AMD's marketing on the left is set out to explain that each product in the Threadripper and X399 line will be 'fully enabled' - none of the chips will be limited in PCIe lane counts or DRAM for the sake of segmentation. AMD is happy at this point to keep segmentation limited to cores, frequency, and L3 cache. AMD X399 Ultra Durable motherboard with Dual Intel GbE LAN, Triple M.2 with Thermal Guard, 120dB SNR ALC1220, Front & Rear USB 3.1 Type-C, RGB FUSION 2.0, Intel Dual Band 802.11ac WiFi+BT4.2, Base Plated & I/O Shield Armor With support for three double-wide graphics cards and three NVMe SSDs, the Strix X399-E Gaming can easily scale up or down to meet your needs. There’s enough breathing room to run dual 2.5-slot cards like our Strix GTX 1080 Ti–and at a full 16 PCIe lanes per card. Primary M.2 drives get cooling from the chipset heatsink, while secondary SSDs poke out of a vertical slot with that can benefit from chassis airflow.

This is a powerful step up from the previous X399 GIGABYTE Aorus 7 motherboard to make up for its shortcomings with a more beefy VRM set up of 10+3 with a load of features increased to a certain degree compared to its predecessor. There are four PCI-e slots, a bunch of M.2 drives, 8 DIMM slots, integrated WiFi, RGB, and many more. It would have been better if they boarded the latest WiFi on it, still, it is not a fatal blow to the worth. On the upside, it has a pair of Gigabit Intel NICs and a 10 gigabit LAN Aquantia, it improves your internal networking for your router and whatnot, which comes pretty costly if you buy it separately Ready for cooling in any form, the diverse collection of liquid and fan headers lets you run everything from off-the-shelf AiOs to custom loops. With eight 4-pin headers in total, there’s enough capacity to cover an entire build.

With each of these motherboard overviews, we like to cover a few of the newer controllers to hit the market that motherboard manufacturers might take advantage of. Given the recent X299 launch on the Intel side, not much has changed since. The big parts to enter the consumer space are Aquantia's multi-gigabit ethernet controllers.

Although all our X399 motherboards have four PCIe x16 slots hooked up to the CPU, only the Zenith Extreme is designed for that many graphics cards. Its slots are spaced for double-wide coolers if you want to horde GPU power to leave your mark on benchmark leaderboards. On a more practical note, adding a fourth card can further accelerate compute-heavy workloads like 3D rendering and deep learning. To combat GPU sag, we include our ROG VGA Holder, which is strong enough to keep even the heaviest graphics cards horizontal. An oasis in a market flooded with gaming everything, the Prime X399-A dresses Threadripper in more professional attire while maintaining a stylish edge. It’s the most logical choice for a do-everything workhorse that plays to Threadripper’s strengths without spending too much of the budget on extras. All-new for this generation, the Zenith Extreme is the flagship of ROG’s AMD motherboard lineup. It comes with all of our latest features, including innovations available only on a select group of top-of-the-line models. Three SafeSlots offer plenty of capacity for multiple graphics cards, and you still get a fourth slot linked to the CPU. Each of those has a dedicated connection, with no sharing between them, and the same is true for the PCIe pathways for storage. The primary M.2 slot shares a heatsink with the chipset to lower drive temperatures under load, and the secondary slot protrudes outward near the DIMM slots, where drives can be cooled by airflow from adjacent system and radiator fans. Factor in the U.2 port, and you’ve got a solid recipe for future SSD expansion or loading up from the start.When PCIe is the game, it becomes time to play with controllers and ports to see what fits. It all starts with the underlying diagram for Threadripper and X399:

Supports AMD 2 nd Generation Ryzen™ Threadripper™ and 1 st Generation Ryzen™ Threadripper™ Processors Liquid adornments are complemented by comprehensive fan speed controls capable of managing a full system’s cooling through a single intuitive interface. Our FanXpert intelligence can now adjust each fan’s speed based on the hottest input from a group of configurable sensors, including the GPU diode on compatible graphics cards. This allows the cooling to react to a range of different workloads, like gaming binges that turn your graphics card into a space heater, and complex rendering that lights up all the cores on your CPU. Third is the updated Realtek ALC1150 audio codec, known as the ALC1220. The ALC1220 improves peak SNR while adding new functionality. ASUS run a customized version known as the ALC1220A, which removes some of the excess function for a stripped down version unique to them but configured in a partnership with Realtek. The Motherboards With the family tree sorted, it’s time for a closer look at each board. The top is as good a place as any to start. AMD X399 AORUS Motherboard with 10+3 IR Digital PWM, Dual Intel ® GbE LAN + AQUANTIA ® 10GbE BASE-T LAN, Triple M.2 with Triple Thermal Guard, ALC1220-VB + ESS 9118 Audio, Intel ® Dual Band 802.11ac WIFI, NanoCarbon Base Plated and I/O Shield Armor, RGB FUSION 2.0Bandwidth is a huge part of Threadripper’s appeal. The mother lode of PCI Express lanes stands ready for the multiple high-end graphics cards required for truly cutting-edge gaming and VR experiences. All of our X399 motherboards support three-way SLI and CrossFireX setups, and the Zenith Extreme can call upon a fourth card for record-setting benchmark attempts or an extra jolt of compute power. To protect your investment, SafeSlot reinforces the graphics slots against damage from increasingly heavy GPU coolers. Each of these potential configurations would run into several thousand dollars a piece for a full build - the M.2 drives were suggested at 512GB minimum, with the SATA drives in RAID configurations as well. AMD is making no joke; they want to be the premium platform. New Controllers for X399 From the chipset there are eight PCIe lanes, which AMD here has suggested reserving two for gigabit Ethernet, four for a PCIe x4 slot, one for a PCIe x1 slot, and one for a WiFi module. Alongside the PCIe lanes are eight SATA ports, six USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) Type-A ports, one USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) Type-C port and two USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) ports with appropriate redrivers. In a change to what we normally see on Intel motherboards, AMD lists SPI and Audio features as coming from the CPU rather than the chipset. AMD Suggests Variants A big takeawayfrom our AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X and 1950X review is the increase in CPU connected PCIe 3.0 lanes. A full 60 lanes are available to the PCIe slots and M.2 drives, while 4 lanes head off to the chipset where it's muxed for USB, SATA, low-level I/O, and other features. The increase in CPU PCIe lanes is set up to allowfor a lot more flexibilityconnecting devices usingPCIe bandwidth.

AMD X399 Gaming motherboard with RGB Fusion, Digital LED strip support, Triple M.2 with Thermal Guard,120dB SNR ALC1220, Killer E2500 Gaming Network, Front & Rear USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, Intel Dual Band 802.11ac WiFi+BT4.2 As part of the launch, AMD is wanting to promote the different ways in which an X399 motherboard could be arranged depending on the workload requirements. X399 Potential ConfigurationsWith so much bandwidth inside the platform, we had to give our X399 motherboards lots of ultra-fast connectivity to reach outside the box. For external devices, USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports provide 10Gbps links in all the flavors: Type-A, Type-C, and front panel. The Gigabit networking uses reliable Intel controllers, and that’s just the start. The ROG Zenith Extreme takes networking up a notch with not only a wired 10G Ethernet card, but also a wireless 802.11ad module. Two RGB headers prime the X399-A to illuminate up to four meters of lighting at optimal brightness. The lighting on the board itself is discreet, with a gentle glow emanating from below the chipset heatsink. Even with the lights turned off, the interplay of angular lines and bare metal makes the Prime stand out.