You must be aware of the rivalry between Intel and AMD, which has been running on for decades. Let’s not negatively take this, because of the panoply of reasons. It’s good to know that the competition can bring exceptional models into the market. This competition ultimately led to AMD releasing their new threadripper series. These CPUs are much efficient with a multitude of cores and threads. As the name suggests “AMD Threadripper”, directly connotes to them being overly charged with a sea of cores and threads that run simultaneously giving you the output in nanoseconds or maybe in much lesser time.
So, the series starts with the first-generation cores, then second-generation cores, and now the third ones. It’s in chronological order, with further improvements as the series clambered the ladder to success. This article solely focuses on 3rd generation threadripper, and what essentials to bear in mind before buying one for yourself.
The latest and the best of them all is the AMD Ryzen threadripper 3970x with 32 cores and 64 threads. Let me break it to you that, intel never reached the same pedestal as AMD is on. The cores and threads are exceptionally wonderful and high when compared to intel. Threadripper 3970x easily beats the Intel Xeon 2-3175X in most of the rendering tests. It’s worth mentioning that, new Xeon processors are for multi-threading tasks and remain as per the AMD threadripper, but there are slight complications to it, which is beyond the scope of this article.
Additionally, this article will focus on motherboards that are a pivotal requirement to set up a gaming beast. You must be well-versed when selecting the motherboard because of the ports and sockets. First-generation MOBOS uses a slightly different socket (X399), whereas the 3rd generation threadripper uses a more advanced and sleeker socket (sTRX4). In short, you can’t interchangeably use two different generation cores on a single motherboard. The complications are heightened when research about your directed threadripper is mandatory. To say the least, the following guidelines in the coming section will succinctly juice out all the recommended bullet points, helping you register a perfect motherboard for your threadripper.
Follow these quick links to find the Best Threadripper Motherboards.
- Asus ROG II Zenith Extreme Alpha (Our Recommendation for Threadripper)
- ASRock TRX40 Taichi (Best Budget Friendly Motherboard)
Without any further ado, let’s begin the ultimate guide to finding the best threadripper motherboards for your system!
Prime 5 Best AMD Threadripper Motherboards
Name | Design | Form Factor | VRM | DDR4 Support | PCIe 4.0 M.2 Slots | Price |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Asus ROG II Zenith Extreme Alpha | E-ATX | 16-phase | 4733 MHz | 5 slots | Buy on Amazon | |
Gigabyte TRX40 AORUS XTREME | XL-ATX | 16 + 3 phase | 4400 MHz | 4 slots | Buy on Amazon | |
MSI TRX40 Creator | E-ATX | 16-phase | 4666 MHz | 7 slots | Buy on Amazon | |
ASRock TRX40 Taichi | ATX | 16-phase | 4666 MHz | 6 slots | Buy on Amazon | |
Gigabyte TRX40 Designare | XL-ATX | 16 + 3 phase | 4400 MHz | 4 slots | Buy on Amazon |
Asus ROG II Zenith Extreme Alpha
Asus has been causing chaos in the market for a couple of years. Many new products have alighted that are high-end and feature-specific. If you are aiming to get AMD threadripper 3970X, 3960X, or 3990X then Asus ROG II Zenith Extreme Alpha should be your ideal shot. This motherboard can turn into a powerhouse and can turn your system into a perfect representation of a new generation console. Especially, when the latest generation games are around the corner, you need to put up some future-proof components, and this motherboard is just the right selection.
Asus has emphasized enough to cater to gaming enthusiasts. This motherboard carries forward the series TRX40, which is solely made for threadripper CPUs. You can customize the motherboard to your liking, giving a unique touch to the system. Surprisingly, the Asus ROG II comes with an embedded 8 lightning effects which can be channeled through BIOS and external settings. The motherboard also can deduct different components that are RGB-active, allowing you to control the syncing options. These options include RGB lighting, CPU and GPU temperatures, and fan speed controls.
Additionally, Asus is earned with a multitude of golden features. One of them is the VRM slots. It harbors around 16-phase configuration with TDA21490 90 A power stages, 8 SATA 6GBps slots, and 5 PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots/sockets.
As far as the connectivity is concerned, it has the Aquantia AQC-107C 10G chipset which allows the LAN to reach speeds like 10GBps. In my opinion, these golden features are enough to power your AMD threadripper 3990X and 3970X (64 cores and 128 threads).
Notwithstanding, this motherboard was specially designed to work for rendering purposes. Considering all the above-mentioned details, I assume that it’s one of the best TRX40 motherboard you can get hold of for your threadripper. If you are up for it, then sure buy the motherboard already. It will cost you around $870. Yeah, that’s expensive, but what else can you do? You chose the ASUS!
- Aura RGB lighting control
- Wi-Fi 6/ax and Bluetooth options
- 5 M.2 slots
- Aquantia ACQ-107 10G ethernet port for high-speed internet
- Extraordinarily expensive ($870)
- It has an onboard fan (non-detachable)
Gigabyte TRX40 AORUS XTREME
Gigabyte took a sweet second spot on the list of Best Threadripper Motherboards, for its contemporary winning flagship models. Gigabyte TRX40 AORUS XTREME surfaced in the markets a couple of months ago, giving rise to more threadripper models. There’s a reason for this motherboard to win against the competitors. The motherboard has a panoply of slots to connect to, that’s why it comes with an XL-ATX form factor. Since it’s XL-ATX you need to find a compatible casing to fit the motherboard accurately.
The motherboard alone munches on 130 Watts from the power supply, leaving you with less remaining supply. So, you better buy a high-rating PSU to accommodate other RGB components. Its double front and rear panel audio chipsets feature Realtek ALC4050H and ALC1220-VB. This supports you to have a surfeit of options for audio and video purposes (2/4/5.1/7.1 channel audio and S/PDIF support).
Surprisingly, this motherboard has the compatibility of running LAN ports at 10GBps, giving you an upper hand with other users. When VRM is concerned, it comes with a 16+3 phase Infineon Digital solution with a 70A power Stage. Gigabyte is a little behind other flagship models because of low ratings in a few in-built features, otherwise, it’s another one hell of a motherboard to get in 2023.
Additionally, when connectivity is concerned, it gives ASRock Taiichi’s 2 M.2 slots which can be easily expanded to 8 with a suitable adapter. It also has 4 PCIe Express slots (4.0 * 16 slots)-16+3 phase system. This is significant when you are looking forward to expanding GPUs on your motherboard (up to 4 GPUs). Let me remind you, Gigabyte TRX40 AORUS Xtreme comes with fine heatsinks, that are aluminum/copper coated, leading to a great rate of heat dissipation. This makes the motherboard suitable for AMD threadripper 3970X, which is renowned for high-dissipating temperatures.
It again comes par with the ASUS ROG in terms of the price tag: $925. Again, making this another expensive motherboard. If you have the required budget to buy this motherboard, then sure do so.
- 4 M.2 Slots
- 10 SATA 6Gbps ports
- Onboard power and reset buttons for controllability
- 16 + 3 power design
- Expensive
- Chipset fan
MSI TRX40 Creator
So here it is. The MSI TRX40 Creator. It’s worth mentioning, that MSI products are naturally well-optimized and outperform many flagship contemporary models. It’s also natural for them to set the price tags a little higher than the average scores, so yeah keep that in mind before proceeding with this motherboard. Well, MSI Creator is adaptive to recent technology harboring the latest threadripper models. Especially AMD threadripper 3970X and 3990X. This is another 16-phase power design motherboard capable of setting high-end Quad GPUs easily.
For storage purposes, you get 3 M.2 sockets with 6 SATA ports for SSDs and HDDs equally. Many new SSDs are attachable with MSI Creator, so yeah that’s a thing. Surprisingly, this beast of a motherboard can fit in 8 RAMS with a quadcore channel. This in particular means that more processes can be run simultaneously giving your PC a higher bandwidth. The range of RAMS can extend up to 512 GB (64 * 8). Notwithstanding, MSI creator comes with a sleek and attractive layout, which acts as protective armor. The color coding used on the motherboard is aesthetic, which allows it to blend in with the case and other components.
Moreover, with synching properties of the motherboard, you can RGB as per your will through the BIOS settings and set fan curves with different profiles. It’s incredible, isn’t it? You can also extend your M.2 ports with an Xpander Aero adapter giving you around 7 free slots. That’s a huge number, believe me. I would like to pitch in my personal opinion, that this motherboard is great for rendering and gaming purposes, especially if you are a YouTuber who streams daily. The number of cores and threads that can be simultaneously acknowledged is humungous and worth praising.
Keeping these features in mind, it’s worth mentioning that the motherboard will be going to rob you of money. It’s a very top-notch motherboard with all the latest technologies implemented. There’s only a single problem, and that is the interchangeability of the chipset fan, which comes embedded. You have to be professional to play with it.
- 10 Gbe LAN
- 1 GBPS LAN connectivity
- Wi-Fi 6
- 3 M.2 Slots- extendable to 7
- 6 SATA 6 Gbps ports
- Supports M.2 Xpander-Aero adapter
- 16 + 3 power design
- Expensive
- Chipset fan
ASRock TRX40 Taichi
A wonderful clockwork design, ASRock TRX40 Taichi has brought to you something out of the box. It supports 3rd generation processors from the threadripper series. If you have AMD threadripper 3970X or 3990X, they both can easily get fit on the motherboard. The design is on fleek-Similar to X570 Taichi. The motherboard also comes with proper guidelines that allow you to roam about the motherboard easily. You can give it a thorough read to edit BIOS and other instructions to sit in all the important components on the motherboard.
Since you will be paying hundreds of dollars for a single MOBO, you can expect it to come with armor installed (for protective purposes), and a surfeit of heatsinks to radiate the heat so the components can stay cool throughout long gaming and editing sessions. ASRock Taichi comes with a 16-phase power design which is a mandatory feature to sustain high-end CPUs like threadripper. As far as the color-coding is concerned, it’s aesthetic. You can get it in complete ebony style, allowing you to cross-match it with other components on the motherboard.
8-pin power-on connector juices out all the required TDP to the CPU and GPU. It’s worth mentioning, that threadripper processors are power-hungry and can hang your computer if not powered on with an aggressive high-end power supply.
Surprisingly, ASRock Taichi is one of those motherboards that come with an integrated chipset fan. Well, here there are two, giving you more room to cool down the ambient temperature of the casing. Do not hamper with the sockets, if you are not professional, because the way the fans are embedded kills all the DIY vibes. You don’t have to go on a depression spree, because you can’t DIY them anymore. It’s pretty common with PCIe 4.0 motherboards.
Moreover, the board also harbors Wi-Fi 6 for exclusively high internet speeds and an adapter for extending M.2 sockets on the motherboard (Hyper Quad M.2 card). This is because you can now have more room to support GPUs on the motherboard. Go and buy 4 RTX or 5700X GPUs, you’ll know the fun!
In short, it’s another platinum motherboard you can get your hands on if you have the required budget to sustain it.
- 16 phase power design
- 2 M.2 Slots (extendable to 4)
- Hyper Quad M.2 card support system
- User-friendly expansion options
- Have purity Sound and DTS connect features
- Chipset fan
Gigabyte TRX40 Designare
Cheers to Gigabyte TRX40 Designare for taking the last spot on the list of Best AMD Threadripper Motherboards. Well, Gigabyte never disappoints its customers, and this is the case with this new dimensional motherboard that supports futuristic anomalies and designs. I would love to break it to you, that this is only the TRX40 motherboard that comes with a Thunderbolt header. As the name suggests “Thunderbolt” can supply bolt-lightning speeds to the peripherals connected to the PC. It also supports the notion of giving a boost to the connected GPU. So yeah, if you are looking for a thunderbolt MOBO, then this is what you are looking for!
The thunderbolt feature on the motherboard doesn’t activate itself. You will be in dire need to connect the port to one of the PCIe X 4 slots on the motherboard. But there’s a problem. There are no PCIe 4x slots on the motherboard at all. You would have to sacrifice one of the full-length PCI-E x 16 slots on the motherboard. Now that leaves you with 3 slots only. That’s where the problem starts. It costs you around $740 and doesn’t even give PCIe X 4 slots. But again, the choice is yours.
As far as the other specifications of the MOBO are concerned, it comes with dual intel Gigabit Lan port which enables you to use high-speed internet. Surprisingly, the rear panel is densely populated with a plethora of USB ports, giving you a multitude of options to use them for. Unfortunately, Gigabyte decided to use 2.0 USB ports rather than the latest generation 3.2 USB ports. Some of the features are outdated but again, this is another phenomenal TRX40 motherboard you can get for your threadripper. Don’t underestimate it yet!
- 16 phase power design
- Thunderbolt technology
- Absence of PCIe x 4 slots
- Use outdated USB ports
A marginal difference between Ryzen and Threadripper
You need to understand how these two discrete CPUs work on the motherboard. It’s also necessary that you root for the right product, and not because you heard AMD-enthusiasts pitching in their two cents.
You only should be buying the threadripper if you want to channel between a surfeit of cores and threads simultaneously. Below are some of the known features of a threadripper.
- Triple / Quad GPU setups: TRX40 motherboard can easily channel between two to three GPUs at once, giving you an edge to work on high rendering procedures.
- Quad Channel Memory: On the mediocre system, you can find the name tag of “Dual or single channel”. This connotes the RAMs being used simultaneously, giving your system a higher bandwidth ratio. Not all PCs can consume the designated bandwidth, so it’s only possible with a threadripper, which gives Quad channel memory. A dream for an enthusiast.
- A multitude of PCI-E 4.0 Lanes: Are you looking forward to installing more GPUs or Storage devices? Then yeah, a threadripper system is the best bet you can make right now.
- Cores and Threads: The 3rd generation threadripper are beyond mundane comprehension. The way they work is significant in every way. If you are one of those people maneuvering enough strength for your PC, then how about buying one of these beasts already?
Why should you get a TRX4 Motherboard?
- The notion of buying a TRX4 should be based on not assumptions but reality. The fact that the Power Delivery (VRMs) is efficient in these motherboards. These power lanes help your components get enough supply for sustainability. They can even handle 3990X threadripper easily.
- The form factor of the TRX4 expands to bring in a new type of motherboard size. It’s XL-ATX which requires a beefy and huge casing system. This simply connotes to the TRX4 motherboard being too evolved for complicated calculations.
- PCI-E slot spacing is remarkable on TRX4 motherboards.
- I/O ports in the TRX4 bring in new connectivity solutions. You can now go for 10G Lan and Wi-Fi 6 options.
- The entry-level TRX4 motherboard costs around $600, so bear that in mind. Well, this bullet point is not important, because you have made up your mind regarding buying a threadripper which can cost you your life savings. So, what’s $600? Nothing!
Final Take on the Matter
I’ll be blatantly honest. If you are looking forward to having a system for future proof, then I would suggest going for Asus ROG II Zenith Extreme Alpha, regardless of the price tag. I know it’s heavily expensive and can pay a toll on your lifetime remaining savings, but believe me, it’s one of those motherboards that can easily cut around 10+ years without dying.
There are a plethora of features you can feast upon and DIY them as per your will. Even the warranty is for a couple of years, so yeah you can trust the company and buy off the motherboard already. I would also like to add that every TRX40 motherboard is phenomenal and exceptional in its ways. Nothing can go wrong if you randomly choose any, but we will still recommend you to go for Asus ROG II Zenith Extreme Alpha.
Hey, I’m Muhammad Bilal. I’m a tech fanatic (also read: Gamer), who loves scrutinizing fine details. I aim to strive hard in my respective fields (as a writer and software programmer). Before pursuing my majors in a university (right now in A-levels), I want to spend time exploring and reviewing the latest technology.