Dual 1366 x58 Motherboard Recommendation

[Collider]

I happen to have 2 x X5650 Xeons available to me, I am currently using one of them in my Asus P6T board (full specs in signature).

Dual 1366 boards can be found in $100-200 range which makes it a reasonable upgrade to consider - X5650 overclocked in the 3.8-4 Ghz range performs on par with stock 4770K and running 2 x X5650 Xeons at a ~4Ghz OC would likely be on par even with an overclocked 5960X. All in all these server parts are pretty cheap now days and offer some serious horsepower.

Need to find a board that will fit in full size tower, using Thermaltake Speedo Advance which should have plenty of room (I think..)
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00001251

I also plan to overclock so ideally the board would be easy to work with and have unlocked multipliers.

Please post some recommendations & comments / remarks to consider. Thanks.

 

[Burpo]

There is only 1 board that supports 2 CPU's and will overclock (somewhat). EVGA SR-2 Classified..
Good luck on finding one and then getting a deal.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/151904454901?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=82

 

[Mercennarius]

There is only 1 board that supports 2 CPU's and will overclock (somewhat). EVGA SR-2 Classified..
Good luck on finding one and then getting a deal.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/151904454901?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=82

Correct.

If you plan on running a dual socket 1366 and don't want to spend $500+ on a finicky but awesome EVGA SR-2 then your only option is to just get the highest factory clocked chips and be happy with them (X5690s). I'm personally running dual X5690s and am completely satisfied with their performance at stock clocks, more than enough for most anything I throw at them.

 

[Collider]

Wow I cant believe these boards hold their value that well - I mean its 5 year old hardware.

Even my Asus P6T Deluxe v2 is ~ $225 on ebay, I mean I bought the thing new for $275 5 years ago.

I gotta say that going LGA 1366 was probably the best investment ever hardware-wise. Adding a Xeon w/ OC easily extends the life of the platform - the only thing I can complain about is the lack of M2 / NVMe support.

Ok - so how about a non OC board recommendation ?

Anything that would support boot from NVMe or M2 PCIe ?

(This would make the switch worthwhile even w/o the OC).

 

[Burpo]

You would need something like this and a 4x PCI-e slot..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/M-2-NGFF-SS...237667?hash=item3ce56e2123:g:PTMAAOSw3ydViEKJ

 

[Collider]

You would need something like this and a 4x PCI-e slot..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/M-2-NGFF-SS...237667?hash=item3ce56e2123:g:PTMAAOSw3ydViEKJ

I think it will be a problem to boot unless the boards bios supports it.

 

[Burpo]

Many of the 4X adapters boot fine in X58 boards..
"Before buying an OZC revodrive, I need to know if the P6T will boot from an ssd plugged into a pcie x16 slot. Thanks!"

"It will work in the x16 slot but theres a bit of work to get it running like you might need to disconnect other drives in the system until you get it installed. But yeh any x4 card will work in the x16 slot."

"we used P6T's and had no issues..."

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?board_id=1&model=P6T&id=20100910071928425&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

HyperX Predator also known to boot in P6T
http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/kingston-hyperx-predator-m-2-pcie-ssd-review-480gb/

I had a OZC revodrive in my SaberTooth briefly and it booted fine.

 

[theAnimal]

There is only 1 board that supports 2 CPU's and will overclock (somewhat). EVGA SR-2 Classified..

Somewhat? I got my X5650s to 4GHZ stable, 50% OC is pretty good I'd say.