AMD TRX40 Threadripper Motherboards Will Probably Break Your Piggy Bank

Leaker @momomo_us has found Gigabyte's recently announced TRX40 motherboards at the Bottom Line Telecommunications (BLT) eStore. The early listings suggest that AMD's new HEDT (High-End Desktop) motherboards could cost a small fortune for early Ryzen Threadripper 3970X and 3960X adopters.

BLT might not be a very well-known retailer for hardware aficionados like Newegg or Amazon, but it's the one of the first to list the new TRX40 motherboards. Although BLT has posted the pricing for Gigabyte's entire TRX40 lineup, we should still approach the prices with a certain level of skepticism since they could simply be placeholders.

For now, we can only assume that BLT's listed prices are representative of final pricing. The price hikes seem to trickle down Gigabyte's entire product stack starting from the flagship TRX40 Aorus Xtreme down to the entry-level TRX40 Aorus Pro WiFi.

BLT prices the TRX40 Aorus Xtreme at $869.62. That's more than twice the cost of the previous flagship, the X399 Aorus Xtreme. 

The new TRX40 Designare apparently commands $646.83, which is up to 58.7% more expensive than the previous model that retails for $407.62. 

Lastly, the TRX40 Aorus Pro WiFi seems to be the most affordable option out of Gigabyte's four TRX40 offerings. This model is listed for $407.81, which is a hairline away from matching the last-generation flagship X399 Aorus Xtreme's price tag. In comparison, Gigabyte's cheapest X399 motherboard starts at $302.16.

In Gigabyte's defense, the brand's TRX40 motherboards show up with a different design and other improvements. For starters, the motherboards require the new TRX40 chipset, which relies on a little fan to stay cool, similar to the mainstream X570 chipset. There's also support for the PCIe 4.0 standard on the PCIe lanes and M.2 ports. Gigabyte has also updated the designs of the power delivery subsystems on its motherboards to accommodate the new core-heavy Ryzen Threadripper chips. Generally speaking, all of the aforementioned features cost money to implement and are likely reflected in the new pricing.

In a sense, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that TRX40 motherboards would be equally or more expensive than the prior X399 motherboards. It's just the price you have to pay to play in the HEDT league.