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http://www.3dprofessor.org/Reviews%20Folder%20Pages/X9SCA/X9SCAP10.htm[8/9/2011 1:19:09 PM]
Supermicro X9SCA Workstation/Server Mainboard
Conclusions and Award
Where to start; three words say it all - extremely beyond belief. We saw the gold standard being set by the X8SAX mainboard with its no frills superb upgrade
path and once more we are left with the same scenario. The Supermicro X9SCA is a mainboard that packs a punch with all that you need. Flexibility of
choice, the need for speed and exceptional unquestionable performance.
Let’s start with a few basic's sometimes heavily overlooked. Many will have noted the slight pull out lever on the PCI Express rail has gone, simple but
effective to the S.I. who places multiple cards in and out of a system to check out complete compatibility with the graphic cards. As stated, it’s simple but on
some mainboards with with very large professional cards (now becoming the norm) an important feature which helps in the speed up process whilst
switching things around.
Hidden away in the Bios are the basic set-ups required to get you up and running. No fancy timings or values that might rattle many a monocell rushing to
the manual; just a straight forward working bios that allows one to be up and running within minutes. This has been an area that Supermicro has excelled in
for many years. For those who wish to tweak then there are some additional options to raise the stakes and overclock the board and CPU. Today this is
radically important as speed and time is of the essence to all, therefore the less we have to worry about a confusing bios the better. Some may argue no,
others applaud. A debate for another day, though for now this is excellent as it will mean even the most basic end user can be up and completely functional
within a very short time frame. It has to be reiterated time is money and the least hindrances in downtime means more uptime and functionality whether in
the server room manipulating those all-important transactions, or completing a monstrous render/redraw output.
The results, as noted from our first outing of the X9SCA in the new SPECapc for 3ds MAX 2011™ benchmark this is quite an achieving mainboard. Fast and
stable are the key principles to which every end-user wants.
Within page 6 of the article and the Intel 510 series SSD at 25% capacity we ran quickly the AS SSD test to see what sort of drop in performance would be
within the disc. Surprising enough after 8 days of very heavy usage and no implementation of the SSD toolbox we found the drive to be performing at near
peak performance from the initial bare test completed 8 days pervious. So proof of concept within this important part of the system show how well the
current Intel SSD’s actually do perform. A point to be seriously considered.
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