Gigabyte Designaire X399 Motherboard Review

Gigabyte Designaire The Gigabyte Designaire Motherboard is here at last, delivering support for the latest AMD TR4 Threadripper processors on the X399 platform. As the flagship processor range for the AMD Ryzen processor range, Threadripper is designed for workstation, and enthusiast system builds that focus on rendering performance, extreme resolution gaming, and content creation. Motherboard performance doesn't change that much from brand to brand. The main differences for the consumer are the added features each motherboard provides. The Designaire has more features than most users will know what to do with, but it's designed to be capable of virtually anything you wish to throw at it. AMD X399 Ultra Durable motherboard with Dual Intel GbE LAN, Triple M.2 with Thermal Guard, RGB Fusion, 120dB SNR ALC1220, Front & Rear USB 3.1 Type-C, Intel Dual Band 802.11ac WiFi+BT4.2, Base Plated & I/O Shield Armor Equipped with dual Intel Gigabit LAN, three high-speed M.2 mounts with thermal guard, high performance ALC1220 audio, and extensive connectivity options for storage devices, and more. There is also support for four-way graphics cards, armor, as well as ultra-durable hardware for improved reliability and build quality. If that wasn't enough, you'll also find high-performance 802.11AC Wi-Fi, server class digital power delivery, and gold plated solid power connectors, RGB lighting, power surge protection, and so much more. Overall this is a premium product packing all the premium features you could ask for, but the big question is how well does it perform? Features Supports AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ Processors Quad Channel ECC/ Non-ECC Unbuffered DDR4, 8 DIMMs, 3600MHz+(OC) Fast Front and Rear USB 3.1 Type-C™ Interface 4-Way Graphics Support with Dual Armor and Ultra Durable™ Design Server-Class Digital Power Design & Gold Plated Solid Power Connectors Dual Intel GbE LAN with cFosSpeed Internet Accelerator Software ALC1220 120dB SNR HD Audio with Smart Headphone AMP and WIMA audio capacitors Sound BlasterX 720°, the Top-of-the-line Audio Engine Solution for 4K Gaming and Entertainment Intel® Dual Band 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.2 – AC 8265 WiFi Module RGB FUSION with Multi-Zone LED Light Show design, support Digital LED & RGB LED strips Smart Fan 5 features Multiple Temperature Sensors and Hybrid Fan Headers Triple Ultra-Fast M.2 with PCIe Gen3 x4 interface and Thermal Guard USB DAC-UP 2 with Adjustable Voltage Precise Digital USB Fuse Design for Stronger Protection Ultra Durable™ 25KV ESD and 15KV Surge LAN Protection Base Plated & I/O Shield Armor APP Center Including EasyTune™ and Cloud Station™ Utilities Overwhelming Power. Indisputable Supremacy. Unrestrained Potential. "The GIGABYTE X399 enthusiast motherboard with AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ Processor. Do everything, do it all at the same time, and do it without sacrificing responsiveness. Render. Stream. Compile. Encode. Work or Play. Real-World Productivity or Virtual Reality Entertainment. The GIGABYTE X399 enthusiast motherboard has the power to overwhelm your most daunting workloads." - Gigabyte What's in the Box In the box, you will find everything you need to get you started. This includes 6 SATA cables, RGB lighting, thermal probe cables, velcro cable ties, Wi-Fi antenna, SLI Bridge, U.2 adaptor, as well as all the usual documentation and that cool sheet of stickers. A Closer Look First impressions are important, and the first impression I got of this motherboard is that it is incredibly heavy. Gigabyte already presented us with some of the heaviest motherboards we've ever seen in the past, but the Designaire may be the heaviest yet! It comes with lots of heavy duty metal armor covering all major components on the motherboard. One thing is for certain, this motherboard feels practically bulletproof, but also looks incredible at the same time with its black and silver aesthetics. In the top left, you'll find an integrated rear I/O cover which keeps the motherboard looking neat and tidy. You will also find a durable VRM heatsink which has a thick heat pipe running through to a second heatsink directly above the CPU socket. This should help keep the motherboard power delivery hardware as cool as possible, helping deal with the power requirements for Threadripper, as well as your overclocking needs. VRM Cooling There are eight DDR4 DIMM slots on this motherboard, all fitted with durable armor to prevent the motherboard from bending or straining while also offering protection for your memory. Of course, it also looks kinda cool too, and there is RGB LED lighting between the slots for some added flare Threadripper has very high power requirements, so it's no surprise that this motherboard uses a single eight-pin, as well as an additional four-pin PSU power connector. Enthusiast systems requiring enthusiast levels of cooling, so you'll be pleased to see there are plentiful fan headers located all over the motherboard. This ensures you can have all your water cooling gear, fans, and coolers hooked up. Storage There are 8 SATA 6 Gbps ports on the right side of the motherboard, as well as a USB 3.1 front panel connector, with USB 3.0 on the bottom of the motherboard, as well as a few USB 2.0 connectors. There are three M.2 drive bays on this motherboard, as well as a heat shield that not only looks great, but will also keep your drives protected from damage and provide additional cooling performance. Audio enthusiasts will be happy to see the ALC1220 chipset on this motherboard, as well as Gigabytes smart headphone amp, and WIMA audio capacitors. On the software side of things, you'll also find Creative Sound BlasterX 720 audio engine. There are five full-size PCIe slots, all reinforced with durable armor which again looks fantastic, but with the weight of modern graphics cards bigger than ever, you can have confidence that the motherboard can take the strain of even the biggest on the market. I/O Guard Finally on to my two favourite features of this motherboard. The rear I/O guard is easily the nicest one I have ever seen. It's built into the motherboard, so there's no chance of you losing it. It's finished in a brushed metal too, which gives it a premium look and feel, and is laid out for easy access to all the ports and connectors, with gold plating on audio and Wi-Fi, and even some added ventilation. Also, it has a rear back plate. These are not particularly common, but this is by far the largest I have seen fitted to a motherboard and also the heaviest. Holding the motherboard in your hand, it feels like this backplate almost doubles of the weight of the motherboard, but it also gives it added strength that prevents the motherboard from flexing, and may even provide some passive cooling performance. Testing and Methodology Test Procedure Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to motherboard reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Rember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there's always a margin for error when using the software. Therefore, your experience may vary. Each benchmark runs three times, and the average figure is taken to try to reduce the effect of hardware variation. Of course, any relevant details regarding the parameters will be listed below. Test Systems X399 Motherboard – Changes Per Review RAM - Crucial DDR4 2400MHz Quad-Channel 32GB CPU Cooler – Noctua D15S Graphics Card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X299 Motherboard – Changes Per Review RAM - Crucial DDR4 2400MHz Quad-Channel 32GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit AM4 Ryzen R3, R5 and R7 Motherboard – Changes Per Review RAM - GeIL DDR4 2977MHz Dual Channel 16GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit Z270 Motherboard – Changes Per Review RAM - Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz CPU Cooler – Noctua D15S Graphics Card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X99 - Our GPU Review Test Bench Motherboard – Changes Per Review RAM – Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Open Air Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 64-bit Games Used All games are tested on a 60 Hz display with V-Sync off for all tests. Previously we would use "extreme" presets, but these have now been adjusted to "Medium" or equivalent to better test the capabilities of the CPU, not the GPU. Rise of the Tomb Raider (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Pure Hair Off Deus Ex (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Ghost Recon: Wildlands (Uplay) Medium Preset Turf Effects Off Far Cry Primal (Uplay) Normal Preset Software Used 3DMark Fire Strike (download) FireStrike (1080p) Benchmark Unigine Superposition (download) 1080p Extreme Benchmark PCMark 10 Professional (download) Express Benchmark WPrime (download) 32M and 1024M Power usage recorded at 1024M 50% complete, thermals recorded at 75% CineBench R15 (download) CPU Multi CPU Single Handbrake (download) Custom MP4 to MKV 4K conversion (details below) AIDA64 Engineer (download) CPU-Z (download) HWMonitor (download) Handbrake To stress processors to their absolute limit and accurately judge their performance in video editing workloads, we transcode a 7.7GB compilation of gaming footage; this particular file is freely available from here. The captured footage is 22 minutes and 12 seconds long, it has a bit rate of 50.1 Mbps and it uses the Advanced Video Codec. Additionally, the video runs at a constant 30 frames-per-second and opts for a 3820 x 2140 (4K) resolution. Once loaded into Handbrake, we then transcode the 4K MP4 to an MKV file using the "normal" profile. Other Notes A rest period of 2-5 minutes is observed between each piece of software allowing the system to return to its idle power usage and temperatures. Background services like Windows Update are checked to not be running during the testing period by setting WiFi to Metered Connection. Thanks Thank you to Noctua, Crucial, ASUS, Gigabyte, Lian-Li, be quiet!, OCZ, for providing the hardware that helps makes these tests possible! Synthetic Benchmarks 3DMark Firestrike In terms of gaming performance, Threadripper is not particularly the fastest, as it is designed to deal with multithreaded tasks more than anything. However, the Designaire delivered performance on par with other X399 motherboards. Overclocking did bring some small performance improvements, again in line with what we've seen on rival motherboards. Stock Overclocked Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme Unigine is very much GPU bound, so there's very little difference between motherboards and as you can see the Designaire is on par with just about everything else. Again though, it does show some small performance improvements once overclocked. Stock Overclocked PCMark 10 Express The PCmark 10 Express score is respectable, but these huge core count CPUs just don't seem too fair as well in this benchmark. It's still a high score, but I do feel this benchmark is better tuned for consumer processors. Stock Overclocked WPrime 32M and 1024M Now we can finally see a benchmark where Threadripper excels, as the X399 platform dominates the scores and the Designaire set a blazing time of 57.4 and 49.490 while overclocked, showing that there are plenty of gains to be had by pushing this motherboard and it's processor to the limit. Stock Overclocked Cinebench R15 Again in Cinebench, which is able to use all of the cores of the processor to their full potential, the Designaire is up there with the fastest motherboards we have tested in this benchmark, all of which are X399. Stock Overclocked Handbrake MP4 to MKV Conversion 4K The Designaire set one of our highest ever scores for handbrake 4K video conversion, an amazing 73.5 frames per second. This is one of those benchmarks that does tend to drop down on the overclock settings, showing that the processor does thermal throttle once pushed for extended periods of time, but that's still a respectable score overall and one that could quickly improve with the use of extreme cooling solutions. Stock Overclocked AIDA 64 Memory Bandwidth and Latency Memory performance had no surprises for us with the Designaire delivering results right where we would expect them to be, including a high latency which just tends to be a symptom of the many-core processors. Gaming Performance Now we move onto one of my favourite sections which is the gaming performance. X399 isn't seen as a gaming chipset and Threadripper isn't seen as a gaming processor. However, for those who are doing content creation, game streaming, and other similar tasks, having the large CPU overhead of all those extra cores are beneficial to streaming software, overlays, and video rendering on the fly while gaming. That being said, the Designaire motherboard gave some respectable scores, hitting an average of 90 frames a second in Deus Ex, 166 frames per second in Rise of the Tomb Raider, 101 in Far Cry primal and 180 frames per second in Ghost Recon Wildlands. These aren't the highest scores ever seen, but they are easily on par with the other x399 motherboards we've tested over the last few months; it's competitive and I've no concerns about its gaming performance. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Rise of the Tomb Raider Ghost Recon: Wildlands Far Cry Primal Power Consumption and Temperatures Power Consumption Regarding power consumption, this is a pretty extreme motherboard, so it does have quite a high power draw taking 238 Watts at full load. Of course, this isn't the highest power draw we've ever seen and is significantly less than some of the high-end x299 motherboards that were tested recently. Stock Overclocked Final Thoughts Pricing At the time of writing, I couldn't find retail stock of this item at our preferred retailers, but we are expecting it to hit the market and be available to consumers very soon. Obviously, this is one of the flagship motherboards of an extreme platform that is packed full of features for the enthusiast user, and as such, it's going to come with a hefty price tag. Right now, we're expecting the board to be around the $400 mark, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were around £400 here in the UK too. Is it expensive? Yes, but when you look at the build quality and the features on offer, it is competitive with other X399 solutions on the market today; at least when you're looking at the higher end of the range. Update: We've now found stock at CCL Computers, and I'm happy to report the motherboard is cheaper than I anticipated. That's always a good thing to hear. You can pick up this motherboard for just £343.65. Overview As one of the flagship motherboards from the Gigabyte range, we would expect this to be an impressive motherboard, and it certainly is. It is tailored towards a particular part of the market, and it's not going to appeal to everybody, particularly at this price range, and given the cost of the Threadripper CPU and all the other hardware it would take to do a motherboard like this just this justice. Great Connectivity If you're building a high-end workstation around the Threadripper processor, then this is going to be a great place to start. With such extensive connectivity and storage options particularly the three armored M.2 slots it's going to be easy to build a huge raid array of storage that delivers the power and speed required for demanding tasks such as 4K video editing and rendering. Of course, this could also be beneficial to game development, music production, and even for YouTube content creators. Build Quality In terms of features, the motherboard has more than I care to list again. But what really defines this motherboard from the rest of the market is how well those elements are presented and integrated to the motherboard's design. The build quality is truly next level and easily one of the best made concerning aesthetics and the physical quality, that I have ever seen. The titanium brushed metal finish, is going to look great inside any chassis. While it's only a minor detail, features like the integrated rear I/O guard and that crazy heavy-duty motherboard backplate, the heavy-duty VRM heatsinks, and armored PCIe slots all add up to create a premium product. Should I Buy One? This is an extremely expensive motherboard, and it's going to be fairly expensive to buy all the surrounding hardware for a build like this. You'll only wince when you swipe your credit card as once you've actually got this motherboard in your hands, all will be forgiven. Highly recommended for anyone planning to build a powerful gaming and workstation system with no compromise on features. Pros Competitive performance 3 x M.2 Mounts with Shield Armoured PCIe Slots Armoured DDR4 DIMMS High-end Audio Hardware Superb rear I/O design Motherboard backplate Multi-GPU support Extensive feature set Cons None