Newegg is running a 48 hour promotion, 20 percent off all server motherboards.

 

Use code EMCYTZT2472 when you check out.

 

I picked up the SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O LGA 1155 Intel C204 Micro ATX Intel Xeon E3 Server Motherboard for my ESXi build which is regularly $199 for $171 with tax and FREE shipping!

 

--Sideband Samurai

Yes! I came here to post that also. Saw it early this morning, now only need to know which board to pick. I don't know enough about the differences. Building a 22+2 unRaid in a full ATX so board size isn't an issue. Would rather have the latest features than the absolute best price. Your choice is a popular one as I have read around the site. Any other suggestions? Possible esxi in the future is the only addition. Thanks all!

Perfect. Great post. Combined with the deal I saw on the corsair hx750 ps and feels like Christmas came early!

 

Thanks again.

What about this Supermicro X9SRA board? Will this work well?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182336

I had selected the SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O motherboard because of an active ESXi thread that is running right now, which is here:  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=14695.0.  Also because I have recommended 3 of these to a client, so I wanted to get some experience with the board.

 

The main reason is I have 3 servers running right now, I want to save power.  My Sickbeard/SAB server constantly locks up and I am tired of rebooting.  I don't want to put these services on to RC-8 right now because of possible memory issues,  and it can serve as a lab, bringing up servers and taking them down with out having to haul hardware from the garage upstairs to the office..

 

Keep an eye on the above thread, as I will begin posting my build specs, now that I have selected the Xeon Motherboard. 

 

-- Sideband Samurai

One more thing I forgot to mention:

 

the Supermicro X9SRA is a really nice board and probably would work really well provided its supported by Exsi 5.1.  One problem I see is its price.  Almost double than the one I just bought.  Its max memory is 256 GB.  This is a good thing, but  even if you are running the paid version which runs roughly 500.00, your memory limit is 192GB.  I see that feature a waste.  The Free version of Esxi has a memory limit of 32GB so that feature is even more of a waste.  The board I selected fits the bill and is known to run on 5.1 with out issues that I know of.

 

--Sideband Samurai

The Tyan board I picked up should also be covered and is proving to run well, wish this had come up sooner. The Norco coupon I posted not long ago might also still be good and almost covered shipping lol!

What about this Supermicro X9SRA board? Will this work well?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182336

 

 

If you want to run a Xeon E5. Most guys on here went for the X9SCM because it supports Core i3s and Xeon E3s. No reason that board wouldn't be great though if you want to run an E5.

Thanks. This has really motivated me to figure out all the differences in recent boards so I can make my own educated guess as to which board may be the best for my needs. There are many things to consider, I'm finding, and it is not easy for me at this point to make a wise decission but I'm trying figure it all out. Like I know I want IPMI or similar, would like usb 3.0, pcie 3 (learning c216 has those), don't need graphics though (i.e. IPMI), think ECC mem is a good idea, etc, etc. Trying to find one board that has it all and is stable and well supported is hard, maybe doesn't even exist. Have to figure out what I don't have to have and what I can live with. Just a lot of $ on the line between board, cpu and mem combo.

OnlyJeeps,

 

An EXSi build will be different than a dedicated build.  This build is too expensive for a dedicated server.  If you wanted a dedicated build, you could try an AMD build.

 

I decided not to go that route because I am building a lab environment and want to work with equipment that most companies might have installed.  Since a lot of companies order from IBM, Dell, or HP, all of those units are usually Xeon.

 

I had some concerns about running an AMD setup as sometimes boards do not allow you to enable hardware passthru in the BIOS, and that would have been a problem for me.  AMD as a dedicated system is very economical.

 

--Sideband Samurai