New Workstation Build

[zanzabar]

it seams like a good idea then, i also do not see why a redundant psu is needed for a workstation. it is not like there is a even a small failure rate for those seasonic psus and it solves the problems of finding a case/psu just to get a single unit.

[EniGmA1987]

any of the 10 slot cases should fit it (XLATX i think vbut hptx looks the same) silverstone has some nice ones so you have 2 high quality places to look. what are planning that you need so many pci-e slots over the MB you were looking at before?

Im not up on these boards really well, but I remember hearing that many Supermicro server boards often have proprietary mounting holes that only fit Supermicro towers? So if that is the case then the motherboard he wants wont fit any other brands.

[rlr297]

Yes, it seems that board is a proprietary size. I was looking into other boards with large amounts of pci-e slots and the EVGA SR-X Classified looks pretty solid. It seems I could have 2 double slot cards, a single slot and a raid controller. Does anyone have experience with this board?

I know EVGA is big with gaming but I'm not sure how their boards fare as a workstation board.

http://www.evga.com/articles/00668/

Just read a pretty shoddy review of the board over at http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/c...fied_review/11

Thanks!

[zanzabar]

did you find one of those boards, they were hard to come by when they were newer and they have been obsolete for a while now. have you tried looking at tyan they are high quality and have a few boards that have lots off 16x and 8x slots.

[EniGmA1987]

SR-X is the new board for socket 2011, The SR-2 was the older model that is hard to find now days and meant for socket 1366


The SR-X board is not exactly meant for a workstation or server board, but more for the high end performance enthusiast. You might want to look into ASUS' dual socket enthusiast board instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131817
The board also only uses E5 Xeon server processors that support ECC RAM so it would probably work out very well for you. Just be sure and look into specific RAM compatibility so you dont have problems.

[rlr297]

Hi Guys,

So after doing some more research I've decided to go with the Supermicro system. It seems the motherboard supports 3 dual slot cards and a x8 slot.

There are two versions I am looking at - the motherboards are essentially the same except one has an on board LSI Raid controller. I was curious what your guys opinion is on the raid controller that comes with the board (link below) versus an Areca 1882ix (link below). I'm leaning towards the Areca but the onboard option seems appealing due to freeing up a PCI slot and being less expensive.

Board with Raid Controller
http://www.supermicro.com.tw/product...c600/x9da7.cfm (http://www.lsi.com/products/storagec...SISAS2308.aspx)

Areca Card
http://www.areca.com.tw/products/1882.htm

Thanks again for the help.