AMD Q4: 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X, Threadripper Up To 32-Core 3970X, Coming November 25th
by Dr. Ian Cutress on November 7, 2019 9:00 AM ESTTRX40: More High-End Motherboards for TR3
The new sTRX4 socket will be paired with a TRX40 chipset – a design that AMD says comes from an in-house team and built on GlobalFoundries 14nm. The new chipset, updated from the previous X399 in this space and even updated from the X570 in the consumer space, is the other half in the CPU-to-chipset bandwidth story. By using a PCIe 4.0 x8 link, AMD is removing almost any practical bandwidth limitation downstream from the CPU.
The new TRX40 chipset will come with a degree of modularity.
From the chipset, we can see motherboard manufacturers afforded a full PCIe 4.0 x8 slot, up to another x8 lanes as two x4 connections or further bifurcated, or instead of those bifurcated lanes, either four or eight more SATA ports. That’s 8 SATA ports on top of the four already present on the chipset.
So I like these modular systems. It allows motherboard manufacturers to go crazy with offering potential systems. For example:
| Potential TRX40 Variants | |||||||
| AnandTech | CPU | Chipset | |||||
| TRX40 SATA Powerhouse 20 drives |
x48 for PCIe slots | x8 for downlink | 8x SATA from options | x8 for dual NVMe | 8x SATA from options | 4x SATA from chipset | |
| TRX40 NVMe Powerhouse 18+ drives |
x48 for PCIe slots | x8 for downlink | dual NVMe from options | x8 for dual NVMe | dual NVMe for options | - | |
So that would be a motherboard with x16/x16/x16 (or x16/x8/x16/x8) in terms of PCIe 4.0 slots, a single x8 slot for a pair of NVMe drives, and then TWENTY SATA ports, all directly supported on the system without any additional controllers.
If SATA isn’t your thing, then the same arguments could be made for 48 PCIe lanes and six PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe slots, making a total of 18 high capacity PCIe 4.0 drives. The fact that AMD has put more PCIe lanes into their high end desktop platforms, plus this amount of modularity, wants me to play Dr. Frankenstein.
To be fair, those ideas are a bit extreme. Motherboard manufacturers will likely have to partition off a few lanes for 10 GbE networking, perhaps Thunderbolt, or maybe something more exotic like a RAID controller, or an RGB controller.
As noted in some of our previous news posts, motherboard manufacturers have been slowly leaking names of their TRX40 products. At this point in time we have seen mentions of the following:
- ASRock TRX40 Creator
- ASRock TRX40 Taichi
- GIGABYTE TRX40 AORUS XTREME
- ASUS Prime TRX40 Pro
- ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme
- MSI TRX40 Creator
- MSI TRX40 Pro 10G
- MSI TRX40 Pro Wi-Fi
We expect details of some of these to perhaps be announced today, or on the 25th when the CPUs come to market. GIGABYTE has even been showing previews of their motherboards on social media, with one showing an obscene number of power phases, and we’ve seen images of boards with 8 SATA ports. We’ll have our usual motherboard overview article up on that date, and we’ll be looking at reviews of these motherboards through the new year.
I will address comments about potential TRX80/WRX80 motherboards which have been put into the ether as potential other chipsets being launched. When asked, AMD said that the only chipset they are launching today is TRX40.
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Death666Angel - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
Do you mean Intel has had overlapping HEDT and mainstream CPUs as in they had the same core counts? Sure, AMD had that as well, 8C TR is a thing after all. Or do you mean Intel had the same name for HEDT and mainstream CPUs before? Because a 16 core TR3 would fit in the 3950X naming scheme that is now taken up by the AM4 equivalent.And 3955X would look a bit messy to me. :Dpkv - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link
meant the former; similarly powerful cpus, one for mainstream, the other for HEDT.Kjella - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
I've no doubt there'll be a 16 core TR3, they'd get paid very well for a 4+4+4+4 dud chip combo but they probably want to clear the first wave of people that won't wait first. I'm thinking 2-3 months out like February or so, that's just me looking into the crystal ball though.pkv - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link
there's an interview of an amd senior technical marketing manager in pcworld https://www.pcworld.com/article/3305945/watch-the-... ; the absence of 16c was one of the first questions. He answered the absence of 16c is deliberate, in order to have a clear boundary between mainstream and HEDT. So the prospects of having in a few months 16c on TR40x are nil atm.AbRASiON - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
AMD *STILL* continues to ignore business desktops and home performance enthusiasts who don't game.Where is the higher performance processors with extreemely basic graphics/ Where's the 3000G with 6 cores?
Some people just want a 6 core Ryzen but a very very simple GPU for basic Windows tasks / video.
Intel can do it with the 8400.
Death666Angel - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
When Zen2 enters APUs you will likely get your wish.But what is wrong with just getting a 1030 GT?
AbRASiON - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
1030 GT is a point of failure, heat, cost, PCI slot.Intel produce perfectly good graphics for my need (and 500 users at my place of work) - for "free"
AMD NEED to produce processors with 6 to 8 cores, decent computing power and a very very VERY simple GPU.
I'm happy with iGPU levels, as it stands, AMD do not have a product for me, it's sad.
Korguz - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
as Death666Angel said.. wait till amd migrates the zen 2 core over to their APU's. and you will be able to get what you are looking forphoenix_rizzen - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link
B450-based motherboard, Ryzen 5 2600 or 3600 CPU, and an Nvidia 730 GPU makes for a great, silent office computer. And gives you triple-monitor support to boot. Or an AMD Radeon Pro Wx 3100 or 3200, which gives you even better multi-monitor support. Both are fanless. Add NVMe and 16 GB of RAM and you have a great, little, silent workstation.While it would be nice to have more than 4 cores in an APU, it will be another year or so before that's available from AMD. Really hoping Zen2 chiplet design leads to 4-, 6-, and 8-core APUs.
scineram - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link
No.