Hey Everyone 
New to the forums and my first post! I am hoping to receive some feedback on a project workstation I am working on so I can take the necessary steps to iron out a few issues I am having. In saying that, this may be a long post as I will detail what the issues are and what I have currently done about it.
Firstly, the build:
CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3955WX (Base: 3.9GHz, Boost: 4.3GHz / 72MB Cache / Socket WRX80 / 16 Cores / 32 Threads / 280 Watt)
Motherboard: Gigabyte WRX80 Motherboard MB, Socket sWRX8, WRX80 Chipset, 8x DDR4, 7x PCI-E 4.0 x16, 2x M.2, 3x slimSAS, 4x SATA 3, 6x USB 3.2, 2x 10GbE LAN + 2x GbE LAN, BMC Support
Memory (8 sticks in total): HyperX Fury 16GB (2x8GB) PC4-21300 (2666MHz) DDR4, 16-18-18, 1.2v, XMP, Dual Channel Kit, Black Heat Spreader
GPU: AMD Radeon Pro W6600, 8GB GDDR6, PCI-E 4.0, 4x DisplayPort 1.4
Soundcard: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy RX PCIE Sound Card
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 P5 Power Supply, 80 PLUS Platinum, Fully Modular, 135mm FDB Fan, 2x EPS, 8x PCI-E, 12x SATA, 4x Molex, DC-DC Converter, Voltage Protection
Case: Fractal Design Define 7 XL Black E-ATX Case, No PSU, 1x USB 3.1 Gen2 (Type-C), 2x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, 6x 2.5"/3.5" Universal HDD Trays + 2x SSD bracket + 2 multi-bracket, 3x 140mm Fan pre-installed
Storage:
HDD: Seagate 10TB SkyHawk AI Surveillance 3.5" Hard Drive, SATA III, 7200RPM, 256MB Cache, 64x Camera Support
SSD: Gigabyte 256GB SSD, M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen3, Read up to 1,700MB/s, Write up to 1,100MB/s, IOPS R/W 180/250K, 1.5M Hours MTBF, 300TBW
Cooling:
CPU: Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3 CPU Cooler, Compatible with AMD Socket: TR4 / SP3, 92mm PWM Fan
Additional Fans: Fractal Design Aspect 14 Fan, Black, 140mm, 1000rpm, 3-pin Power Connector, Rifle Bearings, Built-in Chaining Support
Background Information: Project Objective
I am building a workstation for a podcast that will primarily be used for the following tasks:
- Rendering footage and post processing in 4K in applications such as Adobe Premiere or Davinci resolve.
- Audio engineering and editing.
- Act as a home enterprise mass storage (which justifies the case).
- Remote desktop to access files and use the workstation if I am offsite.
- Experiment with a few design projects in 3D rendering programs such as blender, or data projects such as crypto mining for the fun of it.
- The Station will dual boot Windows 10 Pro and Ubuntu 20.04; Windows 10 will have applications for post processing footage, Linux will handle mostly administrative tasks and capturing footage on internet calls.
Reasons for choice in parts:
I have mainly used Intel CPUs, Nvidia GPUs and ASUS motherboards. Iām not too fussed with what brand of Ram I choose, though I usually prefer to lean towards corsair. After doing some background research and spending many hours of reading forums, blog posts and youtube videos I decided to build and AMD workstation. Iāve built 5 PCs over the years for desktop, HTPC or gaming. Now Iām using parts that are more advanced and I have invested into the AMD Threadripper CPU series. Manily because I firstly wanted a change of scenery when it came to PC hardware, but also it was highly recommended by many for handling media / rendering workflows.
I used standard memory because I was under the impression the WRX80 Motherboard is compatible with it, which it is from what I can see. Secondly, I wanted a motherboard with plenty of PCIE slots so I can cater to varying hardware configurations. I intend on adding a SATA Pcie card for more drive storage when the time comes. It is likely the system will be close to being fully populated in terms of the PCIE slots.
I also went with a GPU that is more geared towards the workstation media rendering workflow. Having an AMD processor, I thought it was only fitting to have an AMD GPU and keep it in the family so to speak. Which brings me to the issueā¦
ISSUE:
After double, triple and quadruple checking the wiring to the board, I can confidently say it is appropriately powered from my 1000W Platinum standard EVGA PSU - so I know for a fact power deficit is not an issue here.
The motherboard boots up normally - WITHOUT the GPU installed. I have configured the BIOS to run in UEFI non-secure boot. I have not been able to set it up for IPMI successfully yet as we have not routed ethernet cables through the studio / office correctly. So I have not been able to remote into the board to do any driver and firmware updates etc. I was able to do some updating by downloading drivers manually. So firstly I would like some advice on how to do this as I have not seen it explained online well let alone a demonstration on what to do. As far as I know I open a web browser on another computer on the same network and type in the boardās Static IP which I setup in the BIOS. 
Nextā¦ and this is the main issue
when the GPU is installed and powered, Iām confronted with the boot screen that details the startup process. It gets the the motherboard logo āGIGABYTEā and before it reaches the desktop it resets, goes through the same process and hangs on a process āconnecting driversā indefinitely. I read a forum post somewhere it had to do with the GPU drivers. So I canāt boot to the desktop while the GPU is installed. I have downloaded the drivers from the official AMD GPU support page and tried installing them manually with no success. The installer on windows 10 spat out an error saying the drivers were incompatible? Ubuntu I broke the desktop environment, although I may not have switched from the opensource drivers to the AMD ones properly. Either way the main issue is the GPU installation.
What I have done to troubleshoot:
-
Putting the GPU in a different PCIE slot, in particular the 4x lane slot second from the bottom on this particular motherboard. As the Card says it needs that type of slot, noted on the official AMD specs page for this particular card
-
Have done a memtest to make sure ram was ok - Passed, so no issues with Ram. Also tried different ram configurations. Seen some builds that donāt use ECC ram, so still not sure with this.
-
Updated what drivers I can for the board.
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Rechecked the wiring and made sure the card was powered.
Resolutions:
- It comes down to the board or the card. Ideally I would like to keep the Card over the board. That is, I am willing to spend more on a different model of Threadripper supported motherboard.
- I havenāt seen many online articles using the Gigabyte WRX80 board for the threadripper. More notably I donāt see the board anywhere else online, despite looking at the Level one Tech YouTube channel Gigabyte WRX80 board review (I canāt include links in my posts Iām afraid!). Itās like it fell off the face of the Earth. Every other build I see seems to use the ASUS SAGE board. Worst case scenario I buy a new board or GPU. As I said, preferrably I donāt mind buying a new board. Iām not too worried about costs.
- I would ideally like to know how to set this thing up right. Maybe Iāve overlooked a few settings.
- My personal experience in building PCs so far and upgrading them is that when I plug things in they should just work. It shouldnāt be this hard. My intuition is that the solution is a lot simpler than what the problem is and Iām just not seeing it.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post in advance. I hope I can get some detailed responses regarding getting the GPU to work with the Motherboard, as well as general advice on how to go about using the boardās BMC IPMI on a GUI.
Looking forward to peopleās responses
Kind Regards
Atlantis
