had to modify a case severely that supports EATX standards. Board is physically bigger and the stand-offs are different. Ask Super Micro. They need to update this is not the standard for EATX. it's E-EATX! Plan on modding your case if it doesn't fit! or find another case!

Overall Review: I have dual Xeon v3 2630 CPUs running with 32GB Crucial ECC RDIMM on this. I bought an NZXT Case only to have to mod it when I found while searching online that this board is an EEATX. a SuperMicro only standard. Newegg, please let people know this is EEATX. I bought an EATX Case only to find it didn't fit. Didn't stop me, I modded the case (Cheaper than SuperMicro's) but people should know this. I built mine to be an Adobe Premiere Rig. I have the knowledge to build a system like this (and am posting the review from said rig) but people should know this. Also, SuperMicro via email did confirm, you need not just ECC, You need REGISTERED ECC. Big difference. I used the Crucial Server Memory kit (which doesn't say it's Registered but I found it it is) x2. They work great. no issues. Also, 16-cores/32-threads @2.4Ghz (Dual Xeons) beat the 12-core 2.7Ghz Mac Pro full out on geekbench. I hit a score of 33k on GeekBench 3.0 with 32GB RAM Quad-Channel DDR4. I coupled this with dual GTX 660 2GB for CUDA, and a 1000 Watt Power Supply. The system is rock solid, steady. No driver issues (other than installing). Saw USB 3.0 ports in Win 7 SP1 installer as well. Also, the board recognizes SSDs natively in the onboard RAID and will issue TRIM Commands to the SSDs in windows under RAID!! That's a huge thing for people RAID'ing SSDs (I use 2x 256GB Crucial M4's in RAID-0 for speed) ! Rocking!

Pros: Did some research for my first dual CPU build and ended up choosing this board despite its average rating. Build was straight-forward and the board posted without problems. Running Linux on dual Xeon E5-2620V4 ... no BIOS update was required to support V4. Also recycled a 4 year old LSI raid controller that worked without any problems.

Cons: N/A (thus far)

Pros: It does what it is supposed to do. Been on 24/7 (aside from reboots for updates) for almost one full year.

Cons: Wish I had waited a month or two for the next version that supports SLI but other than that there have been no flaws.

Overall Review: If you buy this and go with Windows 10 make sure you have a usb stick ready with the hard drive controller driver during installation. My professional opinion, Supermicro has always been a go to brand for dual xeon installs. This board is as stable as any of the other dozen I have used over the past few decades from Supermicro.

Pros: Running dual E5-2620 Xeons and the board came with the proper bios for the v4 versions. Easy to install and nicely laid out, it's a no-nonsense board that prioritizes functionality. It's also quite big (EATX) - I put it in a Supermicro CSE-743TQ-903B chassis, and even in that, the fit was tight. I suspect that for many other mainstream cases, it would be even tighter or not fit at all. It seems very stable thus far, and I am very happy with my selection.

Cons: When I first tried to power it up, I got nothing, and there is no light on the board to indicate that it is at least getting power. A quick call to Supermicro support solved this: I had the front cable from the chassis installed backwards, so the problem was me. After that, it posted immediately, and OS installation and everything else was a breeze.

Overall Review: This board has no SLI, but neither is it advertised as having such. The build is for an editing workstation, and it is working extremely well. Also used: Noctua NH-D9DX i4 coolers, Kingston KVR21R15D8K4/32, and a PNY GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition.

Pros: - Highly functional, cool running, stable board

Cons: This board probably works great in a server chassis, but there are some layout issues if you use this in a conventional tower case. The main power connector is at the top of the board, and the SATA connectors are placed in a way that makes it impossible to use a full length card in the lower PCI-E slot. But the bigger issue is that it will not fit in extended ATX (EATX) cases like the Fractal Design XL R2. In this particular case only about half of the holes in the board align with risers. - The third PCI-e slot is not big enough for a full sized card, the SATA connectors are in the way.

Overall Review: BUYER BEWARE: The product listing, and even Supermicro's own website, fails to mention that this board is SINGLE GPU ONLY. The worst part is Newegg will not accept returns on this item, even though the listing is flawed. If you need to use multiple GPUs, you need to spend quite a bit more for the X10DAX board.