An AMD Threadripper X399 Motherboard Overview: A Quick Look at Seven Products
by Ian Cutress & Joe Shields on September 15, 2017 9:00 AM ESTASRock X399 Taichi
The X399 Taichi is configured at a lower point down the ASRock product stack from the Professional Gaming. The Taichi forgoes 10 Gigabit Ethernet, and instead of the Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 3 suite for audio the Taichi uses Purity Sound 4 and a Realtek ALC1220 Codec.
Normally we associate ASRock’s Taichi models with black and white, but this time ASRock has made the board white and grey and drawing attention to the fact that the LEDs can be white if needed. So this means the X399 Taichi has a black PCB with gray accents in the shape of cogs on the PCB area between the PCIe slots and around the chipset heatsink. The DRAM slots are black, while the dual heatsinks for the VRM stretch around to the rear IO via a heatpipe are gray. Much like the Professional Gaming, the only integrated RGB LEDs are under the chipset heatsink, although there are two RGB LED headers for connecting additional RGB strips, all of which can all be controlled by the RGB LED application bundled with the board.
Just like the Professional Gaming, the Taichi supports up to 4-Way SLI and 4-Way Crossfire, with the PCIe slots reinforced using ASRock’s ‘Steel Slot’ protection. From top to bottom, the PCIe slots offer x16/x8/x16/x8 connectivity, taking 48 of the 60 PCIe lanes from the chipset. The final twelve are dedicated to storage with three onboard PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots, one of which is switched with a U.2 connector. Other storage connectivity comes from eight SATA ports, supporting RAID 0/1/10.
The X399 Taichi uses two Intel I211AT gigabit Ethernet controllers, as well as an Intel 3168 1x1 802.11ac WiFi module.
In an almost copy-paste of the Pro Gaming, the Taichi uses the same digital 11 phase IR solution, along with the same EPS placement on the board. USB connectivity on the Taichi is the same as well, with three USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) Type-A ports on the rear panel, one USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) Type-C port on the rear panel, two onboard USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) headers for the front panel, and two USB 2.0 headers as well.
| ASRock X399 Taichi | |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years |
| Product Page | Link |
| Price | $339.99 |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | TR4 |
| Chipset | AMD X399 |
| Memory Slots (DDR4) | Eight DDR4 Slots, up to 3600 MT/s Supporting 128GB Quad Channel |
| Network Connectivity | 2 x Intel I211AT GbE |
| Wireless Network | 802.11 ab/g/n/ac Dual-Band (2.4/5 GHz) Bluetooth 4.2 |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC1220 |
| PCIe Slots | 4 x PCIe 3.0 (x16/x8/x16/x8) from CPU 1 x PCIe 2.0 x1 from Chipset |
| Onboard SATA | 8x Supporting RAID 0/1/5/10 |
| Onboard SATA Express | None |
| Onboard M.2 | 3 x PCIe 3.0 x4 - NVMe or SATA |
| Onboard U.2 | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 (disables M2_1 when in use) |
| USB 3.1 | 1 x Type-A, 1 x Type-C (Rear Panel) |
| USB 3.0 | 8 x Rear Panel, 4x via internal headers |
| USB 2.0 | 4 x via internal headers |
| Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin ATX 1 x 8-pin CPU |
| Fan Headers | 1 x CPU (4-pin) 1 x CPU Opt/Water Pump (4-pin) 2 x Chassis (4-pin) 1 x Chassis Opt/Water Pump (4-pin) |
| IO Panel | 2 x Antenna Ports 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A Port 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C Port 8 x USB 3.0 Ports 4 x USB 3.0 Ports 2 x RJ-45 LAN Ports w/ LED 1 x BIOS Flashback Switch HD Audio Jacks |
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
99 Comments
View All Comments
mapesdhs - Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - link
According to page 34 of the mbd manual, the main slots are wired x16/x8/x16/x8.msroadkill612 - Saturday, September 23, 2017 - link
Alternately put, no TR allows 3x 16x slots I think.markmi - Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - link
Context: X399 AORUS Gaming 7(rev. 1.0)I asked GIGABYTE about the ECC mode handling for this
board and they reported:
"It can support ECC memory by default in ECC mode."
So the table in the article that says "operates in non-ECC mode"
for this board is wrong on the issue as far as I can tell.
ntsarb - Saturday, September 23, 2017 - link
I'm waiting for a 6+1 PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, x399 motherboard, with 3x PLX switches to allow for 6x GPUs, for a rendering workstation. The ASRock X99 WS-E and the Asus X99 WS-E are no longer available in the market.karatekid430 - Thursday, October 26, 2017 - link
Quote from article:"Thunderbolt 3 certification requires a few things from the CPU side like graphical output which we haven't been able to do. We expect this will be developed upon through Raven Ridge and possibly get more groundwork down to activate TB3 on the X399 Designare EX."
End quote from article.
Then how do Intel Skylake-X with X299 motherboard have Thunderbolt 3 certification, when Skylake-X has no integrated graphics?
Hence why the quoted statement sounds fishy to me.
Cooe - Thursday, April 4, 2019 - link
*facepalm* Because Thunderbolt was developed, and is owned by Intel. They can license whatever they want to be Thunderbolt capable, because they literally created it, and set the standard for what is & isn't. Intel hasn't actually opened up Thunderbolt licensing & certification for non-Intel platforms yet like they promised though, so Gigabyte can't do anything about anything until they do & let AMD CPU's be TB3 capable.Techmister - Saturday, February 17, 2018 - link
MOtherboards need to be powerful no doubt in that. What attracted me towards The ASUS Strix X399-E Gaming is that it has an system which is automated to facilitate a five way optimisation http://www.printspoolerservices.com/printer-issues...">How to fix printer spooler error