System as-built with 16GB ECC RAM, Core i3-3220T, 4 3.5" drives, and a couple of add-on cards draws 52W booted at idle, and 102W at peak. Excellent low power setup.
The onboard BMC (baseboard management controller) is the killer feature. The BMC presents to the CPU virtual VGA, keyboard and mouse devices, which can then be accessed over the network via the Supermicro IPMIView program -- a java app that works fine on Ubuntu 12.04. The CPU does not need a built-in graphics controller, nor is a graphics controller card necessary. A remote CD .iso image, or even a floppy image, can be mounted over the network. Even system power can be turned on and off remotely. These features can be accessed through a third dedicated ethernet port, or shared over the first of the two primary ethernet ports. Add in serial over LAN (SOL) accessible via IPMI or SSH, BIOS redirection over serial (and concurrently still accessible via iKVM), plus a web-based interface to most of these features, and you've got a system well designed for remote administration. With the server powered down, the BMC is still active. It draws 6W at the plug.
Another nice feature is the USB A connector on the motherboard. You can use it to install an OS on a USB stick, plug the stick into the motherboard, and use it for booting. I'm using this right now for testing, with Debian Wheezy installed and it works well. This USB boot strategy also works very nicely with VMWare ESXi.
I wanted to use this motherboard with a Xeon E3-1220L V2, but could not find one. I settled on the Core i3-3220T, which has roughly the same performance, but at 35 W TDP (the E3 has a striking 17 W TDP). The i3-3220T does have ECC RAM support, but it does not offer VT-d.
I've ran this board through 24h each of prime95 (a stellar torture test for CPU and memory interface) and memtest86, with no errors or misbehavior.
I'm quite happy with this board and will build with it again. It is a bit expensive, but the BMC feature set is worth it for true server installations. It would be nice if Supermicro made a mini-ITX version of this board for even smaller microserver builds...
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$179.95
Get it Apr 11 - 16
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This Item  SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O LGA 1155 Intel C204 Micro ATX Intel Xeon E3 Server Motherboard |  |  |  |  |  | |
| Price | -15% $179.95 List: $211.56 | $79.93 | $126.10 | -10% $71.99 List: $79.99 | -45% $66.40 Typical: $120.00 | $232.99 |
| Delivery | Get it Apr 11 - 16 | Get it as soon as Thursday, Apr 11 | Get it Apr 12 - 16 | — | Get it Apr 11 - 15 | Get it Apr 10 - 15 |
| Customer Ratings | ||||||
| Sold By | Mega Micro Devices Inc | Amazon.com | GFLOnline | Amazon.com | Amoldar | Daytona Web |
| platform | mac os x | windows | linux | windows 10 | windows 10 | windows 10 |
| cpu socket | LGA 1155 | LGA 1151 | LGA 1155 | Socket AM4 | LGA 1155 | LGA 1151 |
| memory slots | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| memory capacity | 32 GB | 1 GB | 32 GB | 128 GB | 32 GB | 64 GB |
| compatible processors | Intel Pentium, Intel Xeon | 8th Generation Intel Core | Intel Pentium, Intel Xeon | AMD 1st Gerenration Ryzen | Intel Pentium, Intel Xeon | Intel Pentium, Intel Celeron, Intel Xeon |
| card interface | pci e | agp, agp | pci e | integrated | pci e | pci e |
| RAM tech | DDR3 1333;DDR3 1066;DDR3 800 | DDR4 | DDR3 800 | DDR4 | DDR3 | DDR4 |
| spdif connector type | Optical | Optical | Optical | Optical | Optical | Optical |
| system bus standard | SATA 2 | SATA 3 | SATA 2 | SATA 3 | SATA 2 | SATA 3 |
| number of usb ports | 11 | 8 | 11 | 6 | 11 | 8 |
