ASUS has a bit of an exclusive on their hands, they have been showing the X399 based AMD ROG Zenith Extreme motherboard. X399 platforms for AMDs High-end desktop platform, let's call them enthusiast class processors. These would be intended for the CPUs like we mentioned earlier today, the 16-core / 32-threaded parts.
Little is known about the features other than specs from earlier leaks on the web and the scarce information we have received on this event. Previously two diagrams have been showing a X390 and X399 chipset. Details are still a little limited but we still think X390 corresponds to earlier rumors about Ryzen HEDT, which is meant for 16-core 32-thread Ryzen processors. The beastly processing power is balanced by more memory bandwidth via quad DDR4 channels, and it’s backed by up to a whopping 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes for multiple graphics cards and ultra-fast NVMe SSDs.
This Threadripper ready mobo holds 8x DDR4 DIMM modules that can hold 128 GB of DDR4 memory and 4x PCIe x16 slots and support up to three NVMe M.2 drives. As you can spot on the photos, power delivery is supplied with a dual 8 pin connector configuration along with a 24 Pin ATX connector. There are four PCI-e 3.0 x16 slots, a single PCI-e 3.0 x4 and then a single PCI-e 3.0 x1 slot. Storage wise this mobo has 6 SATA III ports, a single U.2 port, two USB 3.0 front panel headers and an internal USB 2.0 port. You'll notice one more (extra) DIMM slot, this is called Dimm.2 and you can pop in an addon card that can house two M2 SSDs. A rather unusual yet intersting way of implementing that alright.
The motherboard will get a 10 Gbit ethernet (Aquantia AQtion AQC107 10Gb ethernet controller), by means of a PCI-Express add-in card, but also will get dual-band Wi-Fi solution that supports the new 802.11ad protocol and is capable of theoretical tranfer rates up to 4.6Gbps.
The Zenith Extreme obviously is going to support ASUS AURA Sync RGB lighting and will support SupremeFX audio. More news and info on this product will follow, below have a browse at some of the photos as a bit of an exclusive sneak peak. Dang, that SP3 4094 pins socket!
