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
ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme
Moving onto what ASUS has up its sleeve, and it has gone with a trio of new motherboards with each designed for a different target market. The first of the three is the ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme which is the premier model on TRX40 for the company. Following on from its ROG Zenith Extreme X399 model, the new ROG Zenith II Extreme for TRX40 builds upon it with an aluminium heatsink cover surrounding the PCIe 4.0 slots, an aluminium rear panel cover, and a solid steel backplate on the rear of the board. Some of the main features included are the LiveDash color OLED 1.77" screen integrated into the rear panel cover, support for up to five PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives, a Wi-Fi 6 wireless interface, and an Aquantia 10 GbE controller.
The ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme is an E-ATX model which sits at the top of the ASUS TRX40 product stack. Its design is very interesting with lashings of aluminium via the rear panel cover, the armor covering the PCIe slot area, and the actively cooled TRX40 chipset heatsink. The rear panel cover has an integrated LiveDash color OLED screen which measures in at 1.77", and can be customized with the LiveDash software in the included software suite. There is integrated RGB LEDs too which are located within the rear panel cover, the chipset heatsink, and on the underside of the right-hand side of the board. A total of four full-length PCIe 4.0 slots which operate at x16/x8/x16+x8, and is accompanied by two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots on the front of the board, one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot on the rear, and an additional two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 available through the ROG DIMM.2 module within the accessories bundle. There are also eight SATA ports with four controlled by the chipset, and four from a pair of ASMedia SATA controllers; only the four SATA ports from the TRX40 chipset support RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays.
On the power delivery, ASUS is using a similar design to its X570 models with a 16-phase design with 16 Infineon TDA21472 70 A power stages operating in teamed mode. The large aluminium power delivery heatsink has two small Delta Superflo fans to aid cooling, which the finned heatsinks are designed to optimize surface area with low resistance for airflow. Providing power to the CPU is three inputs which consist of two 8-pin 12 V ATX, and one 6-pin 12 V ATX power connector. Cooling support is extensive with seven 4-pin headers which are split into two for CPU fans, two for water pumps, one for a high-amp fan, and two for standard chassis fans. The board also has an LN2 mode jumper for extreme overclockers, a safe boot button, an OC retry button, a dual BIOS selector switch, and power/reset buttons.
On the rear panel of the ROG Zenith II Extreme is five USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, four USB 3.1 G1 Type-A, and one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C 20 Gbps port. Networking support is strong with an Aquantia AQC107 10 GbE controller, and a second port powered by Intel I211-AT Gigabit controller. The Wi-Fi comes from an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 wireless interface, and also adds BT 5.0 connectivity for users. On the left-hand side are a BIOS Flashback button and a clear CMOS switch, while on the other side is five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output which is powered by a SupremeFX S1220 HD audio codec; this includes an ESS Sabre ESS9018Q2C DAC.
The ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme has an MSRP of $850 at launch and sits as one of the most expensive TRX40 models, yet one of the most premium. One of the primary benefits is that enthusiasts and power users can use up to five PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives as the ROG DIMM.2 slot makes itself a prominent feature on ASUS's high-end models. There is a lot of enthusiast-level features with a lot going on for extreme overclockers including ASUS's teamed 16-phase power delivery for the CPU, with added LN2 mode and an overclocker's toolkit.
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amb9800 - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
TB3 has not been open sourced. It's been royalty-free from the start, but any TB3 device still needs to be certified by Intel. Thus far the only TB3 devices that exist integrate Intel TB3 controllers, and very few non-Intel platforms have integrated TB3 (basically just a couple of X570 ASRock boards).Chaitanya - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
In order to integrate Thuberbolt, Intel needs access to microcode which is why very few boards even on AM4 come with it and even those solutions are iffy at best.eek2121 - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
Untrue, TB has been open sourced and will be a part of the USB 4.0 standard. The real answer is likely one I provided earlier: Intel CPUs have dedicated bandwidth for TB3, AMD CPUs hang it off the PCIE bus.amb9800 - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
TB3 being incorporated into USB 4.0 definitely does not mean it has been "open sourced." Every TB3 device must still be certified by Intel.ender8282 - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
I love the TB3 port on my laptop and docking station. It's way convenient. Honestly though I've never understood the use case on a desktop. If you've got an ATX motherboard and a decent sized case what need does it really solve?TechKnowbabble - Friday, December 20, 2019 - link
According to this video the GIGABYTE TRX40 AORUS XTREME has a Thunderbolt 3 header called THB_C, but on the site the only mention to this i can find is a "GIGABYTE add-in card connector" which the AORUS Master and Wifi Pro have mention of also. I dont know why it is listed differently from the Designare or not mentioned in this article but it appears that all the Gigabyte TRX40 boards support thunderbolt 3 with add in card.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o21xINJF1tE&fe...
NelsonK - Saturday, January 18, 2020 - link
It might as well be -BetaMax-. Thunderbolt is Intel's baby, and you gotta dance to their tune to get the engineering specs -- Intel doesn't publish 'em. Only well-resourced (i.e., volume) manufacturers can feasibly spend to design and incorporate it, then produce to a scale that justifies the investment. Sure, that's not precisely a licensing fee, but it's one heckuva barrier to entry.These firms can all afford it, but, since VHS (USB) is good enough, why bother? USB "3.2" is pretty darn close and even uses the same Type-C port. In fact, you can even play your VHS tapes on this BetaMax -- USB devices will run at their native speeds when connected to Thunderbolt.
And with USB 4, there will be no difference in speed. Is there even a practical difference in speed now? Do ya really need more than 10 Gbps? A few of you might, but not enough to pay the piper.
This is a no-brainer for the board makers: USB 3.1 Gen 2 ("3.2") Type-C offers a lot more speed than most devices can hope to keep up with internally. In the instances where somebody wants to daisy-chain video, they're either mining (which just needs the chain, not so much the speed), or they're using a laptop and don't have space for a video card. Well, these are mainboards, folks. You've got a bunch of fat-pipe PCIe 4.0 16-lane slots that your graphics cards won't even make full use of 99.99% of the time they're running, as they throttle down to 2.0 or 1.0.
BetaMax was better, but it died even before S-VHS was a real thing. ThunderBolt just got similarly voted down (massively) by pretty much all of big name manufacturers users trust enough and -might- have paid extra to get a board that has it.
Looks like we're goin' with VHS once again, boys and girls... ;-)
wilsonkf - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Check your last page. Do you really mean "ASUS X570" Product Stack? Also other brands...gavbon - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Good spot Wilson, I really appreciate it. I've been neck-deep in X570, I must have been in AM4 mode!tamalero - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
hey Anana, any chance you could build a full comparison table between number of ports, pci-e slots, wifi, ethernet..etc..?