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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HJay - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
Life really does begin at 50.HJay - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
Your point is valid and I'm not ready to switch from external interfaces to an internal RME unit yet. However, the performance and quality of the peculiar on-board audio arrangement is still of great interest. Experiencing AMD's AM3 FX chipset USB implementation (See: "Silicon Errata for SB950") was rather eye opening and very helpful in understanding why running USB audio across that implementation was less than optimal. The USB arrangement of AM4 seems to be an improvement over the AM3 and AM3+. But AMD's TRX40 seems to reveal a non-satisfactory level of concern for PC audio -suggesting that AM4 might be more appropriate. This motherboard review is a great start but there are still many holes to fill in regarding this, in particular with the S1220.Selecting an appropriate motherboard upfront before throwing thousands of dollars worth of audio software and hardware at it is critical. I did note compatibility issues between earlier AM4 systems and some Universal Audio cards and the desired RME card is around $900. So, I'm just not ready to ride the bleeding edge with these new boards but will eagerly listen to the experiences of others and cheer them along.
As a side note, I did recommend to my favored audio repair software vendor that they contact AnandTech to provide, or work out, some audio benchmarking tests or packages.
Bccc1 - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
I still don't get your point. I agree that the USB implementation is important, that AMD messed that up in the past (thanks for the ref to the errata list) and that the way onboard audio works on TRX40 is maybe more error prone.But why is that different / better with the S1220? And how do you define an audio creator? I was thinking of an audio engineer, someone who does tracking/mixing/mastering/sound design. I can't imagine someone in that field would ever use onboard audio, except maybe for mobility reasons on a notebook.
I will probably use my RME Madiface XT with a StarTech USB card (PEXUSB3S44V) as I don't trust any onboard USB.
Regarding the compatibilty issues, do you have links/detailed information? The only thing I found was an issue, where the card wasn't detected in PCIe slots connected to the chipset. Which is a shame, but less of a problem with TRX40 as most slots are directly connected to the CPU.
tamalero - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
I'm no expert here but could perhaps say this because of the audio problems of some cpus (crackling cutting) because of the high latency of Ryzen and the first Threadrippers?Or perhaps power issues (delivery to PCIE ports because the big power consumption of the new TR chips?)
Dug - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
I think it's time to move past USB if you are a "Real content creator"valinor89 - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
"The TRX40 chipset is based on the 14 nm process node from Global Foundries""AMD leveraged GlobalFoundries 12nm to build the TRX40 chipset"
Is it 12 or 14?
tamalero - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
I remember that Global Foundries is 14nm while TSCM is 14+ (12nm)gavbon - Monday, December 2, 2019 - link
I have corrected it, it is Global Foundries 14 nm process. Thank you for the heads upscineram - Wednesday, December 4, 2019 - link
That's not what Ian said.PopinFRESH007 - Sunday, December 29, 2019 - link
I believe what Ian was referring to is the IO chip on the CPU package which is 12nm.