Supermicro Micro-ATX Micro ATX DDR4 Motherboards X11SSZ-QF-O

I bought two of these for servers in a remote server vault location. I set them up with dedicated IPMI LAN ports so that they can be managed remotely as far as shutdown and startup. As long as they have power, the BMC and IPMI port function. So far they have worked perfectly. I haven't found any scenario yet that causes the IPMI port to not respond (Murphy hasn't weighed in yet...). I also set up the SMTP function, so anything that happens with the motherboard or operating system sends an email informing me of the issue.Supermicro tech support was very fast in responding to a problem I had setting them up. I would recommend Supermicro motherboards with BMC and IPMI to anyone who has a server in a remote location that experiences occasional power outages and needs a reliable way of bringing the server back on line.

I am using the following as a home server and desktop machine:cpu: Intel i7-6700Tmotherboard: Supermicro x11ssz-qfram: Crucial DDR4 2133 CT8G4DFD8213ssd: Samsung 850 Evopsu: SeaSonic SS-400FL2case: SilverStone (GD09B)cpu cooler: Intel E97379 0.17A FoxconnAbove list is a result of [very very many] hours of product exploration. Below I will include some useful findings.Application: Home server and desktop e.g. home network, web, db, git, owncloud, browsing, document editing, multimedia, etc.Objectives. Primary: energy efficient and reliable 24/7 operation; Secondary: performance ; Post-secondary: cost.Some choices seemed natural: Onboard graphics to save power and enable desktop applications; Non-ECC memory to save cost; Most energy-efficient at low power consumption levels PSU available; Server grade motherboard for reliable and lasting 24/7 operation; SSD for energy efficiency and speed. No overclocking. At least two network interfaces onboard.Result: 13 watt power draw from the wall (according to a Kill-A-Watt meter) on idle, max power after a week of usage 25 watt. Well done, I think. [Compared to 130 watt on idle for my current LGA1366 machine.]I chose Supermicro for their reputation of quality. LGA 1151 socket and Q170 chipset seemed like optimal choices. Supermicro had since released another dozen UP Xeon server boards with LGA 1151 socket and C236 chipset which would provide alternative options and could be used with Core series processors and non-ECC memory (I believe). x11ssz-QF has two DP1.3 outputs and IPMI. My hope is to drive a 5k resolution monitor by onboard iGPU graphics through these two DP outputs, but this theory yet has to be tested.RAM (specified above) is not "officially tested" by Supermicro, but works fine!Stock processor cooler (specified above) is very cheap and consumes little energy, it is not "silent" but not "loud" or disturbing either. Ifthere is a place to save money, its here.Assembly is simple, but I diligently went though Supermicro's manual. I had to move one pin (to disable onboard VGA) in order to get video output on DP connector to the monitor. When I first turned on the power, there were some beeps and no video. Troubleshooting section of the manual indicated some combinations of short and long beeps as indicators of boot errors. Since I never used a supermicro board before, I had no way of knowing that the beeps I was noticing are normal and not evidence of boot errors. Problem was resolved by disabling VGA output by moving a jumper pin on the motherboard.Notes:1. Be sure to update IPMI firmware; I've been collecting error logs (VCPU going critical) and experiencing X11 failures until I upgraded from 0.50 50 1.11. Perhaps I'd be better off without IPMI altogether.2. I've tried 6700T, 6700 and 6700K processors; all have very similar (within 1w) idle power consumption characteristics, but higher clocked chips accelerate consumption snappier under load.