Mini-ITX SoC Xeon D-1521 4-Core, FCBGA 1667 Motherboard - X10SDV-4C-TLN2F-O

This is a zippy board and runs VMWare ESXi 6.0U2 very well, but you must do two things to get this setup working properly: 1) Install a CPU Fan. I used a 60mm full PWM fan and some zip ties to attach it to the heatsink. 2) Install the Intel 10GbE drivers in VMWare after installation (or make a custom installation ISO) since ESXi 6.0U2 does not support them out of the box IPMI is great but the SuperMicro provided app is very clunky. Hardware performance is fantastic.

Using this as a Compute Node with Joyent Triton Datacenter. It's working well, but the heat sink situation is a real hassle. This seems to be designed to work in a 1U case with lots of air blowing over the passive heat sink. I bought a SuperMicro SuperChassis CSE-721TQ-250B, but that one big fan doesn't seem to be enough to keep the processor cool. Finding a replacement (active) heat sink is difficult - I was able to track down a model number from SuperMicro after they initially said there is no active option. I pointed at a similar board (once of the TNL4F variants) with an active heat sink and they did some research to identify a model number of SNK-C0057A4L but said they don't have any in stock. I ordered one from a third party - fingers crossed that it fits correctly and I can close up the case and turn off the Vornado fan I have sitting next to it right now. I also looked at just getting one of the recommended cases (they're both 1U rack mount things which don't make a lot of sense in a home office). But even going that route, those cases don't come with fans (they're a separate option) and I couldn't locate a source for the compatible fan assembly - SuperMicro's site doesn't offer any options for the 1U case fans. Really odd. Five stars for SuperMicro's support. Minus one star for the cooling hassle (even when using all SuperMicro components). Oh, and the first board Amazon shipped was in a box that was labelled with the correct model number (X10SDV blah blah blah) but the board inside was an X10SRL variant with a processor socket (and no processor). All of the supporting documentation in the box was also for the SRL board - it looks like SuperMicro just slapped the wrong label on the outside of the box. Amazon was quick to replace the incorrect product. UPDATE 10/2017: Installed the active heat sink/fan combo mentioned above (it fit perfectly). Getting the old one off was a little tricky; after unscrewing it, I had to pry at it a little with a screwdriver against the nearby molex power connector. It eventually popped off, leaving some hard thermal paste on the processor. I used an alcohol wipe to scrub at it and sort of chip it off (and a can of air to blow out any chips that may have landed anywhere on the board during that process). The CPU temperature is now well-regulated and I'm very happy with this board. Here's an output from ipmitool showing the various sensor temps: [root@cn-xeon (us-west-1) ~]# ipmitool sensor | grep Temp CPU Temp | 44.000 | degrees C | ok | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 97.000 | 102.000 | 102.000 System Temp | 37.000 | degrees C | ok | -10.000 | -5.000 | 0.000 | 80.000 | 85.000 | 90.000 Peripheral Temp | 41.000 | degrees C | ok | -10.000 | -5.000 | 0.000 | 80.000 | 85.000 | 90.000 MB_10G Temp | 51.000 | degrees C | ok | -5.000 | 0.000 | 5.000 | 95.000 | 100.000 | 105.000 DIMMA1 Temp | 43.000 | degrees C | ok | -5.000 | 0.000 | 5.000 | 80.000 | 85.000 | 90.000 DIMMA2 Temp | 43.000 | degrees C | ok | -5.000 | 0.000 | 5.000 | 80.000 | 85.000 | 90.000 With the passive heat sink, the temperature would just rise uncontrollably until it exceeded the safe threshold and triggered the board alarm.

LAN card stopped detecting connections. Supermicro will not honor warranty because there’s a scratch on the cpu heatsink. Not sure how a heatsink would cause the LAN to stop working. Now I’m out $500. Stay away from this terrible company.

perfect for small virtual environments

I've read about others here needing to buy a separate CPU cooler because it overheats in the Supermicro mini chassis. If you put this passively cooled motherboard with CPU into a Supermicro CS3-721TQ-250B or CS3-721TQ-350B then know that the chassis when purchased separately will not include an air shroud to adequately cool the passively cooled CPU. You'd need to purchase the air shroud separately In other words, if you use this in a Supermicro Mini chassis then I would highly recommend also purchasing the supermicro mylar plastic air shroud which would normally only be preinstalled if you purchased the system prebuilt with motherboard and chassis together from supermicro: SYS-5028 series Mylar Air Shroud Supermicro part# MCP-310-00076-0B the air shroud is specifically made for the Supermicro CSI-721Q mini chassis and these XEON D-1521 series motherboards.

Bought this board to build a lab machine for testing VM scenarios. This particular motherboard doesn't have a CPU fan and the case I was using while well ventilated wasn't pushing enough air across the heat sink and it quickly overheated. I ended up buying a regular quiet case fan that had silicone standoffs and attached it to the CPU heat sink. The machine runs great and is currently running a few VMs. Later I will be using it to migrate VMware to Hyper-V. Be aware this is a server motherboard and as such it doesn't include many of the standard things a normal consumer board would have like extra USB headers, on board sound, etc. But I imagine if you are looking at this board then you know what you are after.

It is a great little board with many features. Lost 0.5 star for not enough USB 3; I know not an enterprise thing. The other 0.5 star, due to the need of a fan. I bought this board specifically because it didn't have a fan, but if you're going to put this into a consumer chasis, with case fans, plan on adding a CPU fan.

after buying this board you will face two problems: 1) cpu is very hot. i used black 140mm noctua cooler to cool it (i've just put it over heatsink without any fixating). 2) motherboard is suited for use with 1u supermicro case, which have small loud coolers. motherboard will try to spin any coolers you connect as fast as they can. i wrote small python script which runs in background and controls spin speed with ipmitool.

Couldn't get the board to work and they refunded quickly