For those users who need a HEDT above the Threadripper, ASRock Rack presented several EPYC Genoa motherboards with a single socket, with which we can have a computer with about 96 cores and 12 channels of DDR5 memory, which is really spectacular.
EPYC Genoa: ASRock launches single-socket motherboards for HEDT and server
Currently, AMD markets the Threadripper Pro workstation processors, which offer up to 64 cores and 128 threads. However, now performance enthusiasts can opt for a superior option thanks to ASRock.
ASRock Rack has unveiled several single-socket SP5 motherboards for the EPYC 9004 ‘Genoa’ CPUs. Among these motherboards, we find the Deep Micro-ATX GenoaD8UD-2T/X550 and GenoaD24QM3-2L2T/BCM models, which can work for workstations or for servers.
Although the ASRock GenoaD8UD-2T/X550 and theGenoaD24QM3-2L2T/BCM motherboards can work for workstations, they were conceived especially for servers, so we find specifications designed for this category, such as the four PCIe 5.0 x16 with CXL 1.1 on top, two M.2-2280 slots M.2-2280 for SSDs with PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, multiple MCIO connectors with PCIe 5.0 or SATA support, two or four 10GbE ports, one GbE connector for management, and the BMC Aspeed AST2600.
The EPYC processor we added has no OC support and they support DDR5-4800 memory. Although the memory could be considered ‘slow’, the large memory capacity is a much more important benefit than the speed it can offer.
One of the few downsides is that these motherboards do not feature USB 4 or Thunderbolt ports. However, the performance benefits seem unquestionable for tasks that require many cores and a lot of computing power. We’ll keep you posted.