Which of these two mobos for server


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I am trying to choose between these two mobos for a dual Xeon E5-2670 I want to build:

 

Supermicro X9DRL-7F - $258 Refurbished: http://tinyurl.com/y8s9a6bb

 

Asrock EP2C602 - $289 on sale: http://tinyurl.com/yc36lmqp

 

The big difference I am seeing is that the Supermicro has a built 8x SAS controller but no quad channel memory(at least it doesn't mention it.  Whereas the Asrock is without the SAS controller but includes quad channel memory.

 

Is quad channel memory important? While I don't need the SAS controller (I already have 2 LSI cards) I wouldn;t mind having it as a backup as long as I am not scraficing anything of importance.  

 

Do you guys have a recommendation or see something I am overlooking?

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I don't think quad memory matters, what would matter more to be would be ECC support which the Asrock seems to support, don't know about the Super Micro

 

I would not recommend buying a refurbished motherboard, you will likely get a limited warranty. I assume you want a stable system that will last for years, might as well buy new, saving a few bucks on the motherboard is ill advised IMO.

 

From what I've read about Asrock boards they can be hit and miss. If it were my money I'd focus on Super Micro.

 

Just my 2cents.

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I personally have had good luck with ASRock, and would have no compunction going with one. I often like the feature set better with ASRock. Certainly nothing wrong with SuperMicro either. But I would never buy a refurbed motherboard (or anything else refurbed). I would be much more likely to buy "used" from a seller that looks like a regular Joe with good feedback and listing showing every ding and scratch. But motherboards can be finicky, and you might want to go with new if you can't find a used that gives you high confidence that you have a good seller that is selling his own stuff that he knows works.

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@ashman70 - They both support ECC and I intend to use it.

 

@SSD - I've never run an Asrock server board, but I'vehad a couple of their desktop boards and they were great.  No issues at all.

 

I get what you guys are saying about refurbs and it probably isn't a good idea for a motherboard.  I could definitely go used but I'm not seeing anything that was in use by the seller.  Most are server pulls.  

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I buy a lot of stuff second hand off ebay and not had an issue yet.  My current system is all build from second hand parts other than the disks, I buy those new.

 

I like Supermicro stuff myself, and am running a dual Xeon setup like you're planning, I've been very happy with it!

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 7/23/2018 at 2:00 AM, jmgc97 said:

the supermicro seems to be a good mobo.

 

https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon/c600/x9drl-7f.cfm

 

Let us know what you have decided. i am torn between a single i7 with 6 cores or dual xeon that i can get 12 cores. planning on running a windows server VM as a file/backup server for my home.

 

All cores are not created equal. You are comparing a new, fast 6 core i7 (presumably with iGPU and ability to do hardware transcodes with Plex) with an older 12 core Xeon running at much lower clock speed. I'd guess the 6 core could be very similar power, maybe even faster.

 

Not sure that a file/backup server needs a ton of horsepower, but I guess if it is doing compression it might benefit.

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