Supermicro EE-ATX in Fractal Define XL R1

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MortenB

Member
Jul 3, 2017
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Hey

I got some leftover gear a few months ago. 2 x Xeon E5 2670 and 128GB of DDR3 ECC RDIMMs.
Figured I was gonna Upgrade my E3 1240 build With this. Ended up ordering the Supermicro X9DR7-TF+ brand New off Amazon for about 350 USD. From what I read this was supposed to be an E-ATX Board, but upon trying to fit the Board in my Define XL case, this was obviously bigger. Its EE-ATX at 13.68" x 13", so I needed to drill 7 extra holes into my case for it to fit, but in the end it did!

Reason for posting was the fact that the Define XL can fit EE-ATX if you do custom holes. I assume XL R2 should work just as well.

Specs:
CPU: 2x Intel Xeon E5 2670
Motherboard: Supermicro X9DR7-TF+
Memory: 128GB DDR3 ECC RDIMM
RAID: IBM ServeRaid M1015 in IT mode
Case: Fractal Design Define XL (1st gen)
CPU coolers: Noctua NH-U12S
Case fans: Noctua A14 PWM
PSU: Seasonic X-760
HDD: 2X5TB, 2X4TB, 2x3TB. SSD datastores.
 

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epicurean

Active Member
Sep 29, 2014
785
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Supermicro EE ATX sized motherboards will also fit into a Corsair Air 540. Need to dremel about 2 or 3 holes. No issue with air cooling
 

Dave_B

New Member
Dec 7, 2016
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You might try moving the fan on the left heatsink and installing on the other side in a pull configuration. That provides some extra space between the heatsinks to allow the hot exhaust from the right heatsink to mix with cool air before getting sucked into the left heatsink. On my rig shown below, that dropped the temps of CPU2 around 5C under max load and now both CPUs read the same 60C to 65C on all cores under 100% load.

My Intel s2600CPJ SSI EEB motherboard is installed in a Corsair Clear 400C case with only 3 screwed in standoffs. None of the remaining mounting holes match the case motherboard tray so I installed plastic standoffs in the other holes with a few on them held down on the motherboard tray using some twist ties. It's the second one I've built this way with no issues at all.

 

realtomatoes

Active Member
Oct 3, 2016
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tight fit. i was wondering what was the smallest case you can fit these into.
i was going for the enthoo pro had i gone with an SSI EEB board, but found the case alil to big for my shelf.
 

Dave_B

New Member
Dec 7, 2016
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Actually there's plenty of room to route cables at the top or side. You can mount three 2.5 inch SSDs on the back and there is a drive case adjacent to the power supply on the bottom. And the case is deep enough for those relatively tall Cooler Master Hyper 212s. Also plenty of airflow to keep everything nice and cool. The case is 425 x 215 x 464mm (16.73 x 8.46 x 18.26 inches) so pretty much a standard ATX tower size.
 

w0mbl3

Member
Aug 13, 2013
36
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Sydney, Oz
Thanks MortenB!

Was wondering whether EE-ATX would fit - I have a Define XL which I've had an EEB Tyan board in for a year and noticed there was a good bit of space above the IO shield area which might fit the extra width.

I already have a 6-32 tap so adding more screw holes for additional motherboard standoff's is easy, it was more a question of whether there was physically enough space around the edges to keep the drive bays.

The EE-ATX boards are attractive as they take the square LGA2011 fan mount instead of the Narrow ILM format.
 

laserpaddy

Active Member
Jul 17, 2017
197
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out there
0Rosewill rise build in progress Supermicro x9drd-7LNF-JBOD, have room for 2 240 water coolers 6 3.5 drives and min 4 ssd.
Newegg $ 89.

That small white object is a nylon lock nut 6-32 will use a small dab of jb weld on the bottom side of nut , since the nut is the same height of the normal stand offs it's all good.
Just need to make sure that the screw doesn't bottom out , otherwise the jb weld will get both nut and screw- then your screwed lol.


Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 

DJDaScream

New Member
Sep 2, 2018
1
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Looks like my desktop...

been running a dual 5600 system in a NZXT Phantom (looks like an identical frame) powered with an X8DTN+

VERY tight fit, but it works.

Will it play crysis? Mine does :p
I Have a X8DAH+-F Mainboard, it looks like X8DTN+ has the same dimensions as the X8DAH+-F

this would mean that this motherboard also fits into the case.

Did you have to drill more holes to install the mainboard or was that possible without?