We were able to get a preview of ASRock's upcoming WRX90 WS Evo motherboard for Threadripper Pro 7000 CPUs at CES, and it's certainly a no-compromises solution. With 24 total power stages, tons of PCIe slots and lanes, and eight slots for DDR5 RAM, the WRX90 WS Evo seems more than capable of handling a 92-core Threadripper Pro 7995WX.
WRX90 is the chipset used in TR5 motherboards for Threadripper Pro CPUs. Compared to the TRX50 chipset, which supports both Threadripper Pro and regular Threadripper 7000 processors, WRX90 features many more PCIe, nearly three times the PCIe 5.0 lanes, almost twice as many PCIe lanes in general, eight memory channels instead of four, and supports up to 2TB of RAM instead of just 1TB.
ASRock's WRX90 WS Evo has it all: seven PCIe 5.0 x16 slots for graphics cards and other devices, two M.2 and two U.2 slots for PCIe 5.0 SSDs, and an actively-cooled 18+3+3 power stage VRM. The board's rear I/O is actually somewhat pedestrian, with just eight USB ports. However, it also features two 10-gigabit Ethernet ports and an IPMI port for remote access.
You might not see this motherboard used for breaking overclocking records with Threadripper Pro CPUs. Instead, the TRX50-equipped Pro WSD TRX50-SAGE WiFi from Asus has been the board of choice for extreme overclockers, thanks to its 36 power stages. Asus is using an even bigger 41-stage VRM for its Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE, making ASRock's 24-stage solution seem small by comparison.
Though, it's worth noting that Asus's massive VRM configurations really only factor in for overclocking. Threadripper 7000 CPUs consume lots of energy, but not to the point where 41 or even 36 power stages are necessary. While Asus's SAGE motherboards are designed to appeal to enthusiasts, ASRock's WRX90 WS Evo is more in the vein of server hardware; for instance, it uses U.2 for half of its PCIe 5.0 SSD connections rather than M.2 exclusively.
The WRX90 WS Evo has no firm release date, but we're told it should launch in early February. We weren't told any pricing info, but we can probably assume it will sell for a little less than Asus's Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE, which is currently on preorder for $1,299.
