AMD X399 / Threadripper motherboards appear

I think thread ripper got it's ass handed to it by the 1000$ i9. I would actually consider dropping down the cash for a i9. In terms of selectable cores that you can overclock.

Threadripper has better features... More PCIe lanes, memory encryption...

Also, Zenith Extreme, LOL. Where do ASUS get these names from? Personally I like the look of the AS Rock Tai Chi boards.

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Cant wait to take a look at whats underneath that top heatsink on the Zenith Extreme.
Very sexy board, with a nice true 8 phase design, with 60A IR powerstages probablly.

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Yes Indeed.. especially in light of what's going on with X299 VRM throttling as reported by der8aur. I'm hoping Asus will make the necessary modifications to keep both the X299 and X399 VRMs in check. Plus it would be a shame if such a good looking board had hardware limitations at launch.

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Well so far I think only ASUS has 10 GbE via an addin card, kinda disappointedā€¦

Damn Gigabyte even put a killer ethernet, seriously?

Edit: apparently AsRock has one with 10 GbE on the boardā€¦GJ AsRock!

I went with Asus Zenith Extreme and Threadripper 1950X on preorder.

Preferred Asusā€™ approach to M.2 by way of DIMM.2 slot and have had better experiences with Asus boards. Have not had any experience with ASRock, though for overclocking fun I would prefer 2 8pin power for motherboard.

Not sure which way to go with GPUs for this build. I am leaning towards Vega though X2 for now. Then see what Volta and Navi have in store for us.

This is thought to be the top end of the asrock tier maybe excluding a special edition or workstation board coming in the near futureā€¦ 400 dollars is agreeableā€¦ Threadripper is an extremely expensive platform to manufacture for with such a large socket

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It better be and agreed its very sexyā€¦ I am liking ASUSā€™ design choices

Asus probablly uses IR3555Ā“s 60A stages like usual i guess?
Those are IRā€™s second best powerstages.

I heard rumor from an Overclocker friend of my in AU that this might not be the case

rumor has it IR3575

That would be sexy with small metal heatspreaders on them.
They are also 60A regardless, but those are IRā€™s top of the line stages.

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I knowā€¦ thats why I eagerly await to see what they really areā€¦ Either or will do just fineā€¦ and honestly I dont see the merit past 8 true stagesā€¦ perhaps adding doublers could stabilize the line a bit more but why need to?


468ā‚¬ is okay for the features you get.

The ASRock one I posted has 1x 10gbe, and 2x 1gbe Ethernet.
Link to Asrocks page

Yeah 3-5 hundo is on the extreme top end of my price spectrum for just a mobo.

That being said, I am delighted that the tech exists.

I will likely go for a Ryzen 1700 or similar.

Hey guys you wanna look at this comparison of x399 boards.


If you ask me the Asrock Taichi is the best of all. I mean 11-phase VRM on a 340$ board hell yea.

Wut

AsRock makes the Taichi, not MSI, and there is no 11 phase VRM on any of those motherboards. From a glance, Msi maybe has doubled 5-phase (or an 8 idk), and idk what the Taichi has but it definitely is not an 11-phase. There are no voltage controllers capable of 11 phases. Past 8 phase, you need some sort of doubling scheme, and you canā€™t doubled a 5.5 vrm. Pretty sure you canā€™t have a .5 of any vrm.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X399%20Taichi/index.asp

Probably 10+1? Iā€™m just guessing though

Iā€™ll page local vrm expert @MisteryAngel because Iā€™m really not sure


Looking at the picture, it doesnā€™t even look like a 10+1, or an 11 as they say

Iā€™m no VRM expert, really, but there are only 8 phases in the picture.

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Iā€™m with you on the M.2 configuration of the Zenith Extreme. Most reviews have the little heat shields/sinks that are placed on typical boards as being ineffective at best and detrimental at worst. I like that ASUS moved them away from the PCIE slots and out of the range of indirect heat sources. Good on ASUS for fixing a long standing issue with NVME placement. I also like that we are seeing some of the mini-ITX boards coming with the NVME on the back of the board. I realize ASUS did put one more NVME slot on underneath the southbridge heatsink on the Zenith but itā€™s nice to have that riser with support for two drives at the top that can be easily removed for replacement / dusting.

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