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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Arsenica - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Something funny about the Gigabyte TRX40 Designare is that they go out their way to not include Thunderbolt branding for the bundled card. They only call it "a 40GB/s GC-Titan Ridge add-in card which allows you to take advantage of exceptionally fast transfer speeds!"YB1064 - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
$800 for a motherboard? I don't think any number of Xtreme XXX in the name justifies such a ridiculous price tag.colonelclaw - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Does the lack of Thunderbolt 3 on 11 of the 12 point to it still being too expensive to manufacture? Or something else? Seems odd to me that 8 out of 12 boards has ethernet > 1G, but only a single board has TB3. Doesn't seem very HEDT!gavbon - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Not to mention the single option is via an add-on card. I will reach out and see what I can find outSmell This - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Could TB3 be spec'd-out?
I mean, at 12v/60w (max TB3?) asking too much for cabling/hardware in the ever-ending quest for speed/bandwidth in exchange for heat?
Is the add-on proprietary to AsRock?
eek2121 - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
Disclaimer, this is going solely off memory and is based off stuff I read somewhere. IIRC The Macbook Pro has 4 thunderbolt 3 ports. More than likely, it's because Intel provides TB3 on the CPU separate from PCIE lanes, whereas AMD only has dedicated PCIE lanes. This means that TB3 uses PCIE lanes on AMD systems.phildj - Sunday, December 8, 2019 - link
The MacBooks Pro (and the 2018 Mac Mini) all run 2 Alpine Ridge (or whatever) controllers off 2x x4 PCIe lanes. The 15/16” version connects to the DGPU using only x8.Digispa - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
Thunderbolt, regardless of version number is owned by Intel. I would think that board manufacturers probably don't have to pay a license fee to add it to Intel boards but have to pay a fee for AMD boards they design and sell. It is most likely a cost issue versus a compatible spec issue.eek2121 - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
Untrue, TB3 has been open sourced. It will be a part of the USB 4.0 standard.dotes12 - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
Is it actually going to be called USB 4.0? They were really getting on a roll with USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 SuperSpeed+.