SUPERMICRO X9SRA ATX Server Motherboard

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

Overall Review: 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: This board has been running in a home server now for 2+ years, both for media distribution and backup of home computers. It has been stable with the ability to house 10 SATA/SAS drives on the board itself, including usb 3.0 header.

Cons: One memory bank was bad or had a short. LGA 2011 socket R processors are expensive with odd cooler requirements. Bios is complicated and a little difficult to navigate

Overall Review: Very satisfied with this board, by far the most expensive I have ever purchased, but has been worth it. It has run multiple OS from Windows Server, 7, and now linux server without hesitation. Never, ever froze, and distributes video without a hitch. Backs up multiple home computers. linux server has also been excellent in combination with this board, with the only hiccup finding and installing drivers for Highpoint RR644L which I still can't figure out...

Pros: Great mb with Total of 10 sata connectors to build a decent nas solution whether it's all in one zfs with esx or the new Microsoft windows 2012 automated storage tiering. Took me less than 2 hour to put everything together and all rdimm slots works. If you go with ms, you can play games as the mb has 2 pcie x16. It allows perfect consolidation for home lab. Idle power is very impressive as well. I get lower than 58 watts for 10 sata drives (while spinning) with a nvidia geforce 650 ti boost. Haswell may be Better but you are limited to 32gb. This mb can scale lot higher in memory up to 256gb. We all know cpu isn't the bottleneck these days. It's memory and storage esp if testing lots of vms. You also get the nice ecc for copying data do storage.

Cons: Would be nice if supermicro has a better bios similar to asus. My favorite bios is the asus efi.

Overall Review: I like to see 10 sata 6 across the board and perhaps a micro atx mb with same features of this mb.

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: 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.

Overall Review: 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: You can build a Xeon based workstation that can support up to 256 Gb RAM.

Cons: Came with old firmware which doesn't support Intel Xeon E5-2640 v2 CPU or video cards installed in computer. You need to get a X9SRA with bios version 3. Newegg inventory / stock of Supermicro X9SRA is old. I have built literally hundreds of computers for the University over the last 20 years so I am an experienced builder. I have never seen a motherboard that promises so much, but comes with an outdated bios that does support what is advertised.

Overall Review: I am very disappointed with this motherboard that I received from Newegg. It did not come with the latest bios to support the latest ivy bridge CPUs. The specs say it supports the Intel Xeon E5-2640 v2 Ivy Bridge-EP 2.0GHz, but unless you get bios version 3 you can't even see the POST video or even upgrade the bios unless you have an old Xeon CPU lying around. Newegg, you should make sure that the motherboards you sell has the latest bios.

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.

Overall Review: 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.

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.

Overall Review: 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!