The Ryzen "ThreadRipper"... 16 cores of awesome

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wildhorse2k

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May 12, 2017
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Its a pitty that perhaps half of the Threadripper pins will be unused. Even if AMD released a better Threadripper with more dies then you couldn't use the extra memory controllers or PCIe lanes. So it seems there won't really be a Threadripper with more than 2 dies in the future. Either more cores per die or higher frequency or both.

From what I have read Threadripper won't work in Epyc boards which is a pitty.
 
ddogg

ddogg

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I had to quickly double check my case specs to see eatx support :) Mine should comfortably fit any eatx board. Didn't realize x399 would be eatx though.
 
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Topweasel

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dlerious said:
Here's a pic of the Asus Zenith Extreme https://rog.asus.com/articles/maxim...ming-for-amds-monster-ryzen-threadripper-cpu/ , no measurements yet, but maybe you can get a rough guess looking at components around the edge. A few youtubers had computex videos showing the board, but I'm not sure if they mentioned size. Do like the 10GBe card it'll come with.
Click to expand...
If you look at the positioning of the far right mounting screw holes. It is wider than standard ATX. But not drastically.


Also on that board what is the Dimm.2 for?
 
IEC

IEC

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Topweasel said:
If you look at the positioning of the far right mounting screw holes. It is wider than standard ATX. But not drastically.

Also on that board what is the Dimm.2 for?
Click to expand...

Riser card slot to install a riser card with support for 2x m.2 devices:
https://www.techpowerup.com/229448/asus-dimm-2-is-an-m-2-riser-card

Image:
04d525d7c31a.jpg
 
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scannall

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Topweasel said:
If you look at the positioning of the far right mounting screw holes. It is wider than standard ATX. But not drastically.


Also on that board what is the Dimm.2 for?
Click to expand...
The Dimm.2 thing is just a slot for a riser card that holds 2nvme SSD's. Might make it easier to cool them?
 
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Topweasel

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Ajay

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Topweasel said:
The fact that it extends past the rightmost mount points of ATX makes it E-ATX. But there is a big difference between fitting a 10.1" wide motherboard in a case vs. a 13" wide motherboard.
Click to expand...

Really? I never would have guessed :p
 
ub4ty

ub4ty

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Thank you for all your replies to my inquiry everyone. Given the information you provided, I now have a reference to a threadripper ATX vs E-ATX board I just noticed that the E-ATX mobos simply just extend off the last ATX mounting screw hole. This resolved a misunderstanding I had that was confusing me w.r.t to thinking E-ATX had another screw hole on the extended part. I'll be able to confirm case compatibility with the information you guys provided :).

One obvious issue w/ the yuge socket size and board size restrictions is that manufacturers are getting creative with the layout.

One thing that also caught me eye is different PCI-E slot layouts. In the case of this threadripper board, is this spacing setup for 4 videocards that take up 2 slots each? If this route is taken, would the stubby pci-e port in black be blocked by the GPU? Do people use pci-e riser cables in situations where the slots are blocked by double with cards?
x399-professional_575px.jpg


In the case of the Gigabyte board :
aorus-x399-gaming-7-full_slideshow_main.jpg

Completely different spacing of the pci-e slots .... Single slot spacing is nestled in between two double slots. Given the spacing between the vidya card slots, would you just use a longer sli cable? Like so (but longer)? :
223858_0_original.jpg

In the case of 4 GPUs, it appears the 3rd pci-e slot would be blocked? Again, can a riser cable be used to access this?

All of the board seems to carry 2-3 M.2 slots and get creative w.r.t to soaking up the number of PCI-E ports made available by the socket.
 
ub4ty

ub4ty

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Jun 21, 2017
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Topweasel said:
The fact that it extends past the rightmost mount points of ATX makes it E-ATX. But there is a big difference between fitting a 10.1" wide motherboard in a case vs. a 13" wide motherboard.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that Asus ROG X399 Zenith seems to have some serious lip on it beyond that last ATX mounting hole. That being said, the spacing seems to be a lot better and things a lot less crammed. It allowed them to get a far better/heftier heatsink on those VRMs and a heat-pipe solution. The dimm slots aren't taint close to the CPU socket. Overall, I like the spacing and would assume the thermals would be much better. I'm looking at the gigabyte board that has crammed everything into ATX dimensions. Those wimpy VRM heatsinks, given how much juice that will be flowing through this board if you really utilize all of those PCI-E slots, M.2 slots, and have a serious workload, look downright scary.
 
ddogg

ddogg

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I hope a monoblock or vram block is released with these boards as I'm going to put the entire thing under water. Those VRAM heatsinks look pathetic and it would be a shame if they have the same issues x299 is having.
 
ub4ty

ub4ty

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ddogg said:
I hope a monoblock or vram block is released with these boards as I'm going to put the entire thing under water. Those VRAM heatsinks look pathetic and it would be a shame if they have the same issues x299 is having.
Click to expand...
Yeah, there's no way, given threadrippers specs and the amount of power running through that board that those vrms wont be getting toasty. This is the only threadripper mobo I've seen that has a beefy cooling solution on the vrms :
1496150690319.jpg


They went for a hefty E-ATX extension to achieve this, put a nicely sized hunk of metal on the vrm and have a heatpipe connected to fan solution for cooling it. Given whats happening with the X299 boards, I'd be skeptical of any board that doesn't have a juicy VRM solution. That being said, f*** boards with wifi built in :confounded:
 
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.vodka

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Dec 5, 2014
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Yeah.. it seems low.

It's also using DDR4-2400, and we know how important fast RAM is to Ryzen as to maximize fabric speed... this time it's also connecting two dies, so using something like DDR4-3200 should have even more of an impact than it does in AM4 Ryzen.

Hopefully we'll have some more (and better) results, it's only one month to launch.
 
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Topweasel

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ub4ty said:
Yeah, there's no way, given threadrippers specs and the amount of power running through that board that those vrms wont be getting toasty. This is the only threadripper mobo I've seen that has a beefy cooling solution on the vrms.

They went for a hefty E-ATX extension to achieve this, put a nicely sized hunk of metal on the vrm and have a heatpipe connected to fan solution for cooling it. Given whats happening with the X299 boards, I'd be skeptical of any board that doesn't have a juicy VRM solution. That being said, f*** boards with wifi built in :confounded:
Click to expand...

I don't know what the hate for the built in wifi is. People do use that in home even on desktops. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the highest requested feature nowadays regardless of your or other's opinion. On top of that it isn't integrated like a Wired NIC or audio (which as a side comment was something people were complaining about 15 years ago), it's almost always a M.2 (or a mPCI/Msata port a couple years ago) which makes it completely replaceable. Even the one on my Taich is just a standup m.2 that I can unscrew the cover off of and put a new adapter in.
 
crashtech

crashtech

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Wifi is fine for entry and midrange, but I'd be curious to know how many power users need wifi for high-end rig. Wired is pretty obviously the way to go for max performance.
 
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Topweasel

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crashtech said:
Wifi is fine for entry and midrange, but I'd be curious to know how many power users need wifi for high-end rig. Wired is pretty obviously the way to go for max performance.
Click to expand...

Depends if Wired network is important. It can serve other purposes even if the desktop is wired. Like relegating VM access to an easier to manage and completely separate network connector. Or allowing someone access to an internet connections easier when going to a lan party. Honestly there isn't a whole besides gaming latency and file server that is that affected by wireless.

On top of that adding Wifi doesn't seem to really affect pricing that much. Maybe $10 on a super high end workstation is it really that big of an issue to have another form of connector just in case you need it. On top of that in all probability and is the actual case for my Taichi, the wifi adapter is also a BT adapter. Which is a much better solution than using a usb based device integrated or adding a USB dongle later. I am more than happy enough for that alone to make up any difference in price it added.
 
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beginner99

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Topweasel said:
I don't know what the hate for the built in wifi is. People do use that in home even on desktops. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the highest requested feature nowadays regardless of your or other's opinion. On top of that it isn't integrated like a Wired NIC or audio (which as a side comment was something people were complaining about 15 years ago), it's almost always a M.2 (or a mPCI/Msata port a couple years ago) which makes it completely replaceable. Even the one on my Taich is just a standup m.2 that I can unscrew the cover off of and put a new adapter in.
Click to expand...

crashtech said:
Wifi is fine for entry and midrange, but I'd be curious to know how many power users need wifi for high-end rig. Wired is pretty obviously the way to go for max performance.
Click to expand...

Exactly. If I'm paying $1000+ for mobo and CPU I will ensure that it will not be crippled by WiFi. And even best wifi uses to 100mb ethernet unless you are very close to router and have line of sight, eg. when is is trivial to use a cable anyway. And since 1gbit ethernet is standard forever wireless just doesn't hold up.
 
IEC

IEC

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Topweasel

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beginner99 said:
Exactly. If I'm paying $1000+ for mobo and CPU I will ensure that it will not be crippled by WiFi. And even best wifi uses to 100mb ethernet unless you are very close to router and have line of sight, eg. when is is trivial to use a cable anyway. And since 1gbit ethernet is standard forever wireless just doesn't hold up.
Click to expand...
I get that point. But it's the idea that people get pissed at the existence of single tool on such an advanced board with so much connectivity because they wouldn't use it. We have gone through this before the commoditizing aspect of including these features as a option and eventually standard on boards is a good thing not a bad thing.
 
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