An AMD Threadripper X399 Motherboard Overview: A Quick Look at Seven Products
by Ian Cutress & Joe Shields on September 15, 2017 9:00 AM ESTGIGABYTE
GIGABYTE's initial entry into the Threadripper platform is the X399 AORUS Gaming 7, formally placing the name AORUS into the motherboard listing. In GIGABYTE’s typical product stack of Gaming X versions, models usually have a 3, a 5, a 7 or a 9 at the end. With this one being a Gaming 7, it stands to reason that GIGABYTE might have something for the more extreme Threadripper audience in a future Gaming 9, or a product easier on the wallet in a future Gaming 3. For now, the X399 AORUS Gaming 7 stands alone, although the specifications ensure that it is one of the higher-end products at launch.
Edit: We've been informed that GIGABYTE has an X399 Designare on the way!
X399 AORUS Gaming 7
If the promotional shots are anything to go buy, GIGABYTE is adamant that you must know that the motherboard has RGB LEDs, and it has them almost everywhere. Between the DRAM slots, on all the PCIe slots, through a transparent plastic shield on the chipset heatsink, on the audio shield, and on the IO cover. If you thought RGB was kitsch, then the Gaming 7 is a one way ticket to kitsch central.
As with the other boards in this roundup, quad channel memory at two DIMMs per channel is the name of the game for the socket area, and similarly we get a power delivery system that uses a main heatsink connected to a secondary heatsink by the rear IO via a heatpipe, but carefully hidden under the rear IO vanity plate. In a plus point to marketing, GIGABYTE is listing its power delivery as ‘server class’, using fourth generation International Rectifier (IR) PWM controllers and third generation PowIRstage chokes. The EPS connectors for the power delivery are found in the top left corner of the board, with one 8-pin and one 4-pin.
On the top right of the board is an array of five 4-pin fan headers, paired with an RGBW header marking GIGABYTE’s different approach to added RGB LED connectivity. There other 4-pin fan headers on board, with at least two on the bottom, again with another RGBW header. Speaking of headers, USB connectivity comes through an onboard USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) header from the chipset near the eight SATA ports, a USB 3.0 header on the bottom of the board, two USB 2.0 headers near the power buttons also on the bottom of the board, and a TPM header.
One of the headline features on the Gaming 7 is the support for three M.2 drives, as shown in the image above. The two areas for M.2 drives between the PCIe slots support 110mm long drives, while the area below the heatsink supports a more standard 80mm drive. All three of these M.2 slots come with additional heatsinks, providing a better thermal environment for any drive and not disturbing the aesthetic of the system. Compared to other motherboards, GIGABYTE has implemented this arrangement rather than pursue a separate (or switched) U.2 connector. For other storage, GIGABYTE has equipped the board with eight SATA ports.
The PCIe slot arrangement, despite having every slot with additional RGB and slot reinforcement, only four of these slots are direct from the CPU for peak graphics duty. The slots that are doubly spaced support an x16/x8/x16/x8 arrangement, with the middle slot supporting a separate PCIe 3.0 x4 connection through the chipset. The idea is that the middle slot can be used for an add-in card, such as 10 gigabit Ethernet or additional connectivity while using two GPUs.
Next to the PCIe slots is GIGABYTE’s audio solution, using the Realtek ALC1220 audio codec and implementing an EMI shield, PCB separation for digital and analog signals, filter caps and headphone jack detection. GIGABYTE also likes to promote DAC-UP, ensuring a more consistent USB power delivery port for USB connected audio devices. It’s not necessarily a unique feature, although it rarely gets marketing attention on other motherboards.
Connectivity on the rear IO panel shows one of the few motherboards with a PS/2 port, which can be useful in some environments. Due to the support for USB 3.0 from the CPU, the rear panel has a full set of eight USB 3.0 ports, in yellow, blue and a white color. There is also two USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) ports from the chipset, one of which is USB Type-C. Network connectivity is provided by a Rivet Networks Killer E2500 and a WiFi solution, and at the end are a set of audio jacks.
GIGABYTE supplied a chipset/block diagram as well to show the lane routing on the Gaming 7:
| GIGABYTE X399 AORUS Gaming 7 | |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years |
| Product Page | Link |
| Price | $389.99 |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | TR4 |
| Chipset | AMD X399 |
| Memory Slots (DDR4) | Eight DDR4 Supporting 128GB Quad Channel Support DDR4 3600+ Support for ECC UDIMM (operates in non-ECC mode) |
| Network Connectivity | 1 x Rivet Networks Killer E2500 LAN 1 x Intel 2x2 802.11ac |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC1220 |
| PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots @ x16 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots @ x8 |
| PCIe Slots for Other (from Chipset) | 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slots @ x4 (PCIeX4) |
| Onboard SATA | 8 x Supporting RAID 0/1/10 |
| Onboard SATA Express | None |
| Onboard M.2 | 3 x PCIe 3.0 x4 - NVMe or SATA |
| Onboard U.2 | None |
| USB 3.1 | 1 x Type-C (ASMedia) 1 x Type-A (ASMedia) |
| USB 3.0 | 8 x Back Panel 1 x Header |
| USB 2.0 | 2 x Headers |
| Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin EATX 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V |
| Fan Headers | 1 x CPU 1 x Watercooling CPU 4 x System Fan headers 2 x System Fan/ Water Pump headers |
| IO Panel | 1 x PS.2 keyboard/mouse port 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A 8 x USB 3.0 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port 1 x Optical S/PDIF out 5 x Audio Jacks Antenna connectors |
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ddriver - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link
You should look up into it. A gas turbine is not a jet engine. It is actually more efficient, and it doesn't utilize jet propulsion. Gas turbines power certain tanks, ships and helicopters. They are also used in power plants.thomasg - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link
Honestly, could you just stop bringing your stupid gas turbine rant, since you don't really seem to grasp what efficiency is, and not even what power a typical engine has.Gas turbines are very efficient in use at or around their designed typical load. They are not efficient under medium and low load scenarios, where they will drop below modern gasoline combustion engines.
Those come with 200 kW - in high-powered sports cars, or top-of-the-line luxury limousines.
A "entry level car" will be at max. 75 kW peak power; and guess what: most of the time they are used far below the maximum output.
Modern gasoline car engines typically reach 45% efficiency, which they achieve in their typical load scenarios, at less than 50% of their design load.
Modern gas turbines can reach up to 60% efficiency, which is great - but this is usage at their design load. At half load, the efficiency will drop below 30%. The majority of miles driven with cars are at below half load.
What we expect from car engines is efficiency at their usage, while having enough reserves for quick acceleration. Gas turbines cannot do this efficiently, and gas turbines are notoriously laggy in variable load.
However, they can be used effectively in fully-hybrid cars, where peak-load is achieved by battery-backed electric motors.
But since these engines are so expensive to produce, it is simply more cost-effective to use fully-electric cars for this.
ddriver - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link
Of course that a gas turbine consumer vehicle will also utilize a battery buffer. You basically charge it while stationary, drive on battery until power runs out, which is when the turbine is activated to supply power and charge. An all-electric drive will significantly simplify the design, the transmission, and will ensure maximum torque on any level of power.You are way off, only F1 engines approach 50% of efficiency, but they only last like a few races, which is the cost of that efficiency. Totally impractical for consumer vehicles. The typical operational efficiency of consumer vehicles is as low as 20%. And they are also intrinsically limited in terms of torque delivery, which happens in a specific and rather narrow RPM range.
So, transitioning to gas turbine engines will not have a 100% but a 200% increase in efficiency. I guess little minds simply cannot appreciate then significance of that. Not to mention it will defacto force wide hybrid vehicle adoption, and a very overhead compared to internal combustion engines, as a gas turbine with the same power delivery will weight 1/4 of that, and will deliver 3 times as much energy from the same amount of fuel.
Gas turbine engines are also actually easier to make and maintain, they have far less moving parts. You seem to be confusing a regular gas turbine engine with the ultra-efficient one, which requires expenssive and time staking 5 axis machining of the components. Those exceed 70% efficiency, but if you aim for 60%, the manufacturing is much cheaper, easier and faster. Overall much more cost efficient.
Which is exactly why they are not being adopted. It will result in massive loss of revenue - cheaper engines, that need less of the expensive maintenance, less parts, and burn much less fuel. The priority of the industry is profit, and gas turbine vehicles will result in a massive dip in that aspect. Internal combustion engines are pathetic in terms of efficiency, but are very profit-effective.
ddriver - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link
"and a very LOW overhead compared to internal combustion engines"vgray35@hotmail.com - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link
Get a glue ddriver. This is not about power saved whose numbers are minuscule compared to the power o/p of an automobile engine - IT IS ALL ABOUT TEMPERATURE OF THE INTEGRATED CHIPS WHICH ARE LIMITED TO NOT MUCH MORE THAN 100 deg C, and the difficulty of providing sufficient air flow or liquid cooling necessary to remove that heat. Failure to remove the heat dramatically reduces life of the chips by as much as 60% - 70% life reduction. The problem is greatly curtailed by not using circuity designs that would generate ever larger amounts of waste heat. Please stick to subject matter of this posting, which is about reducing CPU and GPU and VRM operating temperatures, without using huge heat sinks and liquid cooling radiators. How does one reduce these temperatures? The first step is to eliminate >85% of the heat in the ATX PSU, motherboard VRMs, and GPU VRMs, to reduce total heat load on the cooling system. And that technology is already available as mentioned above. Please cease with the 100 kW rhetoric which is meaningless in context of this temperature problem (yes little k for kilo not capitol K). Let's talk about the excess temperature issue. Get it!Thread Ripper is a HEDT platform and thus deserves a HEDT VRM solution, and not the same old worn out technologies that use air-gapped ferrite cored inductors, when resonance scaling permits increased resonant capacitance in exchange for much smaller resonant inductance using cheaper air-cored inductors. And to boot, a dramatic reduction is both size and cost. AMD should lead this charge and bring forth an appropriate reference VRM, using PWM-resonant switching and resonance scaling of the Cr/Lr resonant components. ARE YOU LISTENING AMD - LETS RETIRE THE BUCK CONVERTER ACROSS THE BOARD.
ddriver - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link
Getting glue. Now what?Here is a clue - remove the stock heatsink, install better cooling. Takes like 5 minutes. Heat problem solved. Crude, but it delivers result.
The industry standards are so low, there is barely a product, regardless of its price range, that someone with basic engineering cannot tangibly improve in a few easy steps.
An example, I recently got a yoga 720 2in1. Opened it up, removed the cooling, put good TIM, reinstalled cooling, now I have a 5 minute 5$ improvement that gave me a 10% boost in performance, temperature and battery life. They are just lazy, and don't go even for the most obvious, easiest to implement improvements.
They DONT WANT IT TO RUN COOL. They deliberately engineer it to run at its limit, so close that often they actually mess it up. So that this device can fail, so you can get a new one. It is a time bomb, planned obsolescence, and you can bet your ass they would have done the same regardless of the power delivery circuit involved. It may actually be a far more delicate and harder to address time bomb than hot running VRMs. Which you can easily cool down by ordering a custom heatpipe solution, which will set you back like 50$. That's a rather quick and affordable way to solve your problem, compared to complaining about it in this cesspool of mediocrity ;)
vgray35@hotmail.com - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link
Sorry ddriver, but I disagree with all your perspectives on this matter. You are clearly not capable of addressing the technical issues of Power Supply design for efficiency, and cannot get to grips with electronic circuity (or do not want to) and how different designs compare. You appear only interested in hijacking the original subject matter for your own purposes. You never contributed a single element addressing the original purpose of this thread, and so you have lost your credibility as a serious participant in my book, and hence you and I done.glennst43 - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
Based on my experience with the Asus Zenith Extreme, you can expect a bumpy ride which should not be surprising with a new product. My last 3 systems were Intel X58, X79, and X99 boards purchased shortly after thier releases, and this platform (x399) has had the most issues. I expect that in a few months after some BIOS and driver updates, the experiecne will get much better. I suspect that the validation process is not as thorough as the Intel boards.Here are a few issues that I have experienced as an early adopter:
System would not boot with 2 video cards (resolved with BIOS update)
The 10G Network card would randomly disconnect (resolved? with driver update)
System sometimes will not come back from sleep and requires a hard reset (no resolution yet)
USB devices disconnecting/reconnecting randomly (no resolution yet)
johnnycanadian - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
I'm crossing my fingers I made the correct choice with MSI's x399 offering. I too have been burned by the ASUS early-adopter-penalty and although Gigabyte has been good to me in the past, the MSI offered everything I needed and then some (although I'm firmly in the "get rid of the tacky LED" camp). Everything is getting stuffed into a Cooler Master HAF XB II EVO (with no glass but with the mesh top panel). Even if it's not perfect it can't be worse than running Windows on Boot Camp with a "trash can" (aptly named) Mac "Pro".arter97 - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
ASUS PRIME X399-A : "In the ROG board this lead to a 40mm fan, which is not present here on the Prime."This is wrong. I own one and the fan is present under the shroud.
You can even see it from the side shot of the motherboard.