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 Designare
The last of GIGABYTE's four announced TRX40 models is the GIGABYTE TRX40 Designare which takes a more professional approach for content creators and workstation users. With a more subtle and elegant black and silver theme, the Designare looks to feature the basic necessities such as an Intel Gigabit Ethernet controller and Realtek ALC4050H and ALC1220 pairing for the onboard audio. Differentiating the TRX40 Designare from the rest of the GIGABYTE TRX40 product stack is a GC-Titan Ridge Thunderbolt 3 AIC add-on card included in the accessories bundle.
The GIGABYTE TRX40 Designare is an XL-ATX sized motherboard and follows suit with the rest of its TRX40 product stack in memory specifications with support for DDR4-4400 and up to and including 256 GB of system memory. Like with most HEDT models with eight memory slots, they are arranged in two sets of four which sit either side of the large sTRX4 CPU socket. At the bottom of the board is four full-length PCIe 4.0 slots which operate at x16/x8/x16+x8, with a single PCIe 4.0 x1 slot in the centre. Located in between the full-length PCIe 4.0 slots are four PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots; two driven by the CPU and two coming from the TRX40 chipset. Also powered by the chipset is the eight SATA ports which feature support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays.
GIGABYTE has been consistent with its power delivery implementation on its new models supporting the 7 nm Threadripper 3000 processors. Driving the 16-phase CPU power delivery is the Infineon XDPE132G5C PWM controller with sixteen Infineon TDA21472 70 power stages arranged into a 16+0 configuration. The power delivery heatsink is interconnected with other components via a heat pipe and stretches around the board in an L shaped design. The TRX40 chipset heatsink includes an active cooling fan, while for CPU and system cooling, there are eight 4-pin headers in total. One is designated for a CPU fan, one for a water pump, and six for chassis fans.
On the rear panel of the GIGABYTE TRX40 Designare is five USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, and two USB 2.0 ports. On the left-hand side is Clear CMOS and Q-Flash buttons, while on the other side is five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek ALC4050H and ALC1220 HD audio codec pairing. There is also a pair of networking ports powered by a pair of Intel Gigabit Ethernet controllers, while the Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 wireless interface adds BT 5.0 connectivity on top.
The GIGABYTE TRX40 Designare is aimed more at professionals and content creators with the Thunderbolt 3 AIC card included in the accessories. It drops 5 G or 10 GbE wired networking while sitting giving users dual Ethernet, and as expected, costs quite a bit less than the TRX40 Aorus Xtreme with an MSRP of $629.
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Smell This - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Still just a bit bummed .... that 1st/2nd Gen TRs have been left hangin'
As we roll into 2020, we gotta love where AMD is going BUT, here's hoping that Dr Su does not make the same mistakes on HEDTs that Chipzillah has been notorious in making in the past. With DDR5 on the horiZen, could sTRX4 be yet another *2 and Done* in the next 18 months?
I'm all for $800 mobos -- just as long as they don't become $50 moo-boards in January, 2021.
Spunjji - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
Based on prior experience of AMD processors, it seems more likely that they'd have to offer new boards for DDR5 support but allow the new processors to run in older boards with DDR4.eek2121 - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
Chances are that the TRX* series of boards will end in 2021 (or 2022 at the latest), when DDR5 is expected to roll out along with possibly Zen 5 (if 2022). That being said, I have an X399 board and a 1950X. I don't see a need to upgrade yet. I may eventually pick up a 2950X next year, but I'm hanging onto this platform. It games pretty much all current games at 4k, with the majority at maximum or high details (even on a 1080ti), and it's excellent for the development and content creation workloads that i do. Don't let the listed benchmarks fool you, the 1950X is capable of much more. Running Linux brings a rather large performance increase due to better thread scheduling among other things. I have no problems running GTA V or any other games that I play, at full 4k and maximum details.Llawehtdliub - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
At 30fpsscineram - Wednesday, December 4, 2019 - link
300.masmosmeaso - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
question,is the amount of phases important when it comes to performance or having more devices on the motherboard ? if so how many is overkill for these motherboards ?
Hul8 - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Those power delivery components are only for the CPU package, and take all their power input from the auxiliary CPU power connectors (usually 8-pin, 8+4 or 8+8-pin these days).The rest of the motherboard get their power thru the 24-pin.
eek2121 - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
More phases typically means better performance (thermals, quality of power, power limits) from the CPU, unless the vendor cheaps out on VRMs. I'd stay away from any board offering only a single 8-pin, as that can be a sign they are using lower quality VRMs, fewer phases, etc. Contrary to popular belief, phase doublers don't really hurt anything. A few in the youtube community have tested this, both with a CPU and also with a CPU 'emulator' that plugs into the socket and measures power output.Hul8 - Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - link
The question was about "devices on the motherboard", which I assume means things other than the CPU. That's why I pointed out that the phases are irrelevant to the question.Dragonstongue - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
just to say suchjust "cause" the box label as 280w TDP, this does not automatically mean it USES 280w (I am sure Intel or NVDA likely many many others) will lambast the crud out of AMD for this, without giving the "full story"
eg. Intel will say "our product X only is TDP of Y vs this massive 280w number, choose us, save the world" then when the user actually uses said "product X" they find out either A is much much slower than all review sites list it is and/or B, it shoots ACTUAL power use through the roof therefore not matching the "claims" of said product X TDP being "better" than TR gen 3 280w "listed" TDP
Intel, NVDA have far more proven themselves on "fibbing" their numbers to make the sales than AMD has "overall" over the many years I have been involved with (consumer or otherwise) in computing
............
Thanks for the review overall, at least it seems the various "partners" are not being overly foolish in terms of pricing and feature set, MSI IMO even "better" than some of the others (such as ASUS)
I truly hope these turn out to be the "cat's meow" for those whom can afford and use them, it helps AMD, helps their partners, the long run, helps us all
(^.^)