[Aby67]

It is odd to me that ASUS has released X399 motherboards with only 4 PCIe 16 slots, for cpus that are designed to dedicate PCIe for up to 6 GPUs?

It is needless to say that even the 8 core version of Threadripper, would be a perfectly suitable CPU to run 6 GPU workstations, which these processors are designed for and for which most if NOT the bulk of clients have been waiting for a long time wanting to jump ship from Intel to AMD, to really unsatisfying Intel road map and beating ANY expectations of Intel Skylake Xeons and Xtreme processors.

Is it possible that ASUS has been too highly invested in Intel motherboards not expecting such a disastrous flop, and especially not being really conscious of what people have been wanting to buy AMD TR and EPYC chips for?!

AMD Threadripper basically put an end to xeon single and dual socket workstation market, for good, and is a way more compelling and scalable performance solution compared to Nvidias 4 GPU DGX 60k USD$ workstation and 8 GPU 160k USD$ DGX deep learning server.

Why is ASUS offering legacy Intel concept Motherboards for AMD superior CPUs?

It is very hard for Me to understand How come ASUS a market maker is voluntarily downgrading Ryzen line up.

Also another extremely highly suspicious detail, is that the x299 ROG extreme version which is basically same aesthetic design as the Zenith MOBO, comes with more led mounted armor (which I personally dont care about) and AMAZINGLY OFFERS 10 Gbit ethernet port on x299 Rear IO while for the zenith You have been given a module to occupy a PCIe slot instead of integrating it in the rear IO the same and adding at least 2 more 16 PCIe slots on the Zenith board OR 2 more M.2 ports that dont need a riser card so to be able to run raid 10 if necessary.

While I do think that both the Zenith and the x299 Extreme motherboards are really outstanding motherboards with a tons of really good and new features, I strongly suspect that at @ASUS they have voluntarily under featured and under designed X399 motherboard for also an aesthetic point of view, so to try to PUSH intel platform which is obviously predicted to be a big massive flop in HEDT and workstation segment and massive loss for who ever wants to deal with it.
I find it very naive to offer such products and limited choice to this segment clients who basically spend top dollar for their systems.
I really hope that @ASUS they have not started Nvidia like policy to always offer mid range stuff marketing it as High end at High end prices, just as it happens for xx80 Nvidia series that come priced at appalling numbers for extreme cut down versions of GPUs.

Why are ASUS and all the others now, offering cut down version motherboards for Threadripper capability?

 

[Blameless]

There is very little demand for six PCI-E 16x slots and and board makers save money on design and production costs by reusing what they can where they can, hence the similarity in designs.

 

[Aby67]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blameless

There is very little demand for six PCI-E 16x slots and and board makers save money on design and production costs by reusing what they can where they can, hence the similarity in designs.

What makes You think that there is little demand for Workstation class motherboards?!
And What makes You think that people who use Threadripper want to buy gaming boards?
While The Zenith motherboard is surely a very nice board, it is a catastrophic design for AMD x399 platform...lower than entry level, worse than the 2 YEAR OLD x99 WS motherboard.
I have no doubt once and if they will make a full PCIe motherboard for x399 that they will sell only that for those chips.

I know many that want to buy Threadripper but wont yet, because there is not a decent motherboard out yet, We all expected for all x399 motherboards to ship with 7 PCIe 16 slots, and instead, all we see is Intel concepts taken over for AMD platform, which offers nothing other than crippling what these chips can do by over a third of their capability.

 

[Blameless]

Plenty of demand for workstation motherboards, not so much demand for TR boards that sacrifice M.2 slots for more PCI-E slots.

One look at AMD's Threadripper page shows that the target market isn't workstations. TR4 is the consumer socket and consumer demands are going to take precedence in that market. Outside of overclocking capabilities, which are rarely utilized in the workstation market, Threadripper has no advantages over EPYC. There is a workstation niche for TR4 to be sure, but the workstation focus in on SP3.

Workstation use, by overclockers, who need more than five PCI-E 16x slots has got to be a damn small market.

 

[Aby67]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blameless

Plenty of demand for workstation motherboards, not so much demand for TR boards that sacrifice M.2 slots for more PCI-E slots.

One look at AMD's Threadripper page shows that the target market isn't workstations. TR4 is the consumer socket and consumer demands are going to take precedence in that market. Outside of overclocking capabilities, which are rarely utilized in the workstation market, Threadripper has no advantages over EPYC. There is a workstation niche for TR4 to be sure, but the workstation focus in on SP3.

Workstation use, by overclockers, who need more than five PCI-E 16x slots has got to be a damn small market.

I would agree with You on most things, if it wasnt that EPYC CPU do overclock, and that TR supports ECC ram. As for the M.2 slots I completely agree 3 are just not enough as they force You to use a add in card to host more.

The thing about TR is this....It works pretty much as fast for CPU rendering than dual xeons 2687W v4, and it saves You 5000 dollars for GPU rendering as the prior to TR rather than buying a x99 dual socket WS motherboard, you generally opted for a GPU server that could host 8 gpus...Even in the case of dual socket, You still saving the cost of the extra XEON CPU.
So yeah what You are pointing out about m.2 is part of what I am complaining about very poor x399 mother board release by ASUS.

A lot of people also think that companies that have servers do not overclock them, while most of them actually do overclock servers. You can overlcock both xeons and Opterons and now EPYC

 

[Sin0822]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blameless

Workstation use, by overclockers, who need more than five PCI-E 16x slots has got to be a damn small market.

It's a very damn small market in an already very damn small market, so vendors aren't going to produce a motherboard maybe 100 would buy, especially when EPYC exists.

 

[Aby67]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sin0822

It's a very damn small market in an already very damn small market, so vendors aren't going to produce a motherboard maybe 100 would buy, especially when EPYC exists.

I strongly disagree, I have no Idea where You are getting Your numbers from or assumptions, teh content creation industry is massive, WAY BIGGER than the consumer market.
This doesnt mean that You need a TR4 system, nor that the consumer market is tiny, but if You even take a look at the mining sales they obliterate consumer gaming sales.
While the gaming community who assemble their Pcs is a fantastic community, with a lot of savvy and alot of wanna be savvy, it is actually the smallest market for computers that exists(assembled Pcs).

I would rather say that content creation, TR4 is a massive market, that counts among Indie developers and semi professionals at least one third (closer to 60 % when you include the other items like gpus memory and hard drives) of the entire revenue of the consumer grade industry...
Ryzen 7 Cpus have sold a lot for this reason, and a ton of those clients will jump on TR4 on this round or 7nm process.
Myself have been so tempted to get one , but so few Pcie lanes was simply a no go for Me., 1800x is a fantastic CPU, with extremely respectable numbers in VRay or blender render and so many other 3d and 2d stuff.

Designing x399 motherboards for gaming is a massive downgrade, all x399 mother boards should come with 7 Pcie x16 lanes and 4 m.2 ports and 10 Gbit ethernet ports in rear Io, two even better.
While You can play games especially for those people who are in double or more 4k set ups , almost the bulk of x399 buyers are people who will use them for serious content creation, and on top of that, I will make the math very simple for You, while We can use one rig like this one to possibly get similar performance as an 8GPU , Asus, Tian, Supermicro Nvidia VCA and DGX 8 GPU or Nvidia 4 GPU DGX, for the cost to performance ratio a lot will st up multiple machines on x399 with a Motherboard as it should be.
For Me as ton of others it is a no brainer to start with one stick whatever gpus You got hanging around and buy more systems if You need them..at a fraction of the cost, and a way superior computing output. it is all free money and great for tax deductions.
Maybe it is not clear to You but TR is a serious gargantuan computation CPU even running in power saving mode, that can support out of the box 3600 mhz ram memory with some lil tweaking in early BIOS to 14 /15 CL timings

This is why I think motherboard manufacturers made a massive mistake with x399 line up, they could sell 5 to six times more immediately if there was a decent motherboard for TR or EPYC GPU single and dual socket in a non server format.
X399 has just launched and is in very early stage, and yet You are seeing massive sale numbers which currently make for almost 10% of all the WHOLE Intel line up, and it will grow a lot by year end or exponentially once there will be proper WS motherboards.
It is not by chance that even AMD has announced that they will be working on a 6 GPU workstation.
When Asus will make WS mother board for TR4 , trust me it will sell like bread, and even Overclocker Gamers for which 8 cores are more than enough, will jump on them because of reasons I will not use this very long quote to explain.
No hard feelings, even if You was right, x399 is still a better choice than what x99WS has ever been, and x299 WS will ever be, and trust ME You will see single socket x299 WS motherboards, for that 2000 US $ piece of junk and all what is below it Intel micro cache CPU's, that offer noting more than 10 % performance increase than x99 and xeons v4.....I just happen to be just as You and many other guys Intel client who has been fed up for years at Intel releasing crap after crap after tic and after toc upgrades, milking us with moores law BS to price their crap at eye watering prices.

 

[DVLux]

You want "content creation"?

http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Server-Motherboard/MZ31-AR0-rev-10#ov

Five x 16 slots, and two x8.

Threadripper doesn't have the lanes for 7 X16 slots, and four M.2 along with 10G. "Indie" develoeprs don't need 5 GPUs at x16, nor do they need four M.2 or 10G. I know for sure I don't need four full bandwidth GPUs for regular work in Premiere Pro, Photoshop, or Audition.

 

[Aby67]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DVLux

You want "content creation"?

http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Server-Motherboard/MZ31-AR0-rev-10#ov

Five x 16 slots, and two x8.

Threadripper doesn't have the lanes for 7 X16 slots, and four M.2 along with 10G. "Indie" develoeprs don't need 5 GPUs at x16, nor do they need four M.2 or 10G.

They dont need to be wired as 16 speed, You can use 6 gpus wired at 8 and then You will be able to run raid 10 and support the chipset.

 

[DVLux]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aby67

They dont need to be wired as 16 speed, You can use 6 gpus wired at 8 and then You will be able to run raid 10 and support the chipset.

Support the chipset? English, please?

AMD doesn't have the DMI to fall back on, like Intel does. Besides, the chipset lanes are already taken up by the 10G, in most cases.

 

[Aby67]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DVLux

Support the chipset? English, please?

AMD doesn't have the DMI to fall back on, like Intel does. Besides, the chipset lanes are already taken up by the 10G, in most cases.

Sorry I meant 4 are taken as interconnect, as for the 10g, You can run it on pcie gen 2 wired x4, if i remember correctly TR has 20 pcie gen 2 lanes and a dozen sata 3.
I think 6 gpus would run 1 x16 speed and 5 at x8 speed.
I have no idea how the m.2 works, I personally would use only raid 1, but maybe some guy might need the raid 10 for the blasting write speed.

A lot though in My opinion will change for good as first PCIe 4.0 MOBO's will surface the market this winter.
Maybe this is why We have not seen any WS x399 nor x299 mother board around yet....
Maybe We will see a 128 PCIe 4.0 TR launch with them HBM3 ready!?

 

[AGTDenton]

Here's my 2c worth...

I have noticed with new Intel enthusiast chips that it takes a further 6-12months before you start seeing decent Workstation motherboards available. It happened with x58, x79 & x99.
It's been too long since I've been interested in AMD to know when their Workstation boards release (Opteron 939 being my last).
My guesses are that Workstation boards are not as quick to design, or that they wait for any CPU/BIOS bugs to be ironed out to provide a more stable platform.
Whatever the reason, I would expect to see them next year. I too am waiting for Workstation based motherboards for the new AMD chips before I make the plunge with a new PC.
I could potentially go with ASRock's current offering, but the lack of x16s is annoying and would have to compromise heavily.
It isn't just GPU's that will fill these slots it's RAID cards & pro editing cards as well, obviously depending on what you want to achieve with your build.

Here's hoping for some better boards in the near future rather than a full 12 months away.

 

[Aby67]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AGTDenton

Here's my 2c worth...

I have noticed with new Intel enthusiast chips that it takes a further 6-12months before you start seeing decent Workstation motherboards available. It happened with x58, x79 & x99.
It's been too long since I've been interested in AMD to know when their Workstation boards release (Opteron 939 being my last).
My guesses are that Workstation boards are not as quick to design, or that they wait for any CPU/BIOS bugs to be ironed out to provide a more stable platform.
Whatever the reason, I would expect to see them next year. I too am waiting for Workstation based motherboards for the new AMD chips before I make the plunge with a new PC.
I could potentially go with ASRock's current offering, but the lack of x16s is annoying and would have to compromise heavily.
It isn't just GPU's that will fill these slots it's RAID cards & pro editing cards as well, obviously depending on what you want to achieve with your build.

Here's hoping for some better boards in the near future rather than a full 12 months away.

I agree with You, however on the case of threadripper and EPYC, given the 128 or 64 PCie lanes, I still consider that not offering 7 x16 lanes on behalf of these mobo manufacturers is truly a really bad design misjudgement and savvy incompetence...
The very fact that they are promoting these motherboards EG the Zenith as a Gaming enthusiast board confirms this incompetence and misjudgement.....at least they tampered with supporting raid 1 0 and 10..but that being said, even if raid 10 would give only increase in performance on ssd for writes, matching it at same speed of reads.....the very fact that the M.2 slot riser is not designed for 3 or 4 ssds even further confirms a bad design flaw.
I can however think of these first TR4 releases maybe as a short life and gap in product they might have designed as PCIe gen 4 is a thing of late this year or early 2018, as with that tech then sli bridge is thing of eh past and any will be able to game with eg 7 or even just 4 low tier gpu getting massive performance compared to even a titan sli.

I just hope these workstation motherboards with dual IO integrated ethernet 10g and 7 x16 pcie slots wont take as long as Intel past releases.
I also looking forward into seeing single and dual slot EPYC 7000 ASUS workstation motherboards...as It is known that AMD releases usually sever CPus unlocked.
It is crazy how AMD and ASUS are losing a massive amount of sales because of bad design non functional and poorly featured motherboards