ASRock Intros WRX80 Creator Motherboard for Threadripper PRO 5000 Processors

[btarunr]

ASRock today introduced the WRX80 Creator, a Socket WRX8 motherboard for AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000 series workstation processors. Built in the E-ATX form-factor, the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, a 6-pin PCIe, and two 8-pin EPS connectors. The star attraction with this platform is 8-channel DDR4 memory, with all eight memory slots on this board featuring a dedicated memory channel. There are seven PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slots, from which five operate at full x16 bandwidth, and two can subtract 8 lanes each from two of the other x16 slots. So x16/x16/x16/NC/x16/NC/x16, or x16/x16/x8/x8/x8/x8/x16.

Storage connectivity on the ASRock WRX80 Creator include two M.2 PCIe Gen 4 slots, and a U.2 port, besides eight SATA 6 Gbps. Networking interfaces include two 10 GbE, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, and a 1 GbE used by the IPMI controller. Speaking of which, an ASPEED AST2500 provides basic display and various remote management capabilities. USB connectivity includes two 40 Gbps USB4 ports with mini-DP inputs for DisplayPort passthrough, four 10 Gbps USB 3.2, and a number of 5 Gbps USB 3.2 ports. A premium onboard audio solution featuring a Realtek ALC1220, and TI NE5532 headphones amp, makes for the rest of it. The company didn't reveal pricing.



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[natr0n]

Looks great, but the vga at least could use black cable if they couldnt hardwire it directly.

 

[A Computer Guy]

I wonder what memory overclocking on this superbeast would look like.

 

[eidairaman1]

I find it interesting that it has a VGA port but no PS/2. (Should have DVI-I) and more USB A ports.

I wonder what memory overclocking on this superbeast would look like.

Up to 4533

8 phases, Asus Sage board doesnt specify any overclocking and has 16 phases.

 

[TechLurker]

Kind of wish there was a Ryzen equivalent with 5 slots (standard ATX 7-slot height); even if it's downgraded to PCIe 3.0 lanes for all but the primary GPU slot and dedicated NVMe. Pair with some 3.0 NVMe cards for a blazing fast storage solution, or customize with some SAS RAID cards for a mix of high-speed and high-density (via spinners).

 

[Blue4130]

Kind of wish there was a Ryzen equivalent with 5 slots (standard ATX 7-slot height); even if it's downgraded to PCIe 3.0 lanes for all but the primary GPU slot and dedicated NVMe. Pair with some 3.0 NVMe cards for a blazing fast storage solution, or customize with some SAS RAID cards for a mix of high-speed and high-density (via spinners).

5 slots running through the chipset sounds like a bottleneck to me.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Kind of wish there was a Ryzen equivalent with 5 slots (standard ATX 7-slot height); even if it's downgraded to PCIe 3.0 lanes for all but the primary GPU slot and dedicated NVMe. Pair with some 3.0 NVMe cards for a blazing fast storage solution, or customize with some SAS RAID cards for a mix of high-speed and high-density (via spinners).

TR cpu has 128 lanes vs 24 for Ryzen cpu and up to 16 from the chip set (depends on chipset). That makes two pcie slots at x16 really somewhat limiting of other features, like the number of drives.

 

[thegnome]

I find it interesting that it has a VGA port but no PS/2. (Should have DVI-I) and more USB A ports.


Up to 4533

8 phases, Asus Sage board doesnt specify any overclocking and has 16 phases.

Probably 8 proper phases compared to 16 meh phases. The high phase counts really is marketing bs.

 

[Kapone33]

TR cpu has 128 lanes vs 24 for Ryzen cpu and up to 16 from the chip set (depends on chipset). That makes two pcie slots at x16 really somewhat limiting of other features, like the number of drives.

I don't know I have 6 NVME drives and 3 SSDs on my X570 but you have to get the right board. The X570 Ace series from MSI has the 3rd PCie 16 slot wired at x8. If you use a WD AN1500 (X8) or any other PCIe card with a controller it will work in that slot at full speed allowing you to use 2 drives in RAID. The ultimate display of this is the MSI X570S Ace Max that has so much lane splitting you have to read the manual just to know where not to install storage. Having said that you are absolutely right though as 128 lanes is absolutely insane for options.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I don't know I have 6 NVME drives and 3 SSDs on my X570 but you have to get the right board. The X570 Ace series from MSI has the 3rd PCie 16 slot wired at x8. If you use a WD AN1500 (X8) or any other PCIe card with a controller it will work in that slot at full speed allowing you to use 2 drives in RAID. The ultimate display of this is the MSI X570S Ace Max that has so much lane splitting you have to read the manual just to know where not to install storage. Having said that you are absolutely right though as 128 lanes is absolutely insane for options.

Yep it sure does depend on the board, as you have shown higher end boards offers more lanes. I was not counting on slots with add-in boards for additional drives.

(9 drives..any room left for a toothpick?)

 

[Kapone33]

Yep it sure does depend on the board, as you have shown higher end boards offers more lanes. I was not counting on slots with add-in boards for additional drives.

(9 drives..any room left for a toothpick?)

I can still add 1 SSD and 1 NVME.

 

[TheHughMan]

If only a 7-way GPU graphics setup was effective for something other than mining.

 

[Kapone33]

If only a 7-way GPU graphics setup was effective for something other than mining.

If you wanted to use this board for GPU mining you would have to use single slot water blocks for the most effect. Of course that would also mean at least 2-3 res/pump units, 2 360 distro plates and at least 3 rads. There are only maybe 2 cases that can actually do that and don't forget about 3 1L bottles of coolant.

 

[noel_fs]

that looks really good