It looks like ASUS is showing off the first X399 motherboard, it is the AMD ROG Zenith Extreme. For those confused the X399 platform is for AMD’s upcoming ThreadRipper processors, or AMD’s high-end desktop parts. There is still not that much known about the platform, but this motherboard can shed some light on it.
Taking a look at the board it is powered by a combination of 24-pin ATX and dual 8-pin EPS connectors. There are eight DDR4 DIMM slots that can hold 128 GB of memory, four PCI-Express x16 slots, a single PCI-Express 3.0 x4 slot, and a single PCI-Express 3.0 x1 slot. For storage you have six SATA 6GB/s ports, a single U.2 port, and two USB 3.0 front panel headers.
One thing that is interesting is you’ll notice an extra DIMM slot next to the DDR4 slots. This is called a Dimm.2 which allows you to pop in an addon card that has two 32 GB/s M.2 slots. The motherboard will have 10-Gigabit Ethernet via an Aquantia AQtion AQC107 10Gb ethernet controller. This comes by the way of a PCI-Express add-in card. You will also get dual-band WiFi which supports the new 802.11ad protocol with theoretical tranfer rates up to 4.6Gbps.
X399 motherboards will have a “SP3” socket, which has a massive 4094 pins! It is a very big socket! The Zenith Extreme will also feature ASUS’s AURA Sync RGB lighting. From the looks of it you will have RGB lighting on the rear I/O cover, PCH heatsink, and the far edge of the board. Expect a few RGB headers on the board as well.
We will keep you updated once we know more about this board!
