Thanks again - i've been digging into the specs of those boards and it does look like you have to go pretty far down that list to get to a board that can suppor

Thanks again - i've been digging into the specs of those boards and it does look like you have to go pretty far down that list to get to a board that can support 4x PCI-E v3 x16 simultaneously so you were right with your first comment that it is $250+ HP DL380's which can take 2 cards for $200 - pretty good.