Wednesday, February 15th 2023
ASUS Launches the Pro WS W790 Series of Workstation Motherboards
Yes, you read that correctly, ASUS didn't launch just one, but two W790 based LGA-4677 motherboards today, namely the Pro WS W790-Sage SE and the Pro WS W790-Ace. The main difference here is that the Sage supports up to seven PCIe 5.0 x16 slots—one is a x8 slot electrically—and is designed for the Xeon W-3400 series, whereas the Ace supports five PCIe 5.0 x16 slots and is in turn designed for the Xeon W-2400 series. One downside of these boards is that they might not fit in a standard ATX case, as the Sage follows the SSI-EEB form factor and the Ace the SSI-CEB form factor, both of which are a fair bit wider than an ATX motherboard and with different mounting holes.
The Pro WS W790-ACE also sports eight DDR5 DIMM slots that operate in quad-channel and supports up to 2 TB of RAM if ECC R-DIMMs are used. Furthermore, ASUS has kitted out the Ace with a pair of PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, one 2280 and one 22110 slot, four SATA ports, three slim SAS ports, a Marvell 10 Gbps and an Intel 2.5 Gbps Ethernet interface, a single USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20 Gbps USB Type-C port around the back and an internal header for a second, case mounted port. Finally the board has four USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps Type-A ports around the back and a header for a further two., as well as eight USB 2.0 ports around the back and audio courtesy of a Realtek S1220A based solution with optical S/PDIF out.
The Pro WS W790-Sage SE, where SE stands for Special Edition, supports eight-channel memory over as many slots, but is still limited to 2 TB of RAM. Here, all the M.2 slots are of the 22110 variety and two of the three slots support PCIe 5.0, while the third one is PCIe 4.0. The SATA ports have gone from four to eight, but the SAS ports have been reduced to two from three. ASUS has also added dual 10 Gbps Ethernet ports powered by Intel hardware, as well as an M.2 slot for an optional Wi-Fi module. Gone is support for a case mounted 20 Gbps USB-C port, in favour of a 10 Gbps one, although the rear of the board gets an additional USB-C port, even though it's only at 10 Gbps, while all but two USB 2.0 ports remain. Here, ASUS has also added an Aspeed AST2600 remote management controller, with its own dedicated Ethernet and VGA port.
ASUS didn't provide any pricing for the new boards and neither model is showing up on the ASUS website at the time of this news post going live.
Source:
ASUS
The Pro WS W790-ACE also sports eight DDR5 DIMM slots that operate in quad-channel and supports up to 2 TB of RAM if ECC R-DIMMs are used. Furthermore, ASUS has kitted out the Ace with a pair of PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, one 2280 and one 22110 slot, four SATA ports, three slim SAS ports, a Marvell 10 Gbps and an Intel 2.5 Gbps Ethernet interface, a single USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20 Gbps USB Type-C port around the back and an internal header for a second, case mounted port. Finally the board has four USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps Type-A ports around the back and a header for a further two., as well as eight USB 2.0 ports around the back and audio courtesy of a Realtek S1220A based solution with optical S/PDIF out.
ASUS didn't provide any pricing for the new boards and neither model is showing up on the ASUS website at the time of this news post going live.
47 Comments on ASUS Launches the Pro WS W790 Series of Workstation Motherboards
My only issue with the AMD Board - Just like this board the size of it. So if you get the board, excellent, BUT Finding a case for the motherboard is a bit hard. The board is 12.2" x 13", which exceeds the E-ATX.
EATX(EEB) Form Factor
12.2 inch x 13 inch ( 30.98 cm x 33.02 cm )
So when you look for a case, do not consider EATX - That size fluctuates in a highly misleading way. So you will need to read the specs and details to ensure this motherboard will fit. Granet will fit in an E_ATX case because the motherboard is so wide. You will cover up the factory grommet holes immediately.
Right now, I am interested in the Intel chip - but only because I can get a smaller M-ATX motherboard. The threadripper pro motherboards, as of today - only come in EATX motherboard sizes and up.
The only issue I had was with the Asus board. When I purchased it initially. The current BIOS did not work. So when I reached out to AMD, they mentioned some kind of bug existed, and I had to roll back the BIOS. The tech said what about 6 months to a year for the following bios, and you would ok. I updated the bios about two months ago. And the system is rock solid!
If you have any questions - let me know.
hopefully not an i225v/226
ASUS North America is having a live stream on the W790's @ 8PM tonight:
I'm so gutted by this blatant omission on Asus side. Like WTH dudes? I was aiming for 20-24 core w-3400 w7 model, but lack of TB4 on a workstation "Pro" board. :confused: It's instant no-go on my side. And why so many type-A USB. Just let it die finally. Plus using SlimSAS instead traditional U.2/U.3 port = another 2 expensive cables to buy. :kookoo:
AsRock W790 has a TB4 functionality, but board is basically designed for w-2400 as it has -almost- same layout as non-pro TR (16/8/16/4/8) which makes investing in w-3400 pointless.
Waiting for TR-Pros then. These at least have confirmed USB4/TB4 built-into CPU.
It would be much better to have a single Intel 10G NIC, or none at all.This would drive up costs significantly.
I wish they went the other way; stripped down the boards even more. With this many PCIe slots you can install whatever you need, instead of creating unnecessarily expensive and complex motherboards. There are so many pro features that many people would like to have, like more disk controllers, capture cards, etc.
If I were to build workstation(s) based on this, I would like to replace the NIC anyways with proper Intel 10G NIC(s).
-----
I was a bit curious about the power connectors of Pro WS W790-ACE and checked the manual an found this;
If you wish to use a single PSU configuration, please ensure that the PSU provides a minimum power of 1500W.
If you wish to use a dual PSU configuration, please ensure that both PSUs provide a minimum power of 750W each and both PSUs need to be of the same brand and model.
(Page 48-49)
Seriously, I hope this only applies if the system needs this much power.
Slides here at TPU mention up to 28 high-speed storage devices for the W-3400 which has 112 PCIe lanes, but only 8 devices for the W-2400 with 64 lanes.
having 28 pcie 5.0 ssd would give off chart 280GB/s that’s insane
I don't know about other AMD and Intel chips, I assumed every server and workstation CPU is similarly flexible when it comes to lane splitting. Obviously these Xeons aren't.