SUPERMICRO MBD-X10DAX-O Extended ATX Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011-3 Intel C612

Pros: Once you work through the gotchas, and you mentally accept that the built-in USB ports have severe limitations, it's decent. Takes LRDIMMs for capacious memory capacity. Board is reliable; no mysterious crashes.

Cons: I've started with BIOS 1.0a. Six months later, after burning 2.0a, we have some slight improvement in usb functionality-- but nowhere near right. The problem appears to be the complexity and responsibility of a UEFI BIOS to actually enumerate USB 3.0 devices, and emulate USB 2.0 as well, and the inability of AMI to meet the specs. Since there are so few BIOS makers, Supermicro really has no options to fix this, unless AMI decide to get it right. In practice, this means: 1. Abandon the idea that devices plugged into different motherboard ports don't interact with each other, and with the boot process. 2. Scratch your head, swap plugs, hubs, and devices ad-infinitum, and give up. 3. Install an Inatek or other vendor 7 port USB card. Anything based on the Fresco Logic chipset does everything that Intel/AMI cannot. Except: boot into BIOS, which brings us to the next point. 4. You might expect that every usb keyboard will get you into the BIOS. Not! Happy Hacker keyboards don't. Discover which of your keyboards works for this. Are we done yet? No! 5. You won't be able to boot into the BIOS if any other device is plugged into any other motherboard USB port. You'll get the famous 5-beep code, and the machine will continue into OS boot all the while you're pounding away at "DEL". Confusing? Yeah! Excusable? Noooo Wayyyy!!!

Overall Review: The whole ball of wax is just a continuation of a nasty industry habit: writing specs that can't be fulfilled in practice until long after the product is obsolete, if ever. Once you learn to expect things to be partly broken you'll be "very happy" with this board.

Pros: After MUCH research on Newegg, I have had no issues whatsoever and so glad I went with this motherboard after years using Gigabyte 2oz boards. No BIOS or USB issues whatsoever. Dropped in dual E5-2620s, 8x16Gb Kingston 2400 ECC, two Noctua NH-L12s using only supplied 120mm Fans, Fanless 750Ti and Corsair RM850I into a Silverstone GD08B. Knew I had to drill/tap two holes into the HTPC case, use Windows Pro x64 and set RAM to 2400 in BIOS. Booted up first try. Got what I wanted, complete silence running 32 Threads at 100% for 3 straight hours !!!

Cons: None

Pros: One of the only 2-CPU boards supporting SLI. I only have it running one CPU for now, but it's rock solid. Customer service seems responsive and helpful. Lots of fan headers. The RAM slots are far enough away from the top PCIe slot that a half-length PCIe card can fit with no problem.

Cons: Now the problems with actually getting SLI up and running: Unlike SLI-certified boards, this one does not come with an SLI bridge, so you'll have to buy one separately. Even then, though, I couldn't get the video card driver to see that the two cards were capable of SLI. It looks like BIOS 2.0 doesn't actually support SLI. I e-mailed Supermicro, who responded (in 12 minutes!) with a beta BIOS and instructions on how to flash it. The beta BIOS then worked perfectly. Other minor issues: - The manual lists level 1-4 for "Supermicro Hyper-Speed", but only 1 and 2 were available for me. (just for info: the level is the percentage BCLK overclock, so level 2 runs the BCLK at 102MHz instead of 100MHz) - With only one CPU, the only way to use SLI is with the video cards right next to each other, which raises the temperature of the top one dramatically. - Although there were a lot of fan headers, the actual fan speed control is lacking. (Setting it to "optimal" seems to work OK, but I wish there were more options) - Stickers on the power connectors say "both 8pin required for heavy load configuration," implying that you don't always need both, but the manual says you must use both or your warranty is void. - The I/O shield has PS/2 and 9-pin serial cutouts, but the board does not have those connectors.

Overall Review: This board seems rather expensive for what is essentially a bunch of wires between a few connectors. The only real chip on it is the C612 chipset. I'm used to "enthusiast" boards with extra USB ports, M.2 slots, WiFi, and other add-ons for this price. I definitely would have liked some M.2 slots for this. 8 PCIe lanes from CPU1 go unused - they are reserved for the RAID controller on the X10DAC version of this board. All in all, there were no major surprises. Despite the downsides, I'd still get this board again. Took off 1 star due to SLI issues and price/value.

Pros: I started out with the Asus Z10PE-D8WS, but it wouldn't post, and as I had a past experience with a sabertooth board I changed to Supermicro MDB-X10DAI, just to find out I would really like this one, supporting SLI and Hyper speed. Unfortunately the Newegg website didn't list this one under the Dual 2011-3 options, nor the Asus board actually. The best option is to look for the C612 Chipset. Both SuperMicro boards posted right away and in spite of my limited amount of server board builds all their default set ups made it really easy to put it all together. You need to down load the driver disc, but it all worked flawless.

Cons: None

Pros: This board is quite the tank. I feel as though I have future proofed my workstation by choosing this board. I've been desiring a dual socket sli quad channel setup for years and finally pulled the trigger. I've watercooled the CPUs and GPUs. I've hit many snags in the process and learned much. WIth 2TB of memory and the ability to upgrade my processors to whatever insane setup I want down the road.... 44 cores? 88 threads? Sure. Right now I'm happy with 20 cores and 40 threads. I've paired this with 4 x 32gb Black Diamond 2400 ECC DDR4. I should've bought 4 sticks as the price has gone up almost 100% thanks to increased demand. I'll wait until prices drop again.

Cons: So there's a few things to mention here. 1: Update your bios because if you do not you WILL have USB connectivity and boot issues. Since updating all my issues have calmed down. 2: This board is listed as E-ATX. It sort of is... I got a Lian Li PC-1000LB (model #?) which is an e-atx case but it was missing something like 4 or 5 holes so I drilled those holes and made it work. Fitment in this case works but it is VERY tight especially when you watercool using the top and front radiators. 3: Would've liked an additional USB 3.0 front header. I realize there's dead space on the motherboard used by other components on different X10 boards but surely it would've been possible somewhere as this is a workstation board.

Overall Review: Be aware of tight fitment on this board in cases. The memory slots on the top sit very close to my radiator making putting a fan on it impossible. I plan on ducting two fans into the radiator from the case door. I would also suggest buying 8 sticks of memory to utilize quad channel DDR4 unlike my silly mistake of only buying four. The PCI slot options in the BIOS are daunting and have no explanation as far as what they do so that's something else to be aware of. Not touching them is probably a good idea. Supermicro gave me no explanation as to what all they options do when asked. Lastly, I have a Intel X540-T2 card which seems to sporadically work. I have another on order which hopefully will work but there might be a compatability issue there. You *WILL* have to disable onboard LAN if you want your system to boot WITH a 10Gb Intel card. UPDATE: The X540-T2 card I got was defective. I have since replaced it and it works just fine.

Pros: Has everything you could possibly need.

Cons: None that I can think of.