New Motherboard Report #1: Computex Edition

Time for a roundup of new HEDT motherboards.

AMD X399 for Ryzen Threadripper

Starting with Threadripper. I think it’s obvious that mobo makers didn’t have much time to prepare first units for Computex. In total, we have two motherboards from ASRock, which are technically the same design-wise, we also have enthusiast-oriented ZENITH from ASUS and GAMING 7 from AORUS.

INTEL X299 for Core-X Series

ASROCK

ASRock is the first motherboard vendor to offer Mini-ITX X299 model. The OC Formula returned to break new OC records.

ASUS

ASUS has a full lineup ready with motherboards from ROG RAMPAGE, ROG STRIX, TUF and PRIME series.

BIOSTAR

Biostar made EATX motherboard with seven PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots.

COLORFUL

Colorful has a pair of iGame X motherboards. The latter is the first and only white X299 motherboard.

EVGA

EVGA has three motherboards. The Micro is the only MicroITX X299 motherboard so far. Surprisingly, none of the three has reinforced PCIe/DIMM slots. The X299 DARK has a similar M.2 cooling mechanism to MSI’s GAMING M7.

GIGABYTE

Gigabyte is fully committed to AORUS series, they already announced four motherboards from the series. They also have a workstation motherboard and budget oriented Ultra Durable edition.

MSI

MSI has quite a few motherboards coming. There are many variants: some feature WIFI AC, some are white (Arctic). Only some were made public though. The Gaming M7 has M.2 SHIELD FROZR mechanism for M.2 drive cooling. The XPower Gaming AC has a nice 90s style touch.

My favorite X299 motherboard so far is PRO CARBON AC. This motherboard takes customization one step further by allowing you to change the heatsink covers.