Following AMD’s Computex press conference, we headed over to the Gigabyte suite (after our X299 coverage) to look at the X399 Aorus Gaming 7 motherboard. The new Gigabyte X399 Gaming 7 board is one of two that we’ve seen thus far – our ASUS coverage is next up – and joins the forces of motherboards ready for AMD’s Threadripper HEDT CPUs.
The Gigabyte X399 Aorus Gaming 7 motherboard sockets Threadripper into AMD’s massive socket, dead-center, and uses three Torx screws to get at the LGA pin-out. The CPUs will provide 64 PCIe lanes, as we’ve already reported, with 4x PCIe Gen3 lanes reserved for high-speed transport between the CPU and chipset. The other 60 are assignable at the motherboard manufacturer’s will; in this case, Gigabyte willed for an x16/x8/x16/x8 full-length PCIe slots, with an additional 3x M.2 (x4) slots. That immediately consumes all 60 lanes, with the remaining 4 reserved for the chipset communications.
Gigabyte’s X399 Aorus Gaming 7 presently hosts a 6-phase power design, but Gigabyte tells us that they’ll be ditching the 6-phase in favor of an 8-phase Vcore VRM. This, we’re told, is because the 6-phase simply wasn’t producing the power capabilities that Gigabyte desired. For the final production unit, Gigabyte will switch to an 8-phase Vcore VRM using all International Rectifier 3553 MOSFETs, with an IR 35201 for the voltage controller. The 8-phase Vcore VRM will be accompanied by 2x 2-phase memory VRMs (one for each side). We do not presently have further power design information, but GamersNexus is the source of the above information – this was found out through looking over the board’s components and speaking in an interview with Gigabyte’s PMs on the board.
Gigabyte is running 1x 8-pin power header and 1x 4-pin power header for EPS12V lines, which is the AMD reference spec. Some boards we’ve seen are using 2x 8-pin, though 1x 8+4 will be standard.
Other than this, the usual assortment of RGB LEDs and other accessories, like M.2 heatsinks, are present on the motherboard.
Threadripper will release on August 10, from what we presently understand, and the motherboards should ship alongside TR. Mass production availability is looking like mid-August. Price is TBD, as AMD has not finalized its socket and chipset prices.
Editorial: Steve Burke
Video: Keegan Gallick