Supermicro MBD X9DRI-LN4F+-B, Opinions?

[Manav Agarwal]

Anyone familiar with this board, any major trouble? Should I look for something with C606 chipset instead? Is the form factor difficult to find a chassis for?

Link: Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X9DRi-LN4F+

My use case is a compute/rendering server. I want to have at least 2 GPUs.

 

[britinpdx]

I have this motherboard, and like the rest of my Supermicro kit it runs like a top ... what are your concerns ?

The C606 variant of this board is the X9DR3-LN4F+, which gives you 8x SAS ports from the C606 chipset compared to 4x SATA ports from the C602 chipset. I believe the same "bare board" is used for both the "i" and "3" variants.

In terms of form factor, the "+" in the product name indicates it's a board that supports 24x memory slots, so it becomes a "wide" form factor. The page that you linked has recommended 2U, 3U and 4U/Tower supermicro chassis. If you want to run GPU's then you are likely looking at the 4U/Tower chassis.

I have not run this motherboard in anything other than a SM chassis, so I can't provide guidance as to a compatible non-SM chassis. I do think that it is a "non standard" form factor though.

If you don't need the 24x memory slots then the X9DRi-F is the more standard E-ATX form factor with 16x memory slots. Still the C602 chipset, but you drop one x16 pcie slot from 4 to 3, and you move from a square to narrow ILM CPU cooler footprint.

 

[Manav Agarwal]

I found a supermicro 846 chassis for $200. Supermicro | Products | Chassis | 4U | SC846E1-R900B. Looks like that might fit the bill.

 

[britinpdx]

SM suggest a "Rev M" chassis for this motherboard, which I believe has to do with having support (mounting points) for the appropriate standoffs. I've used a "rev K" chassis which I believe had a couple of standoffs missing.

I know from personal experience that older 486 chassis revs have fixed motherboard posts, some of which may not line up with the motherboard mounting holes, and may indeed contact areas on the bottom of the motherboard and cause shorts. This can be remedied be either judicious amounts of electrical tape over the post (not my preferred solution as sharp contacts may still push through), or use physical mechanical means (drill etc) to the fixed post to remove it.

For missing post locations (the opposite problem) I use these 6mm tall M3 hex standoffs and attach them to the motherboard with an M3 screw prior to installing the motherboard. This provides support to the motherboard when pushing in connectors, memory, cards, cpu's etc to minimize motherboard flexing.

 

[am4593]

All right I was all excited to get this board in the mail this week only to discover what a problem E-E-ATX is. So I'm looking for a case. I'm open to all suggestions of any kind from but here's a few things I like.

1. I rack everything. I'd love to find a good 4U rackmount case that either can accept this board or be modified in some way to accept this board. I've thought of a few crazy options, front mount ATX power supply, putting in a SFX power supply with an atx conversion bracket. Anyone every seen brackets to convert 5.25 boards for PSU mounting?

2. If I just cant rack this then a case that is less than 19 in tall like a media center case could still fit well in my rack.

3. I do not love the supermicro 846 or 847 that people put these in. This machine will have all nvme storage and so having a ton of empty drive bays up front just seems like a huge waste.

4. I'm going to need a power supply in this thing that is at least 600-800w. that almost rules out using some of the small flex or 1u 2u PSUs.

 

[K D]

Pretty much any SM 2-4U chassis should work with it. See @britinpdx comments for more information especially regarding older revisions of the chassis. From the supermicro website, the recommended chassis are: