An AMD Threadripper X399 Motherboard Overview: A Quick Look at Seven Products
by Ian Cutress & Joe Shields on September 15, 2017 9:00 AM ESTCovering the X399 Spectrum
We've seen details on seven boards which, on the surface, can seem similar as far as feature sets go. Owners that just want a Threadripper system to get up and go will get the necessities out of any motherboard listed here. The differences lay in the details: in networking, PCIe layout, RGB, overclocking features, enthusiast level gaming or compute, the want/need for 10 Gigabit ethernet, or storage options like fast M.2 and U.2. Even the type and number of USB ports can all factor into a buying decision.
It is also hard to forget about looks. All motherboards have some form of RGB LEDs scattered around their black PCBs. Some incorporate less than others, with the cheaper boards from ASRock and ASUS only applying them on the chipset heatsink, while others like the Gigabyte X399 AORUS Gaming 7 are loaded to the brim. Only one board, the ASUS X399 Prime, doesn't have wireless or Bluetooth capability. The MSI board sets itself apart from the rest by including bundled sets of vanity plates for the chipset heatsink, I/O and Audio covers, giving owners a bit more flexibility over the boards base appearance. That said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is up to the buyer to figure out which looks best in their system vision. Assuming you care about aesthetics, that is.
PCIe differences come down to the number of slots for the GPUs, and if a user requires tri-slot spacing. For users looking at PCIe co-processors other than GPUs, then there isn't an ideal 7-slot motherboard on the market so far. But plug in a request, see if a manufacturer bites.
What happens when you mix several motherboards together in MSPaint
With Threadripper CPUs TDP set at 180W, an efficient VRM solution will be needed for cool operation, as well as for overclocking: many of the boards are using International Rectifier parts (MSI, GIGABYTE, ASRock) with the phase count ranging from eight to thirteen depending on the board. Keeping the VRMs cool is also a point to be considered, and the boards do this different. ASUS has two heatsinks connected via a heat-pipe, and include a fan for active cooling. The ASRock Professional Gaming, Taichi, and Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 7 also use two heat sinks but are passive (no fans). The MSI has a single VRM heatsink, but has doubled the standard height.
The table below shows several of the specifications differences between the released motherboards. The bold values are the top specifications for the category.
| X399 Motherboard Feature Comparison | |||||||
| ASRock | ASUS | Gigabyte | MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC |
||||
| X399 Taichi | X399 Pro Gaming | Prime X399-A | ROG Zenith | X399 Gaming 7 | |||
| Listed DRAM Freq. | 3600+ | 3600+ | 3200 | 3600 | 3600+ | 3600+ | |
| # PCIe x16 Slots | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | |
| SATA Ports | 8 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 8 | |
| M.2 / U.2 | 3 / 1 | 3 / 1 | 2 / 1 | 3 / 1 | 3 / 0 | 3 / 0 | |
| USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | |
| USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) | 8 | 8 | 12 | 12 | 10 | 6 | |
| USB 2.0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 0 | |
| 10 Gigabit Ethernet | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| 1 Gigabit Ethernet | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 802.11ac | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | |
| 802.11ad | N | N | N | Y | N | N | |
| Form Factor | ATX | ATX | E-ATX | E-ATX | ATX | ATX | |
| MSRP | $350 | $450 | $350 | $550 | $390 | $380 | |
| Current Price (9/11) |
Amazon | - | - | $350 | $520 | $390 | $350 |
| Newegg | $340 | $440 | $350 | $550 | $390 | - | |
The table is clearly not the final discussion - each user has different requirements out of their system and motherboard. Some enthusiasts may want to overclock their boards more than others, or have a need for 10 gigabit Ethernet capabilities or the latest wireless networking options, or require an ATX form factor in their current chassis. Perhaps all of those, or none. We're likely to see further products hit the shelves in the coming months and quarters, especially as AMD has confirmed that this socket will stay for at least one more generation of products.
Pricing on the boards range from $340 (ASRock Taichi), up to $550 for the ASUS' flagship Zenith Extreme so there is quite a range already. All boards detailed here are available, with ASUS saying the Strix arriving later.
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vgray35@hotmail.com - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link
A few % better - you are looking at it wrong. Platinum PSU units with peak 94% efficiency means 6% heat dissipated. Now at 99% efficiency that is 1% dissipated as heat. That means a 5/6th reduction in heat or 83% less heat which is not just a few percent better. Further the new topology yields a >70% cost reduction which is also not insignificant. Gas turbines are also too noisy by the way, which is the main reason these are not considered (expensive when they go wrong too), and thus not a good comparison versus improvements being discussed here. Are you saying the linked article on PWM-resonance and resonance scaling topology is not worthwhile, or the problems with Buck converter inductors is not a severely limited and highly noisy power solution? Perhaps Power Electronics engineering is not your field of interest at all!Manch - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link
ICE is not 60% less efficient than a gas turbine. A gas turbine doesn't scale downward well. One of similar power would actually less efficient as an equivalent rated ICE. Gas turbines are impractical for vehicles.One benefit of a turbine would be no tailgating. The intake would suck in and crap out small critters all over your windshield.
vgray35@hotmail.com - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
Yes I appreciate that - we draw power (Watts) at the rate of Joules of energy per second, Notice I said "we draw power", but that is also directly reflected proportionally as current in Amps (or a rate of Coulombs per sec), There was not a direct inference that power is measured in Amps, but only (a) "We are drawing a measure of power", and (b) this is approaching proportionally a resultant 150A. Yes I probably could have said better, but in wise did I say power is measured in AMPS.vgray35@hotmail.com - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
I do not believe a defacto motto of the industry is "we are wasting 5% in heat, so let us not bother with wasting only 1%). Clearly you did not read the link to the Power Electronics article (I surmise), as then you would have realized the solution offers a huge reduction in cost as well as heat. The cost factor is something everybody is interesting in, even the industry at large, in my humble opinion.ddriver - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
Huge? Like what? 6-7% better? Maybe 8-9%?What I meant is the solution you linked to is like 99% efficient, a good buck converter is what? Like 90-92%?
That's nowhere near the difference between an internal combustion engine and a gas turbine, the latter being more than twice more efficient. And still no adoption, even thou the solution is not really all that complex, and decades old. They still only use gas turbines in the most demanding applications, which is pretty much the same as with the converters from that article, which that dude developed for NASA's most demanding applications. I am pretty sure computers in NASA run on buck converters too, and they will use his designs only for the stuff they launch into space.
You probably don't realize how immense of an impact it would have if all cars on the planet become more than twice as efficient, burning more than twice as little fuel, outputting less than half the harmful emissions, traveling twice as far on a single fill. It would completely dwarf the benefits of boosting computer power converters from 90 to 99% :)
I am not saying it is not cool, I am just saying there have been a lot more beneficial a lot more high priority solutions that haven't been adopted yet for a lot longer, so you should not be surprised that the entire industry hasn't switched to a new power converter design overnight. They will do as they will always do, they will milk the cow until it dies, and then make it into jerky, and only then will then go for the new and better thing.
vgray35@hotmail.com - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link
As noted earlier, 92% which is 8% heat versus 99% which is 1% heat means a 7/8th reduction in heat or 87% reduction. Thinking this is only a 7% improvement differential is incorrect - it is in this example an 87% improvement. That is not small potatoes. When this is coupled with a corresponding large cost reduction, then it becomes apparent the chip manufacturers would rather make more money using the older technology. Maybe the PSU engineers are just plain lazy or are not following the advances in their field as they are snowed under with work.Let's keep the discussion focused on power supplies.vgray35@hotmail.com - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link
The 600W @ 12V fed to the motherboard with ~8% losses is ~50W heat in the VRMs (driving 180W CPU, 320W GPU, leaving 100W for other parts), The ATX power supply is 90% efficient or less with 60W heat also in the same case. The GPU power supply also is another 25W waste power supply heat, for a total of 135W of waste heat (as opposed to the useful heat generated within the various components themselves, which is heat generated from useful work being done). It is tough to manage this 660W in the case, but over 135W of it (>21% low ball estimate) is waste heat from just power supplies alone (ATX PSU, VRMs, GPU supply), of which over 80% or 110W could be eliminated by abandoning the Buck converter topology. This of course is a simplistic view, as there are other components too that are ignored here, for brevity's sake. I suspect >25% of heat comes from power supplies alone which can be dramatically curtailed. It's a 3 ringed circus: ATX PSU steals 10% for itself, motherboard steals another 8% for itself and GPU steals a further 8% for itself. We have no control over the power drawn from the mega chips themselves, but we do have control over the power supplies that drive them, and manufacturers could be doing a lot better here. And this is by no means a monster power hungry system with only one high-end graphics card. A >85% reduction in power supply waste heat can be realized if the Buck converter is abandoned, and that applies to resonant LLC power supplies also. The motherboard manufacturers and ATX PSU manufacturers need to take this aspect much more seriously.http://www.powerelectronics.com/power-management/s...
AMD's Thread Ripper X399 and Intel's X299 platforms should have been their first attempt at abandoning the Buck, half-bridge, and resonant LLC topologies. They failed us in that regard. We need this fiasco to come to an end by using hybrid PWM-resonant switching and resonance scaling, which eliminates the ferrite cored inductors altogether, and replaces them with just copper traces on the PCB. This is not rocket science.
Oxford Guy - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link
Motherboard makers seem pretty much incompetent. They can't even be bothered to issue BIOS updates to fix serious bugs.ddriver - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link
Yeah, but then again, an overclocked TR is like 200W, even an entry level car is like 200 KILOWATTS. So percentages are not really that much indicative.The facts remain. A TR mobo with a better power regulator circuit will save like 10 watts of power, a car with a gas turbine engine will save like 100 KW of power.
That's 10 000 times larger saving measured on absolute scales. What's more important in your opinion? Saving a watt, or saving 10 000 watts? Naturally, I'd rather have both. The goal here is to illustrate how low of a priority it is to improve mobo power delivery compared to some other, longer standing improvement opportunities that have been ignored.
Icehawk - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link
They tried turbine cars, they are terrible due to the way they deliver power. Several successful drag cars have used them as in that application the power delivery works well. Same reason we aren't going to be driving rocket cars.