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 |
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BoemlauweBas - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
The fact you still can't buy them is one thing, and it will be expensive. Then again, if money ain't a thing & you'll agree one kidney should be enough for anyway. Buy this for your (Yes, it's in the sales sheet) for you games / media. For the real OG's would go for something like Sandisk's Infiniflash.....I know right .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWvrOItRSyQ
plonk420 - Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - link
you go fairly high end motherboard, but then you get terrible SATA cards? ಠ_ಠyeah, do like Supermicro (there's a couple cards low $100s) or at least that Adaptec.
just like IDE cards back in the day... buy a crap card, get crap performance.
mapesdhs - Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - link
It's a shame Intel's never made a PCIe card using its own controller, because of course Intel's SATA3 ports on its own boards always work nicely. But then, if they did, loads of people would buy the card to fit to older boards (especially X58, Z68, X79, etc.) instead of upgrading to a newer board, and it'd be cool to have such an option for AMD boards aswell. Never gonna happen though I guess.Oksana - Saturday, September 19, 2020 - link
I really like Thunderbolt, but also want to build a Threadripper computer. Is it possible to have the best of both worlds and add a thunderbolt card?ddriver - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
It has six. How much do you need? Considering it also has 3 M2 slots.That 10 gbit lan card is for connecting to a proper nas server. You don't cram a workstation with a dozen HDDs.
nathanddrews - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
I'm not building a workstation.ddriver - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
So you are building a file server then? Senseless choice of hardware then ;)HomeworldFound - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
A file server is a good wife excuse to build with a Threadripper. He can pretend he needs one core per hard drive and in order to stream video to more than one TV he needs two GPUs. It works.ddriver - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
So a dumb wife having to approve your purchases is a realistic scenario? :DHomeworldFound - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
In my location telling people that you can build a computer makes people want to touch you.