Aiwandia
 Are you trying to tell me that of two new EVGA SR2 I should expect a better than vanishing chance of less than perfection?

 
From my experience - yes. If it works, it'll probably work forever (i.e. not more broken than the BIOS bugs and design faults would dictate). If it is faulty in some way, getting a reliably working replacement is, IME, not a given. I have two SR-2s. First one I bought new, and it was having all sorts of intermittent issues and a duff PCIe slot #1. I bought the 2nd one (2nd hand) just to have another one to compare the behaviour with as a sanity cross-check. With a board this complex it can be very difficult to establish what the problem is, or even whether some bizzare behaviour is a fault or an expected design fault. From what you said you have two already - this will save you a lot of sanity.
 

Aiwandia
Really it is astounding how in both hardware and software consumer electronics these days, in their incessant rush to market, the monopolists force consumers to do their product testing for them. ...

 
I don't think there's a conspiracy in play - good old fashioned incompetence is far more likely. There are still manufacturers that make reliable and well supported equipment (supported as in they are likely to fix BIOS/firmware bugs when they are discovered, as opposed to merely having an approachable and efficient RMA service - EVGA excell at the latter, but aren't all that great on the former). But the reliable well supported equipment is generally server grade, and isn't tunable.
 
What is the reason to populate all the slots? There are a total of 64 PCIe lanes to the slots (and fewer than that to the CPUs, the NF200 PCIe bridges are doing some multiplexing magic and using direct DMA, bypassing the upstream bridge for DMA operations, which is the reason why VT-d is problematic with those PCIe bridges). So you can have 4x PCIe x16 cards and you have used up all the PCIe lanes.
 
Slots 1,3,5,7 are x16 if the next slot after them is empty. Slots 2,4,6 are always x8. If anything is in the even numbered slot, the slot just before it will be in x8 mode as well. For example, with slots 1 and 2, the options are x16+x0 or x8+x8.
 
Just about all GPUs these days are dual slot. The only way you'll even get access to the next slot along is by using a PCIe riser cable, and those are usually only rated for PCIe v1.1 (SR-2s slots are PCIe v2.0).
Anyway, I'm not sure what you expect to gain by having more slots.
 
If you are using two PSUs, the voltages are never exactly equally matched, which will inevitably mean the rails one one will end up pushing against the rails on the other. You will also have to come up with a method to power up the second PSU, as only one will get the ATX power-on signal from the motherboard. You could just put a paper clip across the two relevant pins on the second PSU to make it always-on, but that means half of your hardware will always be powered and you'll have to use the switch on the back of the PSU (or pull the all plug). But more importantly, there is nothing to be gained from it. A good 1500W PSU will have more than enough power and cables for any meaningful usage.
 
And I wouldn't use a dual GPU card, for the same reason I wouldn't use SLI. It's a lot of extra heat, expense and complexity for far too little gain. If you want something that will just work with the SR-2, get a single 780Ti. They are probably going fairly cheap now on ebay since the 980 is out. The 980 is about the same performance, but much better idle power level. But, as I said, if you look through the forum here you'll find some people have reported issues with mixing the 980 cards with the SR-2. I cannot comment further because I don't have any 980 cards myself.

 Got it, one rail is better than two in the PSU dept.
 Believe I'll compare cores and ram of your duel-slot 780Ti to single-slot PNY K4200, then possibly relocate reference (nVidia?) as to why 8x is enough. Must be I imagined it. Don't need to fill every slot but if it still a Monster HPTX seven-slot to be used to max. if the main thread still relevant.
 Speaking of SR2 refurbishments, saw some ads but no mention who, what, where, why, when, how. Much to indeterminate a proposition to be involved with unless desperate. I'd replace a capacitor myself is about all.
 Pertinent info. much appreciated, TY.  
 Give it a rest now; Soon to see like-new factory seal anti-static bag on as "new" SR2 A2.
Mucho Bravo!
   
 

Tesla K8 duel-slot or not? "subject to change", prerelease.
Titan Z not an option, apparently adapted Tesla K80 teaser, bid it up folks.
PNY K4200 reviews limited, untried in SLI?
Does PNY exist at discretion of NVidia-EVGA?
Does AMD exist at discretion of Intel?
Did Carl Cargill write "Information Technology Standardization"?
"Ho Ho Ho, Green Giant"
 

ECC Graphics Cards?
NVidia Quadro 6000 (only?) vs  AMD FirePro 9000-10000 (passive cooling optional) 
What other motherboards give 12 core, 24 thread, ECC option?
 

No, sorry, can afford to build at last.
AMD has top notch ECC GPU card much cheaper than NVidia.
Here to see gordan79 96GB ECC RAM (96 how?).
IDK but ECC what set apart SR2 these days.
Before long be 2nd rate but it still now my preference.
Seeing huge price gap between X99 and Xeon servers.
These days "little old low-powered" 1366 x2 be economical.
If GPU s10000 work slot7, 6 slots be up for grabs.
Mix Tesla with AMD, call it Emerald/Fire?
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, Super Record.  
   

 "Thanks for treating us like idiots EVGA!" Is that right?
 Am I the only person on the face of the Earth with an unopened SR-2 A1 other than EVGA?
 Your asking me on an EVGA forum where you can buy an SR-2. Let's make a list.
 I'M OF THE OPINION EVGA SHOULD PROVIDE EVERY EVGA SR-2 OWNER AN ECP V3 on request,
even if they need to build a new factory to do it.  
 On E-bay this day was a partially constructed(barebones) used SR-2 for sale. It was being called an A1 SR-2.
Pictured with it was an SR-2 box. The ad specified the inclusion of all original parts. Deciding to maybe buy it,
I looked at the pictures but none of the pictures showed what I thought an ECP v3 might look like. The auction ending was a few hours off so messaged seller if an ECP was included. I specified not to ship the items to me if an ECP v3 was not included as per the ad. Winning the items at auction, my payment was accepted, then refunded, as the seller canceled the contract. I'd instructed him to cancel it for lack of an ECP v3. After the fact, his messages indicated I should be sleeping well despite spoiling the auction for him, no ECP was available with the board, and the pictured box did not say an ECP was part of the package. His other EVGA SR-2 possibly is the A2. My unopened SR-2 A1 indicates an ECP is with the product.
 I empathize with this fellow owner of both SR-2 versions wishing him the best. In my short while with E-bay I see bait and switch tactics being scripted with evidently apparent nonchalance. I've already mentioned to E-bay what was a Uniform Commercial Code reference to the higher ethical standard to be expected from merchants as opposed to customers. IMO, it appears the seller of the SR-2 A1 (less the original ECP part and the original box) was merely reiterating in a smallish fashion THE BAIT AND SWITCH TACTIC EVGA PRACTICES ON A VERY GRAND SCALE, first selling the product some few months with an ECP, then repackaging that same product less only the ECP and calling it a new version.
 Maybe, IDK, I should post the reply from EVGA regarding the Warranty  on the five year old unopened
EVGA SR-2 A1. Most every day is an EVGA SR-2 Warranty being misrepresented on E-bay? How about we also see what is said about said Warranty on the overclock net SR-2 owners forum. I have not much idea what it really says. Indications are the EVGA SR-2 is no longer supported. What part?
 "BRAVO" Jason Robard(sp), Once Upon A Time In The West
 "Thanks for treating us like idiots EVGA!"
           

Bagged ECP v3 e-bay used 25 and shipping so done on that subject.
Waited years to build, see Sypthyrya at OC net.
Nothing spectacular at first, just max stock SR-2 with up-to-date accessories.   

 Yea, Game On!
 

You don't need dual sockets any more these days. You can get a single 18 core Xeon, drop it into an OC-ing grade board and be ahead of what is possible with the SR-2 and in a smaller power, noise and space footprint, not to mention with fewer hardware and firmware bugs.

anyone wanna sell there SR-2 im looking for one but cant find it anywheres

I picked up a SR-2 with a pair of 5690’s
Going with 3x8 gigs of mem.
2 x GTX1070Ti
2 x 1tb. SSD’s
Watercooling
Monsta 420 Rad.
2 x Alphacool Eisbaer (Solo)
7 x140mm fans
2 x 230mm

I have a new silverstone ST1200-PT
Will this be enough power?

spilart
 
hello
currently owner of a EVGA SR2 + Two Xeons X5690
Fully satisfied, but my question now and especially what concerns me
is that this RIG still has plenty of time to get old?
with all that is shaping up, how many years left him before
the Z97 or X99 is really worth a port in x58?
I await your reply with impatience, because it requires that I decided
I do not want to regret my uppgrade later
the SR2 is still the monster again ?
thank you very much And sorry for my poor english :)

I installed two 1080 Hydro Coppers in my SR-2 with X5680's and I'm still happy with this board so far. 

I currently set my bios a little on the energy savings side so I disabled hyper-threading and other than the  cpu voltage I set most other voltages to auto. Clocked at 4.175mhz with just 12 cores board is running solid and cool.

A have a new model PSU chieftec GPS-1350c in external 6xGPU rack, very powerful PSU , fullspeed no problemas and silent + cheap :-)
Probably perfect in SR-2.
 

Nice sr-2 movie.
Note :If u play game with sr-2, turn off HT in bios an u get better FPS.