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 Prime TRX40-Pro
The last of the three TRX40 models from ASUS is the ASUS Prime TRX40-Pro. Part of its Prime series, it blends its usual white and silver aesthetic, with a more professional styling and straight-edge looks. The ATX sized PCB has plenty of features including three full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slots, three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, and eight SATA ports. The Prime TRX40-Pro sits towards the bottom of its TRX40 product stack offering users the basics while remaining competitive with other TRX40 models.
Focusing on the design of the ASUS Prime TRX40-Pro, its main design consists of a silver and white color scheme, with a rear panel cover doubling up as a power delivery heatsink, and a M.2 heatsink which amalgamates into the design of the chipset heatsink. The board has three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots with two of these sitting underneath a large silver aluminium heatsink, with the other M.2 slot installed vertically; an adapter comes in the accessories bundle. This also includes eight SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1 and 10 arrays. On the PCIe front, there are three full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slots, with a smaller PCIe 4.0 x4 slot located at the bottom. Directly below the PCIe 4.0 x4 slot is a power button, and a two-digit LED debugger. Next to this is a
As with the vast majority of TRX40 boards at launch, the ASUS Prime TRX40-Pro has support for DDR4-4666 and 256 GB of system memory across eight slots. The CPU power delivery looks impressive for a non-enthusiast model with a 16-phase design which is controlled by an undesignated controller. We know that ASUS using teamed power stages as they did with its X570 product stack. Delivering power to the CPU is a pair of 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power connectors, with one located at either side at the top of the board. For cooling, the ASUS Prime TRX40-Pro has seven 4-pin headers which include two for CPU fans, three for chassis fans, one for an AIO pump, and another for a water pump.
The rear panel includes three USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, and six USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports. A handily located BIOS Flashback button sits towards the left-hand side, while on the right-hand side are five color-coded 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output controlled by a Realtek ALC S1220 HD audio codec. The single networking port is controlled by an Intel I211-AT Gigabit Ethernet controller.
Although the ASUS Prime TRX40-Pro omits things like Wi-Fi 6 and uprated 2.5/5/10 GbE ethernet, it still comes with an MSRP of $450. While it may seem a little off the mark in terms of pricing, the Prime TRX40-Pro has a very subtle and professional design, with a competitive feature set, and plenty of storage support for users building a workstation using the AMD Threadripper 3000 series processors.
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Memo.Ray - Sunday, December 8, 2019 - link
Three tables on page 14 have headers that refer to X570 instead of TRX40.heimo - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
passthough audio in the chipet.passthrough audio in the chipset.
mzo - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
Although the Designare TRX40 is the only Gigabyte mobo that supports TB3 out of the box, I noticed the Auros WiFi has a THB-C port, same as the designare which uses to connect to the titan ridge. Does anybody know of the titan ridge card works with the Auros WiFi as well?PopinFRESH007 - Sunday, December 29, 2019 - link
REF: Page 4 ASRock TRX40 Taichi, last paragraph, first sentence"The ASRock TRX40 Taichi is the premier board for enthusiasts in its line-up with each of the four full-length PCIe 4.0 slots supporting x16 across the board"
The ASRock TRX40 Taichi only has three (3) full-length x16 slots.
PopinFRESH007 - Sunday, December 29, 2019 - link
@gavbon could you check if you guys have access to a block diagram for the ASRock TRX40 Taichi? Now that the CPUs are slowly becoming available and should be in-stock shortly I've been considering this board to upgrade. My use case is for 2x 2080Ti NVLINK with an Quad x4 NVMe SSD AIB so the Taichi is one of the only boards that can actually support this with its PCIe slot configuration.I also have 2x U.2 NVMe SSDs and I'm trying to figure out if the two on-board M.2 KeyM sockets are coming from the CPU or the chipset and the ASRock manual doesn't include a block diagram.
oc3ddesign - Wednesday, January 8, 2020 - link
has anyone had an issue with the XL size of this trx40 Designare board fitting into atx cases. There doesn't seem to be to many out there and they are all terribly bland or built for custom loops. I plan to use a aio and would love to put it all in a Lancool 2 when they ship later this month. Any Case recommendations here?PopinFRESH007 - Saturday, January 18, 2020 - link
There will definitely be compatibility issues with the length of it. Most cases designed for E-ATX should be ok for the width. I have an Enthoo Evolv X case that I would absolutely recommend, however, the TRX40 Designare board definitely wouldn't fit as I have an SSI-CEB spec'd board and it is a sliver away from the bottom case shroud. Based on the dimensions and spec of the Lancool 2 I'd say you'd have the same issue with the TRX40 Designare fitting in that case, e.g. it won't "vertically" fit. Something like the older HAF-X case would fit itaCuria - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
There is an error: "ASRock TRX40 Taichi ... four full-length PCIe 4.0 slots"... This board only has 3 full length PCIe 4.0 slots, not 4jangray - Friday, February 14, 2020 - link
Will any of these TRX40 motherboards permit bifurcation of one of the gen4x16 slots into gen4 x8x8? Based on current motherboard users guides, some allow gen4x16 -> gen4 x4x4x4x4 but none seem to do gen4 x8x8 (unlike the Aorus X570 for example). Thanks for any pointers.