Gigabyte have updated their lineup of X399 Threadripper boards with the new Designare EX. It sports a long list of features including dual Intel GbE LAN, Dual Band 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, three M.2 slots, ALC1220 audio with 120dB SNR and a USB 3.1 Type-C port on the back as well as support for a second front port once cases start including them.
Two of the M.2 slots lie between PCIe slots, with the third under the lit heatshield on the lower right of the board so do make sure to install them before the GPU. The board is great for miners and gamers alike, the four top PCIe 3.0 slots can provide x16/x16/x8/x8 simultaneously thanks to Threadrippers huge count of PCIe lanes; the bottom most slot offers x4 speeds for an SSD.
You can read more about their Smart Fan 5 cooling, M.2 heatsinks, advanced power features and RGBs in the full press release.
City of Industry, California, October 27th, 2017 – GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, announced the release of the new X399 DESIGNARE EX motherboard. With features such as Smart Fan 5, RGB Fusion, and support for the powerful AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ processor, the X399 DESIGNARE EX motherboard is crafted for content creators who take pride in their own work.
The exterior design of the motherboard is a work of art in itself and provides plenty of aesthetic value. It comes with a jet black colored PCB, silver colored armor, and a customizable Accent PCH Overlay. The DESIGNARE logo and stylized lettering is imprinted on the overlay which can be illuminated with RGB Fusion APP, giving the motherboard a unique, vibrant style.
Fully optimized to support the monstrous power of the AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™, the X399 DESIGNARE EX motherboard has outstanding performance capabilities. The 16-core, 32-thread AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ is one of the most power hungry processors on the market so the motherboard uses a design combining 8-pin and 4-pin gold plated solid power connectors to power such a CPU. The motherboard’s server-grade digital VRM design with 3rd Generation PowIRstage™ allows it to effectively regulate the power flow within the motherboard.
Impressive graphical performance is one of the defining features of the X399 DESIGNARE EX motherboard. It comes with 48 PCIe Gen 3 lanes and provides support for 4-Way AMD CrossFire™ and 4-Way NVIDIA® SLI, enabling the usage of multi-graphic configurations. The motherboard is designed to fully support design focused graphics cards such as the NVIDIA® Quadro® and AMD Radeon™ Pro GPUs. Even with their stringent performance requirements, the X399 DESIGNARE EX allows for those cards to be seamlessly implemented into the motherboard to provide high quality 3D performance, as well as larger design and increased rendering capabilities.
Storage performance is a key asset for any motherboard designed for content creators. The X399 DESIGNARE EX provides Triple NVMe PCIe x4 M.2 connectors with transfer speeds up to 32 Gb/s for top-of-the-line storage performance. These powerful storage devices are protected by M.2 Thermal Guard which minimize the effects of thermal throttling and are capable of keeping these storage devices up to 20°C cooler. The motherboard supports free NVMe RAID with up to 7 NVMe SSDs, a rarity even for motherboards with strong storage performance.
Furthermore, Smart Fan 5 technology provides the perfect cooling solution for such a high performance motherboard. It allows users to monitor temperatures in critical areas of the motherboard and set temperature limits to ensure that their PCs operate within safe temperature ranges. Users can also customize fan speed settings to maximize fan efficiency and minimize unwanted fan noise.
RGB Fusion Technology is a natural fit with the X399 DESIGNARE EX motherboard and provides the user with incredible style and flair. With onboard LEDs as well as support for 5V or 12V external digital lighting strips, the motherboard provides the user with the ability to illuminate the motherboard or even the Chassis with cool lighting effects. Designers and enthusiasts alike can utilize the motherboard’s RGB Fusion Technology to create lighting patterns that allow them to express their unique artistic style.
The motherboard comes with dual Intel® GbE LAN ports, Intel® Dual Band Wireless 802.11ac connectivity with cFosSpeed, Quad Channel DDR4 support, a front USB 3.1 header, USB DAC-UP 2, Q-Flash Plus, and much more. The X399 DESIGNARE EX motherboard has everything that content creators could ask for to help them produce the highest quality content.
How I long for the good old
How I long for the good old days when many us had multiple graphics cards in our systems to play games at higher frame rates instead of to mine with.
Does Nvidia even support more
Does Nvidia even support more that 2 GPUs in SLI, and I’d like more info on this X399 MB’s IOMMU groupings and any PCIe passthrough to any OS/Instances on a KVM/Xen/VMware/other vitural machine/hypervisor arrangement to a virtual/physical GPU/GPUs via PCIe passthrough.
Maybe for 2 OS instances on the Virtual machine each assiged a single Zeppelin(binned to Summit Ridge for TR/Ryzen with some server features disabled) Die in NUMA Mode with its own 2 channels to local memory. And the GPUs, 2 or more sliced up into logical/virtual GPUs and passed through via the VM’s/Hardware PCIe passthrough to each OS instance for serving up 2 games at one time to two different OS/Instances and games to two different users.
I’d love to see this type of game testing where 16 TR cores where split up into 2, 8 core/Die, NUMA nodes and 2 games being played at the same time by 2 users. The real fun part will be patching throug the controllers to the OS instance on the proper VM/OS instance if that’s possible.
Here is an intresting 6 part guide(1) from 2014 it’s a bit dated and it does mention that Nvidia’s consumer SKUs do not enable PCIe pass-through(Quadro only) but most of AMD’s Radeon SKUs(driver problems or the Dual GPU/one PCIe card Radeon SKUs) do allow PCIe passthrough but it talks about patching through game controllers and such.
The article is before TR’s time and Other OEMs besides Alienware will be offering 16 core TR OEM builds once Alienware’s exclusive 16 core TR SKUs(only) deal for OEM Builds expires at the end of 2017. But Home system Builders are free to build their own TR 16 core SKU based systems and this MB may be able to accomodate some muiti-headed gaming services. The article/guide is an interesting read.
(1)
“Multi-headed VMWare Gaming Setup”
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Multi-headed-VMWare-Gaming-Setup-564/
Check out Nvidia’s answer in
Check out Nvidia’s answer in this thread. Sounds like one of those ‘wink wink’ deals…
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1023809/pci-passthrough-of-founders-edition-geforce-gtx-1080-with-kvm/
Yeah, we
Yeah, we know…
https://www.pcper.com/news/Motherboards/Gigabyte-Designs-New-X399-Designare-EX-Motherboard
Question is: Is the Thunderbolt header active and/or is there anything referencing Thunderbolt in the current BIOB.
BIOS even
BIOS even
According to another review
According to another review that came out yesterday: “Future Thunderbolt 3.0 Support: We see a Thunderbolt 3.0 GPIO header, but no mention of it in the manual. That is because it hasn’t yet been finalized by AMD/Intel/GBT or certified, but it’s there, so hopefully, it will come one day. We have seen GIGABYTE add in Thunderbolt 3.0 hardware and not advertise it until it’s ready (even after product launch), and hopefully, that’s the case here (no promises).”