Threadripper 2 or WX is about to fall. If everything goes as planned, we will see the first processors of the second threadripper generation on August 13th, with the foreseeable debut of the 2950X with 16 cores and 32 threads and a bestial 2990X with 32 cores and 64 threads. Since there is no new chipset for this generation, manufacturers have to adapt to the needs of this chip. Let’s see how ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI did it.
ASUS does not seem to present any new records but relies on coolers.
Unlike Gigabyte and MSI, ASUS does not present new drives prepared for this generation, but cooling kits for all drives already on the market.
These kits will include an additional fan and heat sink as well as all necessary anchors to improve the cooling of the VRMs and the heat sink of various third-party controllers and the chipset so that the new animals can be fed stably.
You need to see the results of using your current power system instead of upgrading to a new system by forcing you to change the board. In principle, they seem to have enough confidence in their VRMs.
Gigabyte launches the X399 Aorus Extreme
Like MSI, Gigabyte has decided to release its top motherboard for the new Threadripper 2 processors instead of offering upgrades for its current motherboards. It comes with eight extended memory slots, four PCIe x16 ports and 3 M.2 connectors with their own heat sink.
As far as the power supply is concerned, the VRM consists of 10 phases and we have to use 2 EPS connectors with 8 pins and 1 PCIe with 6 pins of our power supply.
MSI relies on the new X399 Creation Board
This board was already shown at Computex 2018, and besides the extremely aggressive design and the integration of an SSD M.2 expansion kit that looks like a graphics card, there is much more to discuss.
The power supply is in the 16+3 phase version, using 2 8-pin EPS plugs from our power supply unit. This way we can be sure that the board can overload the 250W of the Threadripper 2990X.
It is a board with good expansion possibilities with 8 SATA, up to 15 USB 3.1, 10 headers for PWM fans, 7 M.2 ports, 4 PCIe x16 slots, etc….
Availability of these motherboards
The ASUS kit will be available on the market together with the Threadripper 2, they will be sold separately and we do not know their price. The gigabyte disk will be available on August 8 for about $500. We don’t know the exact availability of the MSI X399 Creation, but it would be about $500 – what do you think of these releases?