The AMD TRX40 Motherboard Overview: 12 New Motherboards Analyzed
by Gavin Bonshor on November 28, 2019 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- Asus
- TRX40
- Threadripper 3000
- Castle Peak
ASUS ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming
Moving onto the ASUS ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming and it's the only TRX40 model currently to include the gaming tag line in its model naming. Cut from a similar cloth to the ROG Zenith II Extreme with its blend of black aluminium inspired design, ASUS has also included its LiveDash OLED into the rear panel cover, with support for DDR4-4666 and 256 GB across eight memory slots also featured. The ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming is ATX in size and is designed for the gamer in mind, with plenty of features found on most HEDT boards making it a solid all-rounder.
The design of the ASUS ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming is similar to its other gaming branded Strix models with its holographic digital colorful insignia on the rear panel cover and heatsinks; these areas are also customizable due to the integrated RGB LEDs. The power delivery consists of a 16-phase setup with 16 Infineon TDA21472 70 A power stages which are operating in teamed mode. Its heatsink includes active cooling with fans hidden between the grill and the heatsink, while the TRX40 chipset heatsink also includes a cooling fan. There are three full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slots, with the inclusion of a PCIe 4.0 x4 slot for good measure.
On the storage front, ASUS includes three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, with eight SATA ports supporting RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. Memory compatibility on the ASUS ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming is competitive with support for DDR4-4666, with up to 256 GB supported across eight memory slots. Located around the edge of the board is seven 4-pin headers with two for CPU cooling fans, one for a water pump, one for an AIO pump, and three designated for chassis fans.
Looking at the rear panel and ASUS has included a whopping seven USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, and four USB 2.0 ports. Also present are five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output driven by a SupremeFX S1220 HD audio codec with dual OP amplifiers, a pair of Ethernet ports powered by a Realtek RTL8125-CG 2.5 GbE and Intel I211-AT Gigabit controller pairing. The ASUS ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming also includes an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 wireless interface with support for BT 5.0 devices.
The ASUS ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming isn't the only gaming-focused board, and while AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 3000 processors will almost certainly be capable, the real advantages are had in multi-core optimized applications. With a price tag of $450, it combines a solid controller set with the usual ROG Strix aesthetics we come to expect from ASUS, as well as plenty of networking capability for uses outside of gaming.
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plonk420 - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
looks like the two ASRock and at least two, if not three of the three MSI use LOTES sockets. i expect FOXCONN to be the same trash that freaked me the f out trying to screw down the CPU cover on my X399 Designare EX (see HardOCP's Kyle having the same difficulty tightening his down, but mine seemed even worse).omasoud - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
Although ASRock TRX40 Creator is classified as ATX, the last PCI slot probably cannot take a double-width card (even though the manual on page 41 talks about installing 4 SLI double-width GPUs). ATX size specification says 7 PCI slots; but 4x2=8. Am I right?Llawehtdliub - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
Good review, thank you.solomonshv - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
do you guys think that the MSI TRX40 Pro would be a good candidate for a 3960X with some light overclocking? i've had multiple really bad experiences with gigafail, and if you check gigbayte x399 reviews on newegg, amazon and other places, other people did too. so gigabyte is a hard pass for me.dwade123 - Sunday, December 1, 2019 - link
Prices are going up and up with AMD, much more than anything Intel had ever priced. Zenith II is $850 and TR flagship model is expected to be at least $4000. AMD "wins again" but will AMD fans win yet?Qasar - Sunday, December 1, 2019 - link
dwade123, and look what intel did to the prices before they released zen. how much were you paying for QUAD core cpus, where the performance increase over the previous gen was 10% or less. intel cant complete with amd in multi thread performance, the ONLY way intel has any performance advantage over amd, is due to clock speed, thats all..imagine where intel cpu's would be if there was NO Zen....
scineram - Wednesday, December 4, 2019 - link
Yes.Korguz - Wednesday, December 4, 2019 - link
dwade123 " Prices are going up and up with AMD, much more than anything Intel had ever priced " you sure about that ?? intels top end i9 chips were VERY expensive here, most of their i7 line was also expensive... but yet.. HOW was intel able to drop the prices like they HAD to do with the 10xxx series over the 9xxx series ??? people now complain that amd is priced to high, where were all of these people when intel was priced just as high, if not higher ??? it seems.. its ok for intel to do something.. but when amd does it.. all of a sudden its wrong and its a crime?? come on...intel cant compete with amd in almost everything now, the ONLY thing intel has left, is single thread performance, and even that, isnt by that much, and its ONLY cause of clock speed.. its about time amd was able to charge what they are for some of their chips, because the performance is there.. when intel catches up, intel will probably charge the same.. dwade123, you better be complaining about intels prices then as well....prophet001 - Monday, December 2, 2019 - link
Why the heck would you use the same physical socket keying.Korguz - Monday, December 2, 2019 - link
the socket is the same.. but the pins i think are different