Supermicro X11SRA LGA2066 C422 Motherboard Review

Bohs Hansen / 6 years ago

Final Thoughts & Pricing

Pricing

At the time of writing this review, Supermicro’s X11SRA can be yours for $349.99 or £400.60.

Please note that there are three variations of the X11SRA. There’s the plain model as well as the X11SRA-F and the X11SRA-RF. The RF comes without ALC 1220 HD Audio, but it does come with IPMI. The F has both features, ALC 1220 HD Audio and IPMI. So be sure you pick up the one which is best for your needs.

Final Thoughts

Supermicro’s X11SRA is a classic motherboard when we look at the form factor and layout. That’s something that will make it easy to set up for anyone who’s built a computer before. Everything is where you’d expect it to be. At the same time, it packs some of the newest technologies. With support for Intel’s Xeon-W Family and up to 512GB RAM, there are few limitations.

The X11SRA doesn’t just support the latest of hardware, it also draws great performance out of the connected devices. That’s clear from our benchmarks on the previous pages.

Features

Supermicro added two LAN ports to the X11SRA, but not in the usual dual Gigabit setup. There’s still an Intel GbE controller for one of the ports, but the other is powered by one of Aquantia’s 5Gbps controller. With it, you can take networking to the next level without having to invest in enterprise-grade 10GbE equipment.

The biggest surprise during my testing was the HD Audio. We got truly impressive results here, especially for an onboard solution. The rest of the connection options are as you will expect them to be, from 7.1 sound to a legacy PS2 combo port. There are plenty of USB ports too, from 2.0 to 3.1.

There’s a wide variety of storage options too. My favourite aspect in that regard is the tool-less locking option for the two M.2 slots. It makes installing them extremely easy and convenient. Besides the M.2 slots, you also get dual U.2 and six SATA ports. The only small downside is that you can’t use IRST on all 6 ports, only on four of them.

All that is topped off with Supermicro’s well-known health monitoring setup.

Pros

Standard form factor and layout for easy setup
Great performance from connected devices
5Gbps onboard LAN
Impressive Audio results
Solid build quality

Cons

Only 4 of 6 SATA ports are IRST RAID capable.

“Supermicro’s X11SRA draws the best possible performance out of all connected devices and parts. A wonderful motherboard for a workstation setup.”