MSI Announces the X399 SLI Plus: Budget Threadripper

This week MSI has announced the availability of a new motherboard built for Threadripper: the X399 SLI Plus. MSI says the SLI Plus is an optimized workstation motherboard built for designers. Like the X399 Gaming Pro Carbon, it uses heavy plated heatsinks and ‘Military Class VI’ components. Although MSI is aiming at the professional market, they have still added plenty of features for gamers and enthusiasts as well, given the overlap in requirements. 

The MSI X399 SLI Plus

As with other X399 boards, the MSI X399 SLI Plus uses eight total memory slots, although these are not reinforced. This configuration allows for up to 128GB of RAM in a quad channel setup. MSI uses their DDR4 Boost technology on the SLI Plus and lists memory speed support up to DDR4-3600+. 

Power delivery is handled by a fully digital 13 phase VRM which looks quite similar to the Gaming Pro Carbon AC. Per the Military Class VI specs, it uses Titanium chokes and ‘dark’ capacitors. We cannot confirm by the pictures, however, it is likely using the same DrMOS ICs found on the Pro Carbon. Power is fed to the VRMs by two 12V CPU leads (one is optional) located in the upper left-hand corner of the board. The SLI Plus has a full two character debug LED as well as a simplified four LED debug system with LED’s for Boot, VGA, DRAM, and CPU.

The SLI Plus has a total of six PCIe slots: two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots and four full-length PCIe 3.0 slots. The two main GPU slots, capable of running x16/x16 if they are the only ones populated, are reinforced with MSI’s Steel Armor to support heavy video cards and prevent potential damage to the slot. The motherboard supports 4-Way NVIDIA SLI and 4-Way AMD Crossfire technologies.

Gallery: MSI X399 SLI Plus Gallery

For storage, the SLI Plus has a total of eight SATA ports fed from the chipset, and has the same physical location and orientation of the Pro Carbon; six horizontal and two vertical. There are a total of three PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots which get their lanes from the CPU. Two of the M.2 slots support up to 80mm drives, while the middle slot can handle up to 110mm modules. Only the top M.2 slot has a heatsink for cooling down the installed M.2 module. U.2 support does not make it to the SLI Plus.

The audio side of the house is managed by a Realtek ACL1220 codec working in conjunction with MSI’s Audio Boost 4 suite. While the Nahimic software package normally found on the gaming products does not make its way here, the SLI Plus uses separate audio layers for left and right channels, de-pop protection, Chemi-Con audio capacitors, EMI shielding and board separation, and a dedicated headphone amplifier which auto-detects impedance (use up to 600Ω).

As far as the overall aesthetic, MSI uses a black PCB and color scheme and lets the integrated RGB LEDs fit whatever theme a builder has in mind. LEDs make it on the back panel IO shroud, chipset heatsink, and a strip found on the back of the board under the SATA ports. Additional RGB LED strips can be added via the two onboard RGB headers. One is for a rainbow strip, while the other for general RGB; both are controlled by MSI’s Mystic Light software. 

Pricing was not listed, but we do expect the SLI Plus to come in under the Gaming Pro Carbon. Previous HEDT SLI Plus motherboards have often been the cheapest available, and it would be abnormal if this board was different. We should see these available for purchase soon. 

Related Reading: 

• AMD Threadripper X399 Motherboard Overview: A Quick Look at Seven Products
• The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X and 1920X Review: CPUs on Steroids
• AMD Launches NVMe RAID Support for Ryzen Threadripper Platform
• Retesting AMD Ryzen Threadripper’s Game Mode: Halving Cores for More Performance

MSI Launches the X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC: Going Micro-ATX

MSI has announced a new Micro ATX motherboard added to the X299 lineup in the X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC. Based on the ATX sized X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC, it has a similar I/O cover shape as well as the painted carbon pattern on the black board. MSI states it shares nearly all features the bigger brother offers, such as multiple PCIe x16 slots for multi-GPU, the same amount of SATA ports, dual M.2 slots, and even the same 10 phase DrMOS PWM make their way onto the smaller X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC.

The X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC supports up to 64GB of quad-channel DRAM, and using MSI’s DDR4 Boost Technology should allow the board to support memory speeds up to 4200 MHz, a full multiplier more than the ATX sized Gaming Pro Carbon AC – this is typically down to better performance potential when using 1 DIMM per channel. Another difference is visible in the available PCIe slots: the mATX version has a total of three PCIe x16 slots, two using Steel Armor and one without, to support x16/x16/x8 using a 44-lane CPU and x16/x8/x4 with a 28-lane CPU, although to use all the bandwidth a user would need to invest in single slot solutions. Under the guide overclocking, MSI claims that its features such as an external clock generator for more BCLK flexibility, an 8-Layer PCB, and a fully digital power design for its 10 phase Military Class 6 power delivery (among other features) contribute to the overclocking performance. 

Chipset Diagram

On the storage side, the X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC comes with eight SATA 6 Gbps ports, who of which can share bandwidth with the two M.2 slots when using SATA based M.2 drives. The M.2 ports also support PCIe 3.0 x4 drives, in which case this will not affect the SATA ports.

USB connectivity starts with USB 3.1 Gen 2 via an ASM3142 controller: Type-A and Type-C ports on the back I/O panel, as well as another Type-C using an internal header. There are four more USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports on the back, as well as two USB 2.0 ports. More can be found when using the internal USB headers.

For networking, the X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC comes with two Intel Gigabit LAN controllers (one more than the ATX Gaming Carbon Pro AC), the Intel I219-V and the Intel I211AT. Wireless features are handled by Intel’s dual band Wireless-AC 8265 module pre-installed in the WIFI1 slot. It supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual band (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz) up to 867 Mbps, as well as dual mode Bluetooth 4.2. Audio duties are handled by the Realtek ALC1220 codec supporting 7.1 channel HD Audio. MSI updated its audio software on select boards in the X299 platform to Nahimic 2+, using their collaboration with Nahimic for advanced audio features.

RGB LEDs can be found on the I/O cover as well as on the audio separation line on the PCB that is meant to separate digital and analog signals. Two other small RGB strips are on the right side of the board. All the RGB LEDs (and external RGB LEDs that are supported) are controlled by MSI’s Mystic Light application. To further the aesthetic charm, if the default look isn’t what the build theme is looking for, MSI includes three different ‘Gaming Pro’ heatsink covers in Carbon, Gold, and Silver, which can be swapped around to achieve the most appropriate look for the build. It also has mounting points available, which MSI named 3D X-Mounting, to use for additional modifications for 3D-printable parts. MSI states that the cable covers, M.2 fan stand, SLI bridge, and more can be used to personalize the board even further. 

Pricing information was not mentioned in the press release. However, the $279.99 price listed above was found on gigparts.com. It is selling for $399.99 on ncix.com. 

*MSI’s website states that the board supports 128GB of DRAM, although that would mean using 32GB UDIMMs which do not exist. We fully suspect this is a typo on MSI and have reached out for clarification – we expect the support to be 64GB (4x16GB).

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ASRock Demos X399 ‘ThreadRipper’ Motherboards: M.2, U.2, 10 GbE, & More

At Computex last week, ASRock demonstrated two motherboards designed for AMD’s upcoming ThreadRipper HEDT processors. The new platforms are for high-end workstations and designed to support up to four graphics cards though the 60 PCIe lanes from the CPU, over a dozen of storage devices and up to eight DIMMs. To a large degree, ASRock’s motherboards reflect overall positioning of the AMD X399 “ThreadRipper” platform as a premium high-end desktop play, and what to generally expect from makers of mainboards here.

ASRock plans to offer two motherboards for AMD’s ThreadRipper CPUs: the X399 Professional Gaming and the X399 Taichi. The mainboards are based on the same PCB (and the same AMD X399 chipset/socket), but have a slightly different feature set. The ThreadRipper motherboards that ASRock demonstrated at Computex featured an eight-phase digital CPU VRM, which is the feasible limit given the physical space available, but we have no idea the capabilities of the power delivery as of yet. ThreadRipper is meant to be a high performance, high power processor, so undoubtedly the motherboard vendors have built their boards to match. When it comes to the socket itself, it has 4094 pins and is very large (not surprising given its origin). We’ve seen the socket referred to as SP3r2 and TR4, although the official word from AMD is that it is the ‘X399 platform’.

It will be interesting to see whether any motherboard maker manages to design a Mini-ITX mainboard for the ThreadRipper, but we will see. As we understand it, one of the problems with the socket, apart from the dimensions, is its cost to manufacturers that is prohibitively high at this time.

Both of the X399 motherboards from ASRock have eight DDR4 memory slots, but the manufacturer does not disclose speeds, ECC support and other details (although given previous discussions, we expect at least ECC and DDR4-2400). In fact, it does not even reveal the maximum amount of memory supported by the CPU. Though even if the company does know, it’s almost certain that AMD wants to hold all of these cards close to their chest for future product announcements.

The X399 Professional Gaming physically has four PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (electrically set at two x16 and two x8) that can support up to four-way AMD CrossFireX or NVIDIA SLI multi-GPU configurations, as well as PCIe SSDs. In addition, there is a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. As for storage options, ASRock has most configurations covered: the motherboard carries eight SATA ports, a U.2 connector, as well as three M.2 slots. To ensure that there is enough power for the latter, there is a 6-pin PCIe power connector right near the SATA ports. As for network connectivity, the motherboard features a 10 GbE port using Aquantia’s AQC solution, two GbE headers (enabled by Intel controllers), as well as a 2×2 802.11 Wi-Fi module with Bluetooth. As for USB, there are 10 USB 3.0 ports in addition to two USB 3.1 ports (Type-A and Type-C) on the back panel. Finally, the X399 Professional Gaming has a 7.1 audio sub-system enhanced using Creative Labs’ SoundBlaster software.

It is worth nothing that we expect the X399 chipset to be as capable as the AM4 X370 platform, which means that some of the features on the motherboard are likely to have shared resources, meaning having one enabled will disable some others. AMD has engineered the CPU to have 60 PCIe lanes for storage and graphics, which will nominally mean most configurations will allow three GPUs (totalling 48 lanes) and three M.2 slots (totalling 12 lanes) although the 10GbE controller will require some lanes as well as the other Ethernet and perhaps a USB port controller or two. Until we see the chipset diagram, it will be hard to tell at this point.

The ASRock X399 Professional Gaming and the X399 Taichi will be available later this year when AMD releases its ThreadRipper CPUs. It goes without saying that the motherboards are not going to be cheap: they are not designed for general consumers and their server origin will have a direct impact on pricing.

Related Reading:

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