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
Power Delivery Specifications & Comparison
One of the most discussed aspects on motherboards is the power delivery, with users generally favouring those with good specifications and efficient designs. The AMD X570 chipset heralded some appreciated improvements to its desktop range, but with AMD's 7 nm architecture stretching to the HEDT side of things , these improvements are expected of the higher-specification TRX40 models. The TRX40 chipset is similar in design to that of X570 with 'spare' PCIe 4.0 lanes designed to allow manufacturers to implement its own unique mixture of specifications through extra USB 3.1 G2 connectivity, and more PCIe 4.0 M.2.
Please note that this information is self-reported, so until we can review any given TRX40 board, we're operating on the honor system, trusting vendors to supply honest and upfront information. As we review the hardware we will be checking, and we will be keeping this page up-to-date as more information becomes available.
Note: We reached out to ASUS about its PWM controller, and they stated that it doesn't have a part number and is made exclusively for them. As we find out more information on this, we will update the table below.
| TRX40 CPU Power Delivery Comparison | |||||
| Motherboard | Controller | H-Side | L-Side | Chokes | Doubler |
| ASRock TRX40 Creator | ISL69247 (8+0) |
ISL99390 (8) |
8 | - | |
| ASRock TRX40 Taichi | ISL69247 (8+0) |
ISL99390 (16) |
8 | ??? (8) |
|
| ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme | Undisclosed (16+0) |
TDA21472 (16) |
? | - | |
| ASUS ROG Strix TRX40-E | Undisclosed (?+?) |
TDA21472 (16) |
? | - | |
| ASUS Prime TRX40-Pro | Undisclosed (?+?) |
TDA21462 (16) |
? | - | |
| GIGABYTE TRX40 Aorus Xtreme | XDPE132G5C (16+0) |
TDA21472 (16) |
? | - | |
| GIGABYTE TRX40 Aorus Master | XDPE132G5C (16+0) |
TDA21472 (16) |
? | - | |
| GIGABYTE TRX40 Aorus Pro WIFI | XDPE132G5C (12+2) |
TDA21472 (12) |
? | - | |
| GIGABYTE TRX Designare | XDPE132G5C (16+0) |
TDA21472 (16) |
? | - | |
| MSI Creator TRX40 | XDPE132G5C (16+0) |
TDA21472 (16) |
? | - | |
| MSI TRX40 Pro 10G | ISL69247 (6+0) |
ISL9939 (12) |
? | ISL6617A (6) |
|
| MSI TRX40 Pro WIFI | ISL69247 (6+0) |
ISL9939 (12) |
? | ISL6617A (6) |
|
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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.