TIMESTAMPS: 0:16 introduction 0:44 what’s in the box 1:26 what’s new with this Alpha model 2:23 size - it’s big! 2:58 dual-BIOS chips 3:20 the steel backplate 4:09 how about the OLED display 4:50 sTRX socket and memory area 6:19 right-side connectors 8:23 bottom edge connectors 9:54 PCIe slot configuration 11:30 M.2 options - there’s HOW many? 16:11 audio 16:48 rear I/O 19:58 fan headers 21:30 power delivery 23:42 VRM cooling and fans 25:34 chipset cooling 26:57 test system 28:26 performance testing 33:20 wrapping up
@@revanvonheaven8270 yes you could, but it depends on what server features you need such as IPMI or SFP+. Otherwise, it would be fine for home server type usage from Unraid or FreeBSD etc.. Luke
One of the most complete reviews I've seen of any motherboard. How youtube's algorithm made me miss this for 11 months is just wrong lol. Thank you for this and how well indexed and documented your video is. Cheers.
With the 8/12/16 core TR's gone, I can't afford the cpu. Ryzen doesn't have enough I/O and I'm glad I got a Zenith Extreme/1900X. I might go up to a 2950X 16 core as the price comes down. The big hit with the AM4 socket was cpu/board/DDR4/M.2 socket (at last). The TR meant a new MOBO/CPU/Quad channel DDR4/M.2 drives/ Work station GPU (Radeon VII) and a higher res 32" 1440P monitor. Bigger case/fans/rads/Power supply/reservoirs/D5 pumps that will run any TR 1900X to 3990X with any GPUs. It's taken me two years. Now I want a 43" 4K PG43UA monitor 144Hz monitor. This stops when you die.
It's not the $850 for the board ,it's the $1399 for a gen4 ZEN2 24 core cpu. I want the I/O, 64 cpu gen4 lanes. I would be happy with 12/16 cores ZEN2. I just love my 1900X/Zenith extreme. GEN4 cpu lanes are here now! I only buy GEN4 parts (M.2 ssds/Hyper card/Dimm.2 card) I can move to a new Zenith board. Case/fans/rad/pumps/blocks and Power supply that would make the jump to any new TR cpu.
Thank you! I have this board. Built my own AMD Threadripper and love that I can now do video edit without the bog-down. But I wondered if I had a Thunderbolt connector because I want the Quantum 2626 for live performance and it connects by Thunderbolt. You fully explained so that I now understand.
This mobo has been very very solid for me so far. Sad i cannot use the last pcie slot without removing the usb connector. Soon another 3090 arriving for an sli :D
The SATA limitation is a real boomer honestly especially at the price range, totally a red flag for me if i had to pick up a T-REX40 motherboard. Thanks for the very very in-deep review as always Luke
I also do not like that the bottom PCI becomex 4x if you use an m.2 disk in slot 2. I usually have my large graphics card on the bottom slot. Currently have a 3 slot 2080 Ti card that takes a lot of space higher.
The manual shows the top 4 SATA slots as the first and the lower 4 as shared with the bottom side SSD port. If the bottom side ssd port is used in conjunction with the SATA (E) ports it kicks the bottom ssd out of PCIe4 functionality. The top side SSD ports according to the manual all operate in PCIe4 equally, 4 data paths.
I have always bought asus's motherboard, after 3 or maybe 4 years ram's slot start to fail and plastic cover are broken, this time i'll give the oportunity to Aorus extreme, this board looks strong
Hello, thanks for the comprehensive information and effort in the video, great work! I have a question, at 11:20 you've mentioned that if i have an M.2 installed as raid for example that it would render the bandwidth of the lowest 8x bandwidth PCie slot to be only 4x?! Does that include having the M.2 raid installed on the right slot on the motherboard using the included Dim.2 connector?! The problem i am having is i have recently installed a 3rd Gpu 4090, but when all my 3 gpus are connected the system runs only the monitor doesn't recognize any signal coming from any of the cards, could having the dim.2 as raid on the motherboard be the cause? Noting that any combination of only 2 cards of the 3 the system runs normally and i had no problem with the monitor picking up the signal. Would really appreciate your input, keep doing what you are doing 👍🏻
Great review! building a PC now with this Mobo and 3070X Threadripper. Filling all 5 M.2 spots. You mentioned running the OS on the M.2 on the back of the board. As I put the same 2T 980 M.2 drives in all 5 spaces, is there a way to know when the PC boots up which M.2 drive is that back one, so I can load the OS there??
I hate that problem. I try to get different maker drives to know the difference. Anyway the BIOS supposedly allows you to rename the M.2 drives, so that might help. . [Haven't had a chance to try that]
Only thing missing from making this motherboard epic is thunderbolt ports built into the i/o shield. Come on Asus....anything over 500.00 dollars should have the header for thunderbolt or i/o thunderbolt.
I too wish Thunderbolt was more common on TRX40 motherboards. I think a lot of the professional/prosumer audience would really value Thunderbolt 3 even just for the high transfer rates. Luke
@@KitGuruTech agreed....alot of people that are into music recording and production need the thunderbolt compatibility for hardware, plus at a certain price I believe all ports should be available on the motherboard.
4:12 So anyone figured out how to change the info on that oled live dash? I only have CPU Temp while in Windows, and I can already see SEVERE oled burn-in... 😩
how you you use the other slots in it to mine while the primary card is used for general purposes? i bought this for that sole pupose and its near impossible.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS. Bought this motherboard and for whatever reason, Asus's sight just won't load for me, I just get a black screen. Frustrating about the bandwidth sharing on this board, isn't there more than enough PCIE lanes on this thing to not have to resort to that? OR do they have to accomodate for the lowest chipset's limitations? I bought the 3990x (since I'm dumb and wanted the most ridiculous one, even though I'll NEVER use even a quarter of it's offering in power). This was extremely helpful, and makes my first PC Build in 20 years less daunting.
the dim 2 slot has a speed of type 2242/2260/2280/22110 and 6 channels the other 3 have a speed of type 2242/2260/2280 the dim is much faster. always use 1 of the dim m2 for your c drive and 1 for your virtual memory(swapfile). use the mp 400 of corsair 8 tb this has a really fast iops read and write this is what you need for ram. use 8 tb virtual memory (swapfile) and 256gb of ddr4 3200 with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64 core. the mb supports faster memory but the cpu not. and the m2 slot on the backside is a 2x slot. faster than te other 2. use this for adding 1 tb of RAMCache III that you can find in your bios this gives you 9256 gb of ram that is wat you need for the 64 core. the m2 slot on the back side shares bandwidth with the top 4 sata. and the lower 2 m2 share bandwidth with pci express port 2 and 4 and the pci express 16.4 are really 4 fully functional ports not 2 x8 if you use the 2 m2 next to it it wil become x16/x8/x16/x8 you can find this on the asus web site. have fun !!
Amazon has the Asus Hyper gen4 PCIe X16 card for $75. eBAY has the Zenith II extreme Dimm.2 GEN4 card for $65. Both are easy to install or pull out and have heat sinks. I'm going to try these out with gen4 M.2 drives on the first gen Zenith gen3 board.
I suspect that the only OS for a system that will have a 64 core 128 thread processor installed would be Linux Mint 19.3 CINNAMON (Tricia) 64bit edition and if you want gaming the Steam Client for Linux Mint 19.3 CINNAMON (Tricia) 64bit edition should work without problems.
Great review Luke - great board. Call me old fashion but I'd like to see at least one PS/2 port. I know people will giggle but it comes in handy when a keyboard on USB stops working during boot process for whatever reason - creating DOS disk images and such. Many times on my Z77 board I have been saved by the direct access of my PS2 port. It is all that's stood between a graceful shutdown and a hard restyart (never good). No harm in including it and for a few dollars cost on a board like this, well, they should have. Just want the Gen 4 threadrip[per now and the TRX80 boards with USB4 and DDR5 to match! Then my life will be complete! :-)
@@worthington5687 Thanks for the reply Worthington. Short answer is that a PS/2 adaptor will work but only insofar as giving you a USB connected mouse to your computer. The connector is only a help for your cord to be able to make a connection to a USB port and then connects with the guts of the PC in the normal USB way - not as deep, so to speak, as a true PS/2 port. It doesn't reach deep into the computer BIOS like the true 100% PS/2 port on the rear I/O panel. A shame, but them's the facts. The ASUS APEX MoBo is the only modern board I've been able to find with TWO PS/2 ports on the rear I/O. Hopefully that wonderful design feature continues with the upcoming Z790 boards as I plan on getting one of those (or the AM5 boards with the new Ryzen chips). All, BTW, confirmed now with PCIe 5, DDR5 & Thunderbolt 4, or, USB4 by another name! Cheers.
May not be. On webpage's review they wrote that the system without GPU used some 400 Watts alone. Add at least 350 Watts for RTX GPU and You're scrapping a bottom for 850 W psu. Keep in mind they electrical efficient of given psu under max load. I would say for single gpu and 3960x or 3970x the 1200 W psu will do.
I just completed a build with this motherboard and it keeps saying HDD CODE 02 and then CMOS ERROR or POST ERROR. I have cleared the cmos by removing the motherboard battery and I’ve flashed the bios using a new bios update file via usb, I’ve done everything but the system won’t post and the graphics card won’t display anything on the monitor. I’m confused.
The latch for the 24-pin cable looks like it’s facing the outside of the board. I don’t see any latches on the 8-pin EPS connectors. Am I correct in assuming those latches face inward?
@@presspain4007 it's power that's not needed. It's as if they concentrated on vrms and forgot about everything else. People go to HEDTs for lanes/resources; not just power. This board fails because it has limited resources which defeats the idea of having a threadripper of 88 lanes therefore this board is a failure. But Asus loves to slap ROG on garbage because they know you'll pay like a dummy. This is a terrible and overpriced board. This board should've been no higher than 500 USD.
Does anyone know where to get a screwdriver that fits the CPU plate screws? Mine came with a screwdriver and several tips, but none of them seem to fit those screws.
I think it's a T20 or S20 torx/star bit. My orange one supplied has a nice ratchet to get the proper torque. www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/275200675876_/Torx-T20-Screwdriver-HEATSINK-AMD-ryzen-threadripper-epyc.jpg th-cam.com/video/Ja8y4o9FaBg/w-d-xo.html
So if Im using the one in the back "M.2 Slot" and use Sata port for like additional SSDs or HDDs. they would share Bandwidth? I need a litt bit more details, i've got my 3990x and im seriously looking to get this Motherboard for it . Another Question: Which case would you recommend for this Motherboard ? Regards, Butti
4 SATA ports off the PCH (1-4) are OK. It's the 4 SATA ports off the AS media controller (5-8) that shut off with the rear M.2 in use. M.2 socket SATA III drives are just as slow as ssd's, 500Mb. The old Zenith ran the Dimm.2 off the DDR4 lanes. This new Zenith II runs the Dimm.2 lanes off the PCH. One solution is the Hyper GEN4 m.2 PCIe card for one to four M.2 GEN4 drives on an X16 slot. With or without raid.
AMD and every review I've seen said 3000 series TR Zen2 only. We get GEN4 lanes but 24 cores is the cheapest cpu. 3960X/3970X/3990X Level1 tech showed that 3970X just slaughters the competition. Don't feel bad with a 2970WX I'm still on a 1900X. I still don't have a 4k monitor for it. Maybe Coronachan will stimulate me with $1200 check.
@@Martin_MamCary no they are free to use i would use the dim its much faster if u use a second m2 in the dim make that a big swap file so you wil get extra ram the 32 core needs a swapfile of 4500gb and the 64 core needs a swapfile of 8000gb i would use the mp 400 of corsair they are very fast and are 8 tb
@@janvanderwel-jq4md no it's not. It's a terrible board for it's price and resources. It's a disrespect to threadripper and it's 88 lanes. Only a dumbass would buy this board. But I hear there are no shortages of Dummies.
Hi Nick. Just checked the online manual and webpage for the regular Zenith II Extreme and they both say x16/x8/x16/x8. Where did you see that info? Do you have a link?
It's confusing, X16 is used for the length of the socket. I use to turn a board over and look at the pins. Ryzen is only 16X 4X or 8X 8X 4X. The Strix TRX4 is three 16x slots. The Zenith II is 16X 8X 16X 8X.
As per number of pins they are full length slots. Yet electrically these are connected 16x/8x/16x/8x. Also check the manual if there are any dependencies for connected devices.
@@maxhughes5687 Gigabyte found a way to "play nice" with their TRX40 Designare by including a THB_C header on the motherboard and the GC Titan Ridge PCIe card that gives users two Thunderbolt 3 ports. Their X570 Aorus Master and Aorus Ultra also support a Thunderbolt 3 add-in card connector. I mean, I get it, Intel and Apple don't like to share, but if one company found a way (probably by throwing a couple of dollars from each sale of a motherboard to Intel and Apple), it's possible. These other companies are just too greedy.
Just a clarification. Slots segmentation 16/8/16/8 or 3*16x are the only allowed combinations by AMD. They don't allow to use PLX switches (like on many X299 boards for example) so it won't cut into EPYC segment. For a 1000 USD board - far too many compromises. Main problem of this board is that Asus skimped on 'normal' ZE2 VRM and then cranked price by 150$ just for improved VRM section. Asus tax on this board is at least 200$. Monstrously overpriced. Terrible combination of SATA connectivity (workstation board...), sub-par NVMe options (using all ports disables so many things you could just buy 600$ board and get better choices). I love the DIMM.2, but it should contain 4 slots not just 2. Over-designed VRM cooling is too big. Aorus Xtreme with classic heatsink and nominal case airflow leave this in the dust while requiring much less space. As a curiosity TRX40 SATA ports are slower than X399, perhaps it'll be fixed with drivers. As things stand both ZE2/ZE2A are nowhere compared to Aorus Xtreme (or Designare which gets TB3 controller in the box and you could possibly connect up to 8 10Gb/s NICsTB3 adapters so lack of 10G NIC on board is a non-issue). If you have a case for it, think no more. 10 (6) SATA ports and 8 (7) NVMe slots - 6 SATA if you want all NVMe slots on the board, 10 if you forfeit one M.2 chipset connected port). Plus Thunderbolt3 support. Basically the only annoyance from Aorsu Xtreme is that stupid code display, probably Gigabyte missed the memo that tiny LCD displays are no longer a problem. And last slot is not so worthless on Xtreme. Because all headers are moved to the right edge of the board and angled, you can easily slot a VGA in last slot or NVMe x8 adapter like OWC Accelsior 4M2. And 5 NVMe is not much Luke. Running right now 6 and certainly will add another 2 in not to distant feature.
I think there will always be compromises on these high-end boards because it is difficult to address what everybody wants in such a diverse market. Some people may not be able to use XL-ATX, some people may want four dual-slot cards, some people may want oversized VRM cooling for enhanced performance potential, some people may want as many M.2 slots as possible without stealing expansion card slots, some people will want 20Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C. Others may want quite the opposite for their individual use cases. There's no doubt that the Aorus Xtreme and MSI Creator TRX40 are very strong flagship competitors, but I don't think it is fair to say the Z2EA is "nowhere compared to Aorus Xtreme". There are pros and cons to any of those options and how favourable one board is to another depends on individual requirements. As it happens, the good guys at Hardware Unboxed did a video looking at TRX40 VRM cooling performance. This ASUS board is the best in their testing (as it has shown in our more limited internal testing), and beats the Aorus Xtreme and MSI Creator TRX40 and their smaller heatsinks, so some would argue that ASUS' oversized VRM heatsink is justified by the performance it provides. Of course people can run more than 5 M.2 SSDs, as you have proven. Just because you run more than 5 does not make it commonplace, even on motherboards of this ilk. I too have use cases (in previous projects, generally) for 6-8 high-speed M.2 drives but that does not mean it is any less positive of ASUS to provide capability for 5 devices onboard without using up a physical expansion slot. Which board do you run right now? And which adapter card do you use for your M.2 SSDs? I am very keen to know which adapter cards people tend to use and whether they are single slot and passively cooled, single slot and actively cooled, dual slot with active cooling, and how many drives the adapter card takes. Thanks. Luke
Do you still use PS/2? I know a lot of people still like to use it in certain situations, so I would be genuinely interested to know if it's of interest on a motherboard like this. Luke
@@KitGuruTech i like to play with some minor overclock, and ps/2 ports are more reliable when i enter unstable clock/voltage situations and there is no other way to instal win7 on new hardware than using a ps/2 device because win7 do not recognize usb3 with out installing updates. I've also heard that when using liquid nitrogen, some usb controller stop working, and this motherboard is exactly for that kind of use.
@@dariob467 Darío B PS/2 was always great for how bulletproof it was, especially for overclocking and also when USB 2 became less common on rear IO ports. It looks like PS/2 has been basically retired on the flagship ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI boards though. Luke
900 quid and it still shares a bunch of bandwidth? I can't help but consider that unacceptable at that price range with a cpu that has an insane number of lanes.
64 CPU lanes. 48 lanes go to the PCIe sockets and 8 to the PCH / ASmedia controller for half of the SATA ports. And Buildzoid cries if a board doesn't have 50 USB ports. Everyone wants 10GB lan, 1GB eithernet, Bluetooth5.0 and WiFi 6 built into the mobo. Add lanes for audio and lights for little boys. Everyone cries and no one objects to 28 lanes on a Ryzen board. IDK but I think Intel is 24 lanes and 44 on their high end stuff. Well you can get 128 lanes on EPYC. The gamer boys tell me I'm nuts for buying an 8 core 1900X TR just to get 64 lanes. Then they cry about not having enough USB 2.0 sockets to sync their AIO and P/S lights to their flashing RAM RGB lights. hahahahaha
Someone spends and absurd amount of money on this and then only puts 4 DIMs in? HILARIOUS and sorry but for that price NOTHING should be sharing ANYTHING, but nice sales pitch, you made ASUS proud with this one!
![[Live] : ONE 168 วันนี้!! "โจนาธาน vs ซุปเปอร์เล็ก"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0jIN65KgJsI/mqdefault.jpg)
TIMESTAMPS:
0:16 introduction
0:44 what’s in the box
1:26 what’s new with this Alpha model
2:23 size - it’s big!
2:58 dual-BIOS chips
3:20 the steel backplate
4:09 how about the OLED display
4:50 sTRX socket and memory area
6:19 right-side connectors
8:23 bottom edge connectors
9:54 PCIe slot configuration
11:30 M.2 options - there’s HOW many?
16:11 audio
16:48 rear I/O
19:58 fan headers
21:30 power delivery
23:42 VRM cooling and fans
25:34 chipset cooling
26:57 test system
28:26 performance testing
33:20 wrapping up
Rigidity... The word you're looking for is rigidity... Not "stiffness", haha
Can you use this as a server MBO
@@revanvonheaven8270 yes you could, but it depends on what server features you need such as IPMI or SFP+. Otherwise, it would be fine for home server type usage from Unraid or FreeBSD etc.. Luke
One of the most complete reviews I've seen of any motherboard. How youtube's algorithm made me miss this for 11 months is just wrong lol. Thank you for this and how well indexed and documented your video is. Cheers.
is anyone looking to build a new Threadripper system - would you pay this much for a TRX40 motherboard?
Oh yes, I am so gonna
Depending on how much I sell one of my kidneys for.
With the 8/12/16 core TR's gone, I can't afford the cpu. Ryzen doesn't have enough I/O and I'm glad I got a Zenith Extreme/1900X. I might go up to a 2950X 16 core as the price comes down. The big hit with the AM4 socket was cpu/board/DDR4/M.2 socket (at last). The TR meant a new MOBO/CPU/Quad channel DDR4/M.2 drives/ Work station GPU (Radeon VII) and a higher res 32" 1440P monitor. Bigger case/fans/rads/Power supply/reservoirs/D5 pumps that will run any TR 1900X to 3990X with any GPUs. It's taken me two years. Now I want a 43" 4K PG43UA monitor 144Hz monitor. This stops when you die.
I just finished building my 3960x build. I went with the strix e-gaming.
It's not the $850 for the board ,it's the $1399 for a gen4 ZEN2 24 core cpu. I want the I/O, 64 cpu gen4 lanes. I would be happy with 12/16 cores ZEN2. I just love my 1900X/Zenith extreme. GEN4 cpu lanes are here now! I only buy GEN4 parts (M.2 ssds/Hyper card/Dimm.2 card) I can move to a new Zenith board. Case/fans/rad/pumps/blocks and Power supply that would make the jump to any new TR cpu.
Finally a mention about what XL-ATX is. 🤔 Anyway, this mobo is work of art.
Great review! Subscribed.
Thank you! I have this board. Built my own AMD Threadripper and love that I can now do video edit without the bog-down. But I wondered if I had a Thunderbolt connector because I want the Quantum 2626 for live performance and it connects by Thunderbolt. You fully explained so that I now understand.
This mobo has been very very solid for me so far.
Sad i cannot use the last pcie slot without removing the usb connector.
Soon another 3090 arriving for an sli :D
All of this and no THUNDERBOLT 3 PORT?
Excellent video, thanks a lot for this.
Luke sinking his teeth into a juicy bit of hw like this is just a pleasure to watch. Nice job!
The SATA limitation is a real boomer honestly especially at the price range, totally a red flag for me if i had to pick up a T-REX40 motherboard.
Thanks for the very very in-deep review as always Luke
I also do not like that the bottom PCI becomex 4x if you use an m.2 disk in slot 2. I usually have my large graphics card on the bottom slot. Currently have a 3 slot 2080 Ti card that takes a lot of space higher.
The manual shows the top 4 SATA slots as the first and the lower 4 as shared with the bottom side SSD port. If the bottom side ssd port is used in conjunction with the SATA (E) ports it kicks the bottom ssd out of PCIe4 functionality. The top side SSD ports according to the manual all operate in PCIe4 equally, 4 data paths.
I have always bought asus's motherboard, after 3 or maybe 4 years ram's slot start to fail and plastic cover are broken, this time i'll give the oportunity to Aorus extreme, this board looks strong
Hello, thanks for the comprehensive information and effort in the video, great work!
I have a question, at 11:20 you've mentioned that if i have an M.2 installed as raid for example that it would render the bandwidth of the lowest 8x bandwidth PCie slot to be only 4x?! Does that include having the M.2 raid installed on the right slot on the motherboard using the included Dim.2 connector?!
The problem i am having is i have recently installed a 3rd Gpu 4090, but when all my 3 gpus are connected the system runs only the monitor doesn't recognize any signal coming from any of the cards, could having the dim.2 as raid on the motherboard be the cause? Noting that any combination of only 2 cards of the 3 the system runs normally and i had no problem with the monitor picking up the signal.
Would really appreciate your input, keep doing what you are doing 👍🏻
6:12 which is the cooler ?
Great review! building a PC now with this Mobo and 3070X Threadripper. Filling all 5 M.2 spots. You mentioned running the OS on the M.2 on the back of the board. As I put the same 2T 980 M.2 drives in all 5 spaces, is there a way to know when the PC boots up which M.2 drive is that back one, so I can load the OS there??
I hate that problem. I try to get different maker drives to know the difference.
Anyway the BIOS supposedly allows you to rename the M.2 drives, so that might help. . [Haven't had a chance to try that]
just wondering if you know if this board has stereomix on it?
Only thing missing from making this motherboard epic is thunderbolt ports built into the i/o shield. Come on Asus....anything over 500.00 dollars should have the header for thunderbolt or i/o thunderbolt.
I too wish Thunderbolt was more common on TRX40 motherboards. I think a lot of the professional/prosumer audience would really value Thunderbolt 3 even just for the high transfer rates. Luke
@@KitGuruTech agreed....alot of people that are into music recording and production need the thunderbolt compatibility for hardware, plus at a certain price I believe all ports should be available on the motherboard.
For $900 does the sleep mode finally work? I'm serious, I have the 2nd gen version nothing but problems.
Really cool video fella, very useful. NIce one
4:12 So anyone figured out how to change the info on that oled live dash? I only have CPU Temp while in Windows, and I can already see SEVERE oled burn-in... 😩
Using Armoury Crate? It worked for first ZEA.
I want to upgrade the screen on the motherboard so it plays the Lion King, would it be possible to do this? No reason, just would be awesome
😅 i want my board to play a porno movie.
With the M.2, have you actually done any testing on bandwidth?
Asus manual specifies all 5 m.2 slots under Processor, not chipset
how you you use the other slots in it to mine while the primary card is used for general purposes? i bought this for that sole pupose and its near impossible.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS. Bought this motherboard and for whatever reason, Asus's sight just won't load for me, I just get a black screen. Frustrating about the bandwidth sharing on this board, isn't there more than enough PCIE lanes on this thing to not have to resort to that? OR do they have to accomodate for the lowest chipset's limitations? I bought the 3990x (since I'm dumb and wanted the most ridiculous one, even though I'll NEVER use even a quarter of it's offering in power). This was extremely helpful, and makes my first PC Build in 20 years less daunting.
the dim 2 slot has a speed of type 2242/2260/2280/22110 and 6 channels the other 3 have a speed of type 2242/2260/2280 the dim is much faster. always use 1 of the dim m2 for your c drive and 1 for your virtual memory(swapfile). use the mp 400 of corsair 8 tb this has a really fast iops read and write this is what you need for ram. use 8 tb virtual memory (swapfile) and 256gb of ddr4 3200 with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64 core. the mb supports faster memory but the cpu not. and the m2 slot on the backside is a 2x slot. faster than te other 2. use this for adding 1 tb of RAMCache III that you can find in your bios this gives you 9256 gb of ram that is wat you need for the 64 core. the m2 slot on the back side shares bandwidth with the top 4 sata. and the lower 2 m2 share bandwidth with pci express port 2 and 4 and the pci express 16.4 are really 4 fully functional ports not 2 x8 if you use the 2 m2 next to it it wil become x16/x8/x16/x8 you can find this on the asus web site. have fun !!
Amazon has the Asus Hyper gen4 PCIe X16 card for $75. eBAY has the Zenith II extreme Dimm.2 GEN4 card for $65. Both are easy to install or pull out and have heat sinks. I'm going to try these out with gen4 M.2 drives on the first gen Zenith gen3 board.
the M.2 slot underneath on the bottom is terrifying.😅
@@worthington5687 Is that a TRX40 board?
which is the best Extreme or Extreme Alpha?
or are both the same?
Extreme Alpha
Quick Question: Do we still need to use a hair dryer to heat the mobo to kick start it to POST when you get code OO?
I suspect that the only OS for a system that will have a 64 core 128 thread processor installed would be Linux Mint 19.3 CINNAMON (Tricia) 64bit edition and if you want gaming the Steam Client for Linux Mint 19.3 CINNAMON (Tricia) 64bit edition should work without problems.
Asus rog is the great computer company
Yup, if only they worked harder for quality and minimising failure rates of their mobos.
Hi, is in this motherboard slots for video cards/music cards?
it have 4 slots for video cards
Should I go for this or MSI Creator? Does the difference worth $150?
You can't go wrong with either, but if you're using a 3990X, this will be better.
Great review Luke - great board. Call me old fashion but I'd like to see at least one PS/2 port. I know people will giggle but it comes in handy when a keyboard on USB stops working during boot process for whatever reason - creating DOS disk images and such. Many times on my Z77 board I have been saved by the direct access of my PS2 port. It is all that's stood between a graceful shutdown and a hard restyart (never good). No harm in including it and for a few dollars cost on a board like this, well, they should have. Just want the Gen 4 threadrip[per now and the TRX80 boards with USB4 and DDR5 to match! Then my life will be complete! :-)
They make PS2👉USB adapters. cheap I guess, dunno if they even work..
@@worthington5687 Thanks for the reply Worthington. Short answer is that a PS/2 adaptor will work but only insofar as giving you a USB connected mouse to your computer. The connector is only a help for your cord to be able to make a connection to a USB port and then connects with the guts of the PC in the normal USB way - not as deep, so to speak, as a true PS/2 port. It doesn't reach deep into the computer BIOS like the true 100% PS/2 port on the rear I/O panel. A shame, but them's the facts. The ASUS APEX MoBo is the only modern board I've been able to find with TWO PS/2 ports on the rear I/O. Hopefully that wonderful design feature continues with the upcoming Z790 boards as I plan on getting one of those (or the AM5 boards with the new Ryzen chips). All, BTW, confirmed now with PCIe 5, DDR5 & Thunderbolt 4, or, USB4 by another name! Cheers.
@@brianhoward9217 aaaah, I see.
how much power consume the system together with rtx card?
Is corsair hx850 platinum enath?
May not be. On webpage's review they wrote that the system without GPU used some 400 Watts alone. Add at least 350 Watts for RTX GPU and You're scrapping a bottom for 850 W psu. Keep in mind they electrical efficient of given psu under max load. I would say for single gpu and 3960x or 3970x the 1200 W psu will do.
The word you're looking for is "rigidity".... Rather than "stiffness"
I just completed a build with this motherboard and it keeps saying HDD CODE 02 and then CMOS ERROR or POST ERROR. I have cleared the cmos by removing the motherboard battery and I’ve flashed the bios using a new bios update file via usb, I’ve done everything but the system won’t post and the graphics card won’t display anything on the monitor. I’m confused.
Unplug all drives and try a different video card?
How many times did you say "caveat"???????
The latch for the 24-pin cable looks like it’s facing the outside of the board. I don’t see any latches on the 8-pin EPS connectors. Am I correct in assuming those latches face inward?
8-pin latches are on the inner side of my plugs.
The fan hub card that comes with this board where does that get plugged into ????
with a cable in the 4 pin fan
Can the 2 pcie4.0 x4 m.2 slots on the board and the 2 pcie 4.0 x4 m.2 slots on the dim.2 card be put in raid 0 together?
The most powerful board ever!!!
no
@@liammiddleton3064 YES. Right now, there is nothing out there that comes close.
@@liammiddleton3064 name a more powerful
I mean the server space is pretty rad
Supermicro X12QCH+
@@presspain4007 it's power that's not needed. It's as if they concentrated on vrms and forgot about everything else. People go to HEDTs for lanes/resources; not just power. This board fails because it has limited resources which defeats the idea of having a threadripper of 88 lanes therefore this board is a failure. But Asus loves to slap ROG on garbage because they know you'll pay like a dummy. This is a terrible and overpriced board. This board should've been no higher than 500 USD.
Great video! I was just wondering where to connect one to two monitors on it. Any help?
you need to add a grafic card for your monitor it wont work with out one
but what thickness for thermal pads on the front m.2s?
They're already attached to the underside of that cover, look sorta standard thickness.
Does anyone know where to get a screwdriver that fits the CPU plate screws? Mine came with a screwdriver and several tips, but none of them seem to fit those screws.
I think it's a T20 or S20 torx/star bit.
My orange one supplied has a nice ratchet to get the proper torque.
www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/275200675876_/Torx-T20-Screwdriver-HEATSINK-AMD-ryzen-threadripper-epyc.jpg
th-cam.com/video/Ja8y4o9FaBg/w-d-xo.html
So if Im using the one in the back "M.2 Slot" and use Sata port for like additional SSDs or HDDs. they would share Bandwidth? I need a litt bit more details, i've got my 3990x and im seriously looking to get this Motherboard for it .
Another Question: Which case would you recommend for this Motherboard ?
Regards,
Butti
4 SATA ports off the PCH (1-4) are OK. It's the 4 SATA ports off the AS media controller (5-8) that shut off with the rear M.2 in use. M.2 socket SATA III drives are just as slow as ssd's, 500Mb. The old Zenith ran the Dimm.2 off the DDR4 lanes. This new Zenith II runs the Dimm.2 lanes off the PCH. One solution is the Hyper GEN4 m.2 PCIe card for one to four M.2 GEN4 drives on an X16 slot. With or without raid.
the top 4 sata slots share bandwidth with the backside m2
Will this board work with the 2970WX? or is this for the 3000 series only ?
AMD and every review I've seen said 3000 series TR Zen2 only. We get GEN4 lanes but 24 cores is the cheapest cpu. 3960X/3970X/3990X Level1 tech showed that 3970X just slaughters the competition. Don't feel bad with a 2970WX I'm still on a 1900X. I still don't have a 4k monitor for it. Maybe Coronachan will stimulate me with $1200 check.
Please how many pc fans that can I installed in this motherboard?
zillions. There's even an extra board to add more.
anybody know the difference between this one and the non "alpha" version? They seem the same except a few hundred extra dollars.
They switched out infineon 70 amp to 90 amp power stage. Its cooler than the non alpha but the non is being phased out.
No wonder it's hard to get a Ryzen 9 5950, especially at the MSRP... because people buy them to scalp.
After the M.2 slots are filled, are there any problems with the operation of all sata ports?
the backside m2 share bandwith with the top 4 sata ports
@@janvanderwel-jq4md Thank you for your response. If the disks are mounted in the ROG DIMM.2 module, are they also blocking some sata ports?
@@Martin_MamCary no they are free to use i would use the dim its much faster if u use a second m2 in the dim make that a big swap file so you wil get extra ram the 32 core needs a swapfile of 4500gb and the 64 core needs a swapfile of 8000gb i would use the mp 400 of corsair they are very fast and are 8 tb
So this mobo uses 3x m.2 nvme 3.0 and 2x m.2 nvme 4.0?
No. All pcie are gen 4. Therefore new socket and chipset.
Is this the best board? In all seriousness?
yes it is
@@janvanderwel-jq4md no it's not. It's a terrible board for it's price and resources. It's a disrespect to threadripper and it's 88 lanes. Only a dumbass would buy this board. But I hear there are no shortages of Dummies.
It's damned nice but so is the SAGE.
Put 2 3090's SLI on this and a 3990x...
Can I make a mineral oil computer with this motherboard?
The manual for the regular extreme shows all the full length slots running x16. What's going on here with two slots x16 and two slots x8?
Hi Nick. Just checked the online manual and webpage for the regular Zenith II Extreme and they both say x16/x8/x16/x8. Where did you see that info? Do you have a link?
It's confusing, X16 is used for the length of the socket. I use to turn a board over and look at the pins. Ryzen is only 16X 4X or 8X 8X 4X. The Strix TRX4 is three 16x slots. The Zenith II is 16X 8X 16X 8X.
@@KitGuruTech i checked the asus webpage to for the alfa and it says 4x x16 only when you use the m2 next to it it will become x16/x8/x16/x8
As per number of pins they are full length slots. Yet electrically these are connected 16x/8x/16x/8x. Also check the manual if there are any dependencies for connected devices.
Took me to school!
ok, if the video is NOT from the verge, it suffices me hehe
What is the best case for this MB?
i like the Thermaltake View 71 TG RGB Plus
Any big/full tower will be fine.
Fractal XL 7 is nice.
over 1k motherboard that only supports a 3k or 5k cpu's. who d put an aircooler on that
No THB_C header? No, thanks. All these new laptops have Thunderbolt ports, desktop motherboard manufacturers need to catch up.
Thunderbolt is someone else's patent. We'll have DPI 2.0 in a year for monitors.
@@maxhughes5687 Gigabyte found a way to "play nice" with their TRX40 Designare by including a THB_C header on the motherboard and the GC Titan Ridge PCIe card that gives users two Thunderbolt 3 ports. Their X570 Aorus Master and Aorus Ultra also support a Thunderbolt 3 add-in card connector. I mean, I get it, Intel and Apple don't like to share, but if one company found a way (probably by throwing a couple of dollars from each sale of a motherboard to Intel and Apple), it's possible. These other companies are just too greedy.
@@chud1858 If you want that feature, that's a good deal.
Just a clarification. Slots segmentation 16/8/16/8 or 3*16x are the only allowed combinations by AMD. They don't allow to use PLX switches (like on many X299 boards for example) so it won't cut into EPYC segment.
For a 1000 USD board - far too many compromises. Main problem of this board is that Asus skimped on 'normal' ZE2 VRM and then cranked price by 150$ just for improved VRM section. Asus tax on this board is at least 200$. Monstrously overpriced.
Terrible combination of SATA connectivity (workstation board...), sub-par NVMe options (using all ports disables so many things you could just buy 600$ board and get better choices). I love the DIMM.2, but it should contain 4 slots not just 2. Over-designed VRM cooling is too big. Aorus Xtreme with classic heatsink and nominal case airflow leave this in the dust while requiring much less space. As a curiosity TRX40 SATA ports are slower than X399, perhaps it'll be fixed with drivers.
As things stand both ZE2/ZE2A are nowhere compared to Aorus Xtreme (or Designare which gets TB3 controller in the box and you could possibly connect up to 8 10Gb/s NICsTB3 adapters so lack of 10G NIC on board is a non-issue). If you have a case for it, think no more. 10 (6) SATA ports and 8 (7) NVMe slots - 6 SATA if you want all NVMe slots on the board, 10 if you forfeit one M.2 chipset connected port). Plus Thunderbolt3 support. Basically the only annoyance from Aorsu Xtreme is that stupid code display, probably Gigabyte missed the memo that tiny LCD displays are no longer a problem. And last slot is not so worthless on Xtreme. Because all headers are moved to the right edge of the board and angled, you can easily slot a VGA in last slot or NVMe x8 adapter like OWC Accelsior 4M2.
And 5 NVMe is not much Luke. Running right now 6 and certainly will add another 2 in not to distant feature.
I think there will always be compromises on these high-end boards because it is difficult to address what everybody wants in such a diverse market. Some people may not be able to use XL-ATX, some people may want four dual-slot cards, some people may want oversized VRM cooling for enhanced performance potential, some people may want as many M.2 slots as possible without stealing expansion card slots, some people will want 20Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C. Others may want quite the opposite for their individual use cases.
There's no doubt that the Aorus Xtreme and MSI Creator TRX40 are very strong flagship competitors, but I don't think it is fair to say the Z2EA is "nowhere compared to Aorus Xtreme". There are pros and cons to any of those options and how favourable one board is to another depends on individual requirements.
As it happens, the good guys at Hardware Unboxed did a video looking at TRX40 VRM cooling performance. This ASUS board is the best in their testing (as it has shown in our more limited internal testing), and beats the Aorus Xtreme and MSI Creator TRX40 and their smaller heatsinks, so some would argue that ASUS' oversized VRM heatsink is justified by the performance it provides.
Of course people can run more than 5 M.2 SSDs, as you have proven. Just because you run more than 5 does not make it commonplace, even on motherboards of this ilk. I too have use cases (in previous projects, generally) for 6-8 high-speed M.2 drives but that does not mean it is any less positive of ASUS to provide capability for 5 devices onboard without using up a physical expansion slot.
Which board do you run right now? And which adapter card do you use for your M.2 SSDs? I am very keen to know which adapter cards people tend to use and whether they are single slot and passively cooled, single slot and actively cooled, dual slot with active cooling, and how many drives the adapter card takes. Thanks.
Luke
where is the ps/2 port?
Do you still use PS/2? I know a lot of people still like to use it in certain situations, so I would be genuinely interested to know if it's of interest on a motherboard like this. Luke
@@KitGuruTech i like to play with some minor overclock, and ps/2 ports are more reliable when i enter unstable clock/voltage situations and there is no other way to instal win7 on new hardware than using a ps/2 device because win7 do not recognize usb3 with out installing updates. I've also heard that when using liquid nitrogen, some usb controller stop working, and this motherboard is exactly for that kind of use.
@@dariob467 Darío B PS/2 was always great for how bulletproof it was, especially for overclocking and also when USB 2 became less common on rear IO ports. It looks like PS/2 has been basically retired on the flagship ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI boards though. Luke
900 quid and it still shares a bunch of bandwidth? I can't help but consider that unacceptable at that price range with a cpu that has an insane number of lanes.
64 CPU lanes. 48 lanes go to the PCIe sockets and 8 to the PCH / ASmedia controller for half of the SATA ports. And Buildzoid cries if a board doesn't have 50 USB ports. Everyone wants 10GB lan, 1GB eithernet, Bluetooth5.0 and WiFi 6 built into the mobo. Add lanes for audio and lights for little boys. Everyone cries and no one objects to 28 lanes on a Ryzen board. IDK but I think Intel is 24 lanes and 44 on their high end stuff. Well you can get 128 lanes on EPYC. The gamer boys tell me I'm nuts for buying an 8 core 1900X TR just to get 64 lanes. Then they cry about not having enough USB 2.0 sockets to sync their AIO and P/S lights to their flashing RAM RGB lights. hahahahaha
check my message at the top of the page it is not so bad as you think
Someone spends and absurd amount of money on this and then only puts 4 DIMs in? HILARIOUS and sorry but for that price NOTHING should be sharing ANYTHING, but nice sales pitch, you made ASUS proud with this one!
why would you use all 8 DIMMS if you don't need to? I run 128gb ram with 4x32. i see no reason for 8x16
@@Pjiggy You could go with 8*32 Gigs. The x399s Rippers were limited to 128 gigs
only beast here are beastie price !!
it comes with a cpu ram and video card doesnt it? for 1K pounds... ??
Now that would be quite the bargain seeing as the cheapest Threadripper 3000 CPU is over £1K on its own :D! Luke
£900?! HAHA!
1st...
Let's FIRST mention that this content was SPONSORED by ASUS
Hope your ok, lifting a 2kg item clearly giving you a brain spasm and thorn muscles