Question 1

nvMe SSD PCI: is it compatible? if not , would an adapter work?

Accepted Answer

Yes, I used a PCIE 3.0x4 card to hold my NVMe M.2 512 GT-Cdrive.  No issue.  Nut you will have to run ins EFUI mode or something like that.  Don't worry it work fine in that mode.  IDE or SATA or ECHI (something like that.) mode will not work.  P.S. you may want to add a heat sink to the drive stick to offload the neat a bit.

Question 2

Will the BIOS be able to detect a USB monitor? How do you attach a monitor to this?

Accepted Answer

USB to vga will not likely work as a primary monitor.  You will have to purchase a separate video card as there is no on board gpu and xeon processors don't have a gpu on the cpu.

Question 3

will it work with 2 Xeon E5-1620 v4? Thanks

Accepted Answer

Nope. No motherboard will. The "1" in 1620 indicates its QPI had been disabled.

Question 4

What cooler did you use for the CPUs in this?

Accepted Answer

I used the "Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan".  It worked pretty smooth but it is a tall cooler.

Question 5

The specs say "Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 family (up to 160W TDP )", does the wattage stated specify that its 160W per CPU or Total between both?

Accepted Answer

I am not sure but I think it would be 160W per CPU. 
My CPU is E5-2620 v3, 85W for each. The temperature are 50 degree Celsius and 45 Celsius (70-80 is a warning line) with one water cooling and one air cooling heatsink respective when running 100% for more than 20 hours, with room temperature 28 degree.

Question 6

can I run this board with 1 cpu and add a 2nd at a later date ?

Accepted Answer

Yes you can.  I do believe that  both processors must be identical, so be careful not to buy a different CPU and try to run both at the same time.

Question 7

What kind of (standard)sound card can I buy with this motherboard?

Accepted Answer

You do not need one. This mobo is already equipped with a built-in audio card  (RealTek ALC888 7.1 High Definition Audio with S/PDIF header). Visit the Supermicro web site for details and specs (google it- newegg sucks and I can't post url here).

If you want to install a better (pro) soundcard you can do that as well via USB3 or you can add a Sonnet PCIe Firewire400 card for older pro cards (that's what I do). In my experience the older firewire audio devices are still better than many newer USB3 cards. And also a lot cheaper secondhand now.

Question 8

Will this motherboard support Intel Xeon E5-2603 V4 Broadwell-EP 1.7 GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 15MB L3 Cache LGA 2011-3 85W BX80660E52603V4 Server Processor ??

Accepted Answer

Yes. This board will handle E5-XXXX V3 and V4. I have 11 of these machines with V3 and V4. I am running twin Xeons with these LGA-2011 chips

Question 9

Does it support Octal Channel with regular DDR4 8x4GB 2400 MHz modules?

Accepted Answer

I just tried DDR4-2400 out your memory request on my Test WS and I get the horrible beeps of memory errors. I am using an older BIOS. Supermicro is superb in providing you more info for the latest BIOS.

Question 10

Dose it work with 2 Xeon E5-2630 v4? Thanks

Accepted Answer

Yes, it works great, but you may need to update the BIOS if you receive a board with an old BIOS version.

Questions & Answers