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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mjz_5 - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Wow, come on people. We should all be praising AMD and hating INTEL for juicing us up for all these years. We should welcome competition and purchase AMD to show Intel that what they have done in the past is not right!mapesdhs - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Buy AMD if it's a better solution for your problem, not because doing so somehow conveys some emotional concept of which Intel will be completely unaware. Buying things in that way is no less daft than buying Intel just because it's Intel. Steve at GN describes this whole thing best, in this case with regard to GPU flame wars, but the same thing applies to CPU arguments:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyAOtQOu2YM
And what does "hating Intel" even mean? Intel is a company; as such, it isn't an entity with agency and awareness with which it can respond to someone who 'hates' it. So much emotional language with all this. :D Fact is, nobody has been forced to buy an Intel CPU for their gaming PC or whatever, they made a free choice to do that.
This is more to do with the expression of in-group preference, people feeling like they're with one gang or the other, or the need to defend their purchasing decisions.
If you don't like some product strategy that Intel uses, then don't buy their products, or if you still need something better and AMD has nothing to offer, then look at the 2nd-hand market, eg. there's often good value in used XEONs, and even today, old X79 can often hold its own rather well (especially for gaming above 1080p).
Ian.
Fujikoma - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
In the U.S., the courts have determined that a business can have beliefs with which to avoid laws and discriminate. Hobby Lobby decision. Citizens United decision. Not disagreeing with what you're saying, but the U.S. has some issues when classifying people and for-profit entities.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
Certain people have been determined, as usual, to have fewer rights than others. Protected classes can't be discriminated against.PeachNCream - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
The new Threadrippers are interesting products, but I'm not really that concerned either way about how they actually perform since they're not practical products for any of my computing needs. They're too hot to cool passively, too big for a laptop chassis, and far too expensive for web browsing or watching a few videos. It's a shame Anandtech doesn't review much mid- to low-end hardware anymore since things like a 32-core x86 CPU are interesting, such processors are going to end up in a very tiny portion of even Anandtech's readers' enthusiast class PCs.Sttm - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
What do you feel is not getting covered? I remember them covering mainstream Ryzen 2, and APU low end Ryzen 2, and the new Core 8086 and a lot of other consumer focused cpus before that.So more laptop stuff?
PeachNCream - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Right off the cuff, without thinking much about it, the 1050 and 1030 weren't reviewed. There were a couple of lower end AMD GPUs that were omitted as well. There are few to no networking benchmarks and the first complete desktop review done in a long time was for a relatively high end system. It's sort of sad to go to Anandtech to read a review about upper tier stuff I'll never purchase, but then have to go spelunking with a search engine to find multiple lesser quality reviews for things I'll actually purchase and yes that certainly includes laptops and more I'll toss in reasonably priced phones there too.Cooe - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
Complete desktop reviews & similar are not AnandTech's target market, never have have been so I wouldn't hold out too much hope for that to change. It's always been a site about ala-carte PC building hardware 1st & foremost; dunno why you'd expect anything different all the sudden tbh.PeachNCream - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
At the top of Anandtech's website, check the bar under the site logo for the word "SYSTEMS" and hover your mouse over it to view the subcategories and browse a few links within. Also check the "SMARTPHONES & TABLETS" category.Sttm - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
This is so cool. Though I don't think I'd recommend any non business owners from buying it. As with 7nm Zen 2 based TR coming next year, I cannot imagine your $1800 expenditure won't feel incredibly foolish in 12 months. If they can fit 32 at 12nm, how many can they are 7nm, and superior cores as well!