X99 PR9-A Motherboard with 16GB 2133MHz DDR4 RAM, Intel LGA 2011-3 Motherboard for Xeon E5 V3 V4 Processors (DDR4 Slot, PCIe 3.0, M.2 Protocol, SATA 3.0, USB 3.0, Gigabit LAN)

Let's be honest: Nobody buys these "cheap" dual Xeon boards to run mission-critical applications on. You buy this because you need a lot of CPU cores and don't want to break the bank. This board plus some cheap, used v3 Xeons from Fleabay and you're in business.I'm running dual E5-2699 v3 CPUs. That's 36 physical/72 total cores. What am I doing with it? CPU mining, of course. Some CPU-mineable coins rely a lot of L3 CPU cache, while other coins strictly love core count. For those core count coins you're getting 72 cores @ about 250 watts at full tilt. You will need good CPU heatsink fans and the Supermicro SNK-P0050AP4 are the best LGA2011 HSFs out there. You can find them used for the same price as lesser HSFs, new. BTW, the Supermicro SNK-P0050AP4 HSFs fit just fine but if you don't want CPU2 blowing hot air into CPU1, you have to mount them sideways (blowing air towards the PCI-E slots). For mining duty you will also need good airflow over the VRMs. I have two 80mm fans sitting right on top of the VRM heatsinks and they stay nice and cool. If you have this motherboard in a case with great airflow, you don't need to separately cool the VRMs.Been running this MB 24/7 for 3 weeks now, crypto mining. Zero issues. I highly recommend checking out YouTube videos on this MB before buying/using. I learned a ton from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v5s42DEC3I&t=185s including how to set the jumpers for the M.2 slots. This MB does not come with any kind of manual, nor could I find one online. You need to know what you're doing and/or how to use the internet to figure things out.This board booted up right off the bat, no problems. Did have a little trouble getting the board to recognize my M.2 boot SSD, but that was my fault for not having the jumpers set correctly. Stock, this board is configured for nVME drives in both the M.2 slot. If you are trying to boot from a cheap M.2 drive like I do, the jumpers have to be configured correctly, and that is covered in the video I linked to.This isn't the cheapest "Cheap X99 duallie motherboard" out there, but I've used some of the cheap ones and this is so much better. Recommended.

For the money you can't go wrong with this in my opinion. I bought the X99 MR9S model and it works pretty well for me! I paired it with a e-5 2698 v4 and 8x16gb ddr4 2133p ecc server ram. I wanted to make an upgraded server from my previous one while having your standard front panel headers to use a nanoKVM pci-e with it (old server was a dell t410 that has ddr3 and dual xeon x5675). The features/functions on the motherboard are basic. I can't comment on using it for any type of virtualization with it as the server work I do with it is just hosting different instances of game worlds on it via Windows 10 and AMP. The few minor reasons I gave it 4 out of 5 stars is because documentation on this motherboard is very broad and does not answer questions other motherboard manufacturers do with theirs, it has very few fan headers (2 four pin and 1 three pin) and even though it includes a JLPCM slot for a TPM module you have to buy an adapter and a gigabyte TPM module to get it to work and if you reboot the computer you have to do a full power cycle unless you solder 2 wires from the TPM to the motherboard since it does not have the reset pins needed to power cycle the TPM properly. If they had included at least 2 more 4 pin fan headers (could have changed the single 3 pin one for a 4 pin) and included the pins for the TPM reset I would have given this a 5 star review. If I could go back to change my mind for another option (and possibly used) I would still purchase this as it is a great value for what you get.

I purchased one of these boards and it wouldn't boot with both CPUs. I tried all the normal DIY tech tricks before contacting the manufacturers tech support. I tried to boot with 1 CPU and that worked. So I moved it to the other CPU slot and it worked there too. But if you add the 2nd CPU to either slot, it won't boot at all. It gives a couple meaningless error codes (there's no manual and nothing to download) and then it's bricked. I tried 1 stick of RAM. I tried 2 sticks. 3 sticks. 4 - 5 -6 -7 -8 sticks or RAM. 1 CPU - 2 CPU - 1 video card - 2 video cards - 1 old video card - 1 new video card. Nothing works.So I contacted Amazon and asked for tech support. Amazon got me in touch with the manufacturer quickly. But their tech support was just some person asking me to go back and repeat all the steps I had already attempted on my own. I was expecting some REAL technical support - like a BIOS update or a user manual. I was hoping for a REAL technical support person to offer me some REAL (ya know TECHNICAL) support. Instead I get some person asking me to swap hardware around. I already did that before I ever contacted them. I'd expect a manufacturer to offer some real solutions besides "swap hardware around to different slots until you fool it into booting" They asked me to disassemble it and make a VIDEO of how I assembled it and put it together!!! It's an Extended ATX motherboard with dual 2011-3 CPU's. There is NO WAY to screw it up. The stuff literally snaps into slots and there's only 1 way that each piece can snap in. You CAN'T screw it up. The manufacturers all follow a standard and the components have been "idiot proofed". You CAN'T assemble anything backwards. It won't FIT. Yet, their "tech support" person is asking me to make a video to verify I assembled it correctly. Okay - frustrated as I am - I'll tear it apart AGAIN and make a video of me assembling it. I go to upload the video and there's a 10mb limit. That's when I threw my hands up. After weeks of going back and forth with some useless "tech support expert" I asked Amazon to RMA the darn thing and refund my money. This was nothing but weeks of frustration and a waste of my time.