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AMD's New High-End Chipsets for Threadripper 3000 Posted by USB-IF
The AMD TRX40, TRX80 and WRX80 chipsets have popped up under the AMD 2019 Premium Chipset registry over at the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF, responsible for making USB standards) database. The trio of unannounced chipsets is rumored to be designed specifically for AMD's next-generation Ryzen Threadripper 3000-series (codename Castle Peak) CPUs.
(Image credit: AMD)
Before this, the general assumption among the AMD community was that the X599 was probably going to be AMD's new chipset for its upcoming Castle Peak chips. However, the latest USB-IF listing certainly puts this rumor in doubt. It seems that AMD has other plans, and instead of introducing one chipset, the chipmaker might just go and roll out three. It also seems like AMD is moving to a new nomenclature for its HEDT (high-end desktop) chipsets.
(Image credit: USB-IF)
There's a theory on how to decipher AMD's latest HEDT naming scheme. The first two letters of the TRX40 and TRX80 chipset most likely stand for Threadripper, while the "W" in the WRX80 chipset might stand for workstation. If our supposition turns out to be valid, AMD could be segmenting its Threadripper processors for two different crowds. The TRX40 and TRX80 chipsets would tend to the needs of the consumer market, while the WRX80 chipset is tailored towards enterprises.
We can't be certain, but the numbers in the chipsets could denote the number of memory channels. For example, the TRX40 chipset would support four memory channels, and the TRX80 chipset would have up to eight memory channels. In the case of the WRX80 chipset, AMD could differentiate it from the TRX40 by granting it more PCIe 4.0 lanes or support for ECC (error-correcting code) memory.
VideoCardz today reported that unnamed sources from Asus confirmed that the vendor is working on two TRX40-based motberboards: the Prime TRX40-Pro and ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming. Unfortunately, we still don't have any clue as to when when the Threadripper 3000-series will drop other than CEO Lisa Su confirming that more Threadrippers are coming.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
