The AMD Threadripper 2 Teaser: Pre-Orders Start Today, Up to 32 Cores
by Ian Cutress on August 6, 2018 9:00 AM ESTX399 Motherboards: The MSI X399 Creation
For the motherboard situation, AMD clarified that all motherboards on the market today will be able to run the new 250W processors. The differences will be in how well each motherboard will be able to overclock, with AMD citing that the newer models and revisions should perform better, given that they were built with a higher power rating already in mind. Boards like the X399 Creation should also help in pushing the first generation Ryzen Threadripper.
Box. Has board inside.
As noted back at Computex, the MSI X399 Creation is a very visually busy motherboard. Lots of angles, and lots of shades of grey. I know it is customary in some Asian languages and magazines to be very dense, and this is kind of what that looks like. Most of the time I prefer a simpler, elegant design. This design does not scream elegance.
The key headline for this motherboard is the power delivery. MSI has put 16 phases on the processor, and another three for "uncore" portion of the chip, or as AMD calls it, the SoC. In order to fit them in, the DRAM slots are slightly further down than average, but it also allows MSI to put in a larger heatsink, which also connects to the heatsink near the rear panel of the board.
In case you forget the name: Creation.
Storage on the motherboard comes in two forms: eight SATA ports, and seven M.2 drives. That is not a typo: MSI has enabled this motherboard with seven M.2 slots. Three come from on the board, and are found under the chipset heatsink. Here are two of them:
The other four comes from an add-in PCIe card. We also saw this at Computex, and it uses a dual-slot design. It looks like a GPU:
But inside are four M.2 slots, with thermal pad on the heatsink to assist with cooling.
MSI states that this was built specifically with Threadripper in mind, so I’m going to annoy our SSD reviewer, Billy Tallis, to hand over a few more drives.
Also on the board is an extensive rear panel, with USB 3.1 ports, USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi:
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solnyshok - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Seriously hot, you meant?TheWereCat - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
My overclocked 1080ti does 350W when playing games.It is fairly easy to cool it but yes, the room gets hot a lot.
I cant imagine doing both GPU and CPU intensive workload for a few houra with the TR2 and the 1080ti and staying in the room (if you dont have an AC like me, its a huge pain).
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
That's the price you pay for gaming and for increased power. A long time ago, CPUs didn't even need heatsinks.just4U - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
Ian, will you be reviewing this with the high-end ‘Wraith Ripper’ cooler? I am curious about it.. Also that cat is awesome looking! More pics with Summer!marsdeat - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
Some quick typos and errors on the first page that I noticed from citing for Wikipedia.Top table "AMD SKUs":
- 2950X should be $899, not $849
- 2920X base should be 3.5, not 3.4
Middle table "Stacks and Prices":
- 2970WX should be $1299, not $1249
Bottom table "The Battle":
- 2950X should be "180 W", the 'W' needs capitalising
- 2970WX should be $1299, not $1249
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
Right you are. Thanks!rocky12345 - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
Yea I can not wait for the reviews on the TR 2990WX & the TR 2950X. I do hope they let the reviewers do the reviews for both of the 2 top TR's in their class at the same time. I only say this because even though the TR 2990WX will most likely be able to game it will probably not be that great at it because that is not what it was made for and the TR 2950X being a bit higher clocked and most likely more over clock friendly will be a whole lot better at games.SO if we get some reviewers focusing more on just the gaming end of it and then they come to the conclusion of the TR 2990WX sucks at gaming the whole internet will spread the fud around like wild fire. I know Anandtech will do the proper work load tests so this site will be my first go to to get the proper picture.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
AMD already created a gaming mode on the top model of previous Threadripper, which disabled cores. If that doesn't tell people these aren't supposed to be gaming chips what will?These are workstation chips. They're for doing work. They will game okay but that is not their purpose at all, especially the more you move up the stack.
IntoGraphics - Friday, August 10, 2018 - link
I wish that those DDR4 prices would come down though.64GB is the minimum of my Linux KVM DDR4 requirement.
sharath.naik - Monday, August 13, 2018 - link
there is very little reason to buy intel HCC processors anymore.