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
MSI Creator TRX40
To complement the release of AMD's Ryzen 7 nm Threadripper 3000, MSI has released three models. The first of the three and undoubtedly its flagship is the MSI Creator TRX40. Designed for and marketed towards content creators, the Creator TRX40 three integrated PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, with a further four PCIe 4.0 x4 slots available via the included M.2 Xpander-Aero Gen4 add-on card in the accessories bundle. Other primary features include 10 GbE, a 16-phase power delivery for the CPU, and 20 Gbps USB 3.2 on the rear panel.
The biggest aspect of the design is the use of a two-tone grey and black theme throughout, including the rear panel cover, the heatsinks, and the PCB itself. The rear panel cover has integrated RGB LED lighting which can be customized with MSI's Mystic Light RGB software, while the design implementations look interesting with the M.2. On the E-ATX PCB is three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots with each slot covered by an integrated heatsink; one of the slots is vertically mounted alongside the right-hand side memory slots. In the accessories bundle is an MSI M.2 Xpander-Aero Gen4 add-on card which allows users to install up to four PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives into a full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot. There are also six SATA ports which support RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. Touching on the PCIe support, the MSI Creator TRX40 has four full-length PCIe 4.0 slots which operate at x16/x8/x16+x8.
At present, MSI hasn't unveiled the memory compatibility, as the official specifications state that it supports up to DDR4-3200; we do know this model will support up to 256 GB over its eight slots. MSI's specifications state that up to DDR4-4666 is supported with 1DPC 1R memory, and up to DDR4-3866 with 1DPC 2R memory. For the first time, MSI is using the true 16-phase Infineon XDPE132G5C PWM controller with 16 Infineon TDA21472 70 A power stages for the CPU. Providing power to the CPU is a pair of 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power inputs which are located in the top right-hand corner of the board.
A total of nine 4-pin headers are located around the edge of the board with one dedicated to a CPU fan, one for a water pump, four for chassis fans, and a further three extend fan connectors. Underneath the actively cooled TRX40 chipset heatsink is a small overclockers toolkit with a two-digit debugger, a power button, and a reset switch.
On the rear panel of the MSI Creator TRX40 is three USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, five USB 3.1 G1 Type-A, and one USB 3.2 G2 20 G Type-C port; the 20 Gbps Type-C port is controlled by an ASMedia ASM3242 USB controller. Looking at the networking and MSI has included an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 wireless interface with BT 5.0 support, as well as an Aquantia AQC107 10 GbE controller. The rear panel also includes an additional port powered by an Intel I211-AT Ethernet controller. At the left-hand side is a Flash CMOS button and Clear CMOS button, while the right-hand side has five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec. The microphone 3.5 mm input and front panel audio are controlled by the new Realtek ALC4050H audio codec.
The MSI Creator TRX40 is geared up for content creators and MSI has heavily focused on that in the marketing. One element to content creation is storage and with up to seven PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives supported out of the box due to the Xpander-Aero Gen4 M.2 add-in card in the buddle, it adds credence to this. The USB 3.2 G2 20 Gbps Type-C port is the next best thing to Thunderbolt 3, although it's only half the total throughput of TB3 overall, is still a nice touch. Another thing to note is both ASRock and MSI have a TRX40 Creator model in its line up; it's not good for users and creates confusion. The Creator TRX40 is MSI's current flagship for the Threadripper 3000 launch and has an MSRP of $700.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
109 Comments
View All Comments
dan82 - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
I wish those boards had more Type C ports and dropped some of those A ports. A type C port can easily be turned in an A, but vice versa is against the spec.Also serious question: what is the reason to keep A 2.0 ports around? Are there any devices that don’t work on modern ports?
jeremyshaw - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Probably much easier to route one old and slow data pair vs 1-4 high speed data pairs.I have many devices that will likely never need more than USB 2.0 - my Mouse and KB included. USB microphone as well. The best external device I've got that benefits from USB3 speeds is my Bluray burner, and we all know how popular those are. External USB flash drives are usually limited by the cheap NAND inside, and most of my external storage is on my network.
For others, I suppose USB capture cards? Really decent USB 3.0 flash drives? Even if I connected my phone to my PC, it's still limited to USB 2.0. Maybe a decent external card reader? These boards reviewed here are all ATX, so I'll rule out USB NICs. I've got to be missing something in my list.
eek2121 - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
There is still the odd device that doesn't work on USB 3.0. Also the last 2 machines I've built did not have fully functioning USB 3.0/3.1 ports in Linux, indicating lack of driver support for operating systems other than Linux. In short: USB 3.x is still a WIP despite being out on the market for quite a while.Llawehtdliub - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
Plz no. Dont do an Apple. Just beczus you cant think of a reason to use doesnt mean others cant.There is a reason to leave them.
dotes12 - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
Bring back PS/2 ports too? /sasmian - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
I'm a little confused by comments on the X570 boards that will probably apply to these also. With these new PCIe4 slots (and M.2 slots), is it the case that they are all completely independent and you can mix/match PCIe2/PCIe3/PCIe4 cards/drives freely at each one's maximum possible negotiated link speed? Or will putting (say) a PCIe2 RAID controller in any slot reduce all slots to the lowest common denominator, PCIe2 speed?voicequal - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
PCIe lanes are wired directly to the PCIe controller on either the CPU or chipset, so link speeds between slots are independent. PCIe 4.0 is backward compatible with previous generations 3.0, 2.0 & 1.0, so running a PCIe 2.0 card in a slot capable of 4.0 will run at 2.0 speeds and not affect adjacent lanes on other slots.Some motherboards allow you to reduce the maximum speed of PCIe lanes from 4.0 to something lower -- this can help to troubleshoot signal integrity issues. This setting sometimes does affect lanes across multiple slots. But as long as you leave it to Auto, the lanes will run at the highest compatible speed between card and controller.
WaltC - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
Yes, in most cases the slots auto-configure to the device connected. Gen 3 devices should happily coexist with Gen 4 devices with each running at spec. In the case of the GPU, you can run it at Gen 3 if you prefer even if it is a Gen 4 GPU natively--there's separate switch for that in the bios, but the slots auto-configure for other devices and the GPU bios switch doesn't affect any other slots.I was surprised to see that several of the mboards had no rear clear-CMOS button on their backplates, and thought that was an interesting omission from the article--and the article also failed to mention dual-bios mboards--which the GB Aorus Xtreme & Master have (pictured mechanical switches) --one would hope they all might have them. Seems as if both these important features would be worth a mention...
dotes12 - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
Is there any downsides of going to PCIe 4.0? Maybe something similar to DDR3 and DDR4 memory where the bandwidth increases, but the latency goes up too?PopinFRESH007 - Sunday, December 29, 2019 - link
not really no