Friday, July 21st 2017
Asus X399 ROG Zenith Extreme Unboxed Ahead of Launch
As is usually the case with hardware products these days, it is hard to keep confidential details out of the public eye. With NDAs themselves becoming less rigorous in terms of what is covered and what is not, perhaps it was appropriate that someone over on Chiphell shared some pictures of the upcoming Asus X399 Zenith Extreme motherboard which supports AMD's upcoming Ryzen Threadripper platform. Videocardz were on hand to archive the pictures for everyone in the meantime.
Based on what we know so far, the Asus Zenith Extreme looks to be the only E-ATX form factor motherboard to be revealed in four days time (although MSI is conspicuously absent in that preview), and the pictures we have confirm this. An Asus rep also confirmed that the Zenith Extreme will share an identical power delivery to their X399 Rampage VI Extreme, meaning we finally have a like-for-like treated flagship motherboard on the red side after what seems like ages- especially combined with the announcement of the X370 ROG Crosshair VI Extreme as well.The Zenith Extreme package is loaded with accessories, including a VGA hold bracket if using on an open bench, PCIe Ethernet add-in card (potentially 10 GigE), their DIMM.2 extension card, the usual WiFi antenna, and what appears to be an updated OC Panel with LCD screen. The astute observer will also note a Ryzen Threadripper CPU peeking in one of the images, further indicating this is part of a reviewer press kit.The motherboard adopts the now-standard Asus ROG black and gunmetal grey color scheme with RGB lighting on the board presumably as indicated by the Aura Sync compatibility sticker on the packaging. The TR4 socket continues to be huge and amazing each time I see it. Also note the 8+8 EPS power connectors in the top-right corner of the motherboard and the two-piece, heatpipe-linked VRM heatsink solution, which all points to there being excellent power delivery options to help prevent the CPU and VRM-based throttling some X299 motherboards appear to be suffering from presently.
But time will tell how this works out in practice of course.
There are four full-length PCIe slots which are reinforced to support heavier VGA cards, with the top slot appearing extremely close to the CPU socket and the left bank of DIMM slots, which can be an issue with CPU coolers. The motherboard has eight DIMM slots for DDR4 quad channel memory as well. Aside from the two M.2 slots on the DIMM.2 extension card, there could be a third under the I/O section as well but it could also just be a detailed, discrete audio solution as well. One thing I do see absent is an onboard diagnostic display for error codes which seems a shame to be missing on an E-ATX motherboard.
Based on what we know so far, the Asus Zenith Extreme looks to be the only E-ATX form factor motherboard to be revealed in four days time (although MSI is conspicuously absent in that preview), and the pictures we have confirm this. An Asus rep also confirmed that the Zenith Extreme will share an identical power delivery to their X399 Rampage VI Extreme, meaning we finally have a like-for-like treated flagship motherboard on the red side after what seems like ages- especially combined with the announcement of the X370 ROG Crosshair VI Extreme as well.The Zenith Extreme package is loaded with accessories, including a VGA hold bracket if using on an open bench, PCIe Ethernet add-in card (potentially 10 GigE), their DIMM.2 extension card, the usual WiFi antenna, and what appears to be an updated OC Panel with LCD screen. The astute observer will also note a Ryzen Threadripper CPU peeking in one of the images, further indicating this is part of a reviewer press kit.The motherboard adopts the now-standard Asus ROG black and gunmetal grey color scheme with RGB lighting on the board presumably as indicated by the Aura Sync compatibility sticker on the packaging. The TR4 socket continues to be huge and amazing each time I see it. Also note the 8+8 EPS power connectors in the top-right corner of the motherboard and the two-piece, heatpipe-linked VRM heatsink solution, which all points to there being excellent power delivery options to help prevent the CPU and VRM-based throttling some X299 motherboards appear to be suffering from presently.
But time will tell how this works out in practice of course.
There are four full-length PCIe slots which are reinforced to support heavier VGA cards, with the top slot appearing extremely close to the CPU socket and the left bank of DIMM slots, which can be an issue with CPU coolers. The motherboard has eight DIMM slots for DDR4 quad channel memory as well. Aside from the two M.2 slots on the DIMM.2 extension card, there could be a third under the I/O section as well but it could also just be a detailed, discrete audio solution as well. One thing I do see absent is an onboard diagnostic display for error codes which seems a shame to be missing on an E-ATX motherboard.