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
GIGABYTE TRX40 Aorus Pro WIFI
Moving our way down the GIGABYTE TRX40 product stack, we have the GIGABYTE TRX40 Aorus Pro WIFI which represents its entry-level model at launch with a good feature set but drops some of the higher-end components to undoubtedly save users money who may not need or require things like 10 GbE. This doesn't mean the feature set isn't good quality as there is an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 wireless interface, three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, and support for DDR4-4400 memory across eight slots.
The GIGABYTE TRX40 Aorus Pro WIFI and TRX40 Master share a very similar aesthetic with black metallic heatsinks on an all-black PCB, although the GIGABYTE TRX40 Aorus Pro WIFI is using a standard ATX sized PCB. There are eight memory slots which support up to DDR4-4400 and up to 256 GB in total, with two sets of four slots flanking either side of the sTRX4 CPU socket. All three of GIGABYTE's launch day TRX40 boards are using the high-end Infineon XDPE132G5C 16-phase PWM controller operating at 12+2. The CPU section of the power delivery is a 14-phase design which consists of twelve Infineon TDA21472 70 A power stages for the CPU. Providing power to the CPU is an 8-pin and 6-pin pair of 12 V ATX CPU power inputs.
Cooling the TRX40 chipset is an actively cooled heatsink, while the boards three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots each include an M.2 heatshield. For users looking to use SATA drives, the GIGABYTE TRX40 Aorus Pro WIFI has eight SATA ports which support RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays, and are controlled by the TRX40 chipset. Located around the board is eight 4-pin headers which are split into three main sections; one for a CPU fan, one for a water pump, and six for chassis fans. Utilizing as many of the PCIe lanes from the CPU are four full-length PCIe 4.0 slots which operate at x16/x8/x16+x8, with a single PCIe 4.0 x1 slot for good measure.
Unlike the other models in the GIGABYTE TRX40 product stack, the TRX40 Aorus Pro WIFI has a single Ethernet port controlled by an Intel Gigabit controller. For users looking for wireless support, GIGABYTE has included an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 wireless interface which also features BT 5.0 connectivity. Looking at USB support and there is five USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, and four USB 2.0 ports. Nestled on the left-hand side of the USB 3.1 G2 Type-C port is a small Q-Flash Plus button, while the five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are powered by a pair of Realtek HD audio codecs; an ALC4050H and an ALC1220-VB.
The GIGABYTE TRX40 Aorus Pro WIFI isn't as high-end as its other launch day counterparts, but it still offers a cheaper alternative to users looking to utilize the high core count and power of the Threadripper 3000 processors with an MSRP of $399. Users looking to build a high-core high-thread-count gaming system will be hard pushed to find a better value TRX40 model at launch.
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amb9800 - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
TB3 has not been open sourced. It's been royalty-free from the start, but any TB3 device still needs to be certified by Intel. Thus far the only TB3 devices that exist integrate Intel TB3 controllers, and very few non-Intel platforms have integrated TB3 (basically just a couple of X570 ASRock boards).Chaitanya - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
In order to integrate Thuberbolt, Intel needs access to microcode which is why very few boards even on AM4 come with it and even those solutions are iffy at best.eek2121 - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
Untrue, TB has been open sourced and will be a part of the USB 4.0 standard. The real answer is likely one I provided earlier: Intel CPUs have dedicated bandwidth for TB3, AMD CPUs hang it off the PCIE bus.amb9800 - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
TB3 being incorporated into USB 4.0 definitely does not mean it has been "open sourced." Every TB3 device must still be certified by Intel.ender8282 - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
I love the TB3 port on my laptop and docking station. It's way convenient. Honestly though I've never understood the use case on a desktop. If you've got an ATX motherboard and a decent sized case what need does it really solve?TechKnowbabble - Friday, December 20, 2019 - link
According to this video the GIGABYTE TRX40 AORUS XTREME has a Thunderbolt 3 header called THB_C, but on the site the only mention to this i can find is a "GIGABYTE add-in card connector" which the AORUS Master and Wifi Pro have mention of also. I dont know why it is listed differently from the Designare or not mentioned in this article but it appears that all the Gigabyte TRX40 boards support thunderbolt 3 with add in card.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o21xINJF1tE&fe...
NelsonK - Saturday, January 18, 2020 - link
It might as well be -BetaMax-. Thunderbolt is Intel's baby, and you gotta dance to their tune to get the engineering specs -- Intel doesn't publish 'em. Only well-resourced (i.e., volume) manufacturers can feasibly spend to design and incorporate it, then produce to a scale that justifies the investment. Sure, that's not precisely a licensing fee, but it's one heckuva barrier to entry.These firms can all afford it, but, since VHS (USB) is good enough, why bother? USB "3.2" is pretty darn close and even uses the same Type-C port. In fact, you can even play your VHS tapes on this BetaMax -- USB devices will run at their native speeds when connected to Thunderbolt.
And with USB 4, there will be no difference in speed. Is there even a practical difference in speed now? Do ya really need more than 10 Gbps? A few of you might, but not enough to pay the piper.
This is a no-brainer for the board makers: USB 3.1 Gen 2 ("3.2") Type-C offers a lot more speed than most devices can hope to keep up with internally. In the instances where somebody wants to daisy-chain video, they're either mining (which just needs the chain, not so much the speed), or they're using a laptop and don't have space for a video card. Well, these are mainboards, folks. You've got a bunch of fat-pipe PCIe 4.0 16-lane slots that your graphics cards won't even make full use of 99.99% of the time they're running, as they throttle down to 2.0 or 1.0.
BetaMax was better, but it died even before S-VHS was a real thing. ThunderBolt just got similarly voted down (massively) by pretty much all of big name manufacturers users trust enough and -might- have paid extra to get a board that has it.
Looks like we're goin' with VHS once again, boys and girls... ;-)
wilsonkf - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Check your last page. Do you really mean "ASUS X570" Product Stack? Also other brands...gavbon - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Good spot Wilson, I really appreciate it. I've been neck-deep in X570, I must have been in AM4 mode!tamalero - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
hey Anana, any chance you could build a full comparison table between number of ports, pci-e slots, wifi, ethernet..etc..?