Joined on 01/14/17
TR 1900X, The cheapest way to get TR I/O
Pros: On a Zenith extreme: Quad channel, 64 PCIe lanes, 3 M.2 sockets full Gen3 x4, WiGig, 10Gb LAN, 16x 8x 16x 8x PCIe sockets. No AM4 socket gives you these features. Upgrade path: 1920X/ 1950X/ 2920X/ 2950X/ 2970WX and ZEN2 7nm 24 core should work also.
Cons: NONE 6 months plug and play on the original bios.
Overall Review: Runs like a 1700X with the Threadripper I/O. Run G Skill 3200C14 at 3466C14 quad channel with two clicks in the bios. It is plug and play on every Linux Distro I've tried. In the future, the cheapest TR ZEN2 may be 24 cores and out of the budget builders price range. I got all the features of AMD's HEDT TR on a $300 CPU.
SPECTACULAR
Pros: UPS delivered without any damage. All 8,294,400 pixels work from edge to edge. Just spectacular. I don't have any way to test other 43" 4k monitors, but this one is well worth the money. For an all-purpose HEDT this is the all-purpose monitor I wanted.
Cons: NONE
Overall Review: An Ergotron HX monitor arm would be a nice addition.
GEN4 Quad M.2 Quad AIC
Pros: I have two of these in a Threadripper PC. In an X16 socket 4 M.2 drives. In an X8 socket 2 M.2 drives. All six drives run off cpu lanes at max speed for the M.2 drive. FLAWLESS with Sabrent GEN4 drives for months. No temp throttling.
Cons: NONE.
Overall Review: Lean mean drive machine. All six drives flat out Read/Write. Motherboard M.2 sockets off the chipset share lanes with other devices and performance goes up and down as other devices share the cpu lanes.
Gen 4 M.2 NVMe Drives
Pros: FAST and works on any old GEN3 motherboard till you upgrade your system.
Cons: FLAWLESS
Overall Review: Four 2TB Sabrent GEN4 drives on an Asus HYPER GEN4 PCIe card and one 1TB Sabrent GEN4 drive on a DIMM2 card for Windows backup. In Windows 10 you can extend your C: drive to include the space on your D; E: F; drives for 8TB boot drive with all four under drive letter C:. All you need is an extra X16 slot with bifurcation (4x 4x 4x 4x). Or you can set up two/four drives in a Raid array. Welcome to the Third Decade of the 21st Century!
WOW
Pros: I just got it. It is a magnificent example of European metal machinist art work. I'm still buying parts for my second water loop, but my EK gear for my Threadripper open loop has been flawless for over two years.
Overall Review: EKWB tubes, radiators, fittings and fluid additives are all just flawless. No runs, No drips, No errors.
PLUG AND PLAY
Pros: G Skill GTZRX 4x8GB P&P 3200C14 Trident RGB Flawless at 3466C14 for two years. Trident Z Royal 4x16 3200C14 boots at 2133C14. One click in the bios to DOCP and my Asus Zenith Extreme/1900X boots at 3200C14 with 64 GB. ZEN, ZEN+ or ZEN2 This top end G Skill samsung b-die is fast, easy and flawless. Is it worth the money?Yes. Would I buy it again? Yes. Is another kit in my cart? Yes.
Overall Review: A Quad Channel Kit for Threadripper. Bravo G.Skill, 4 older Trident Z 8GB rgb sticks plus 4x16GB Trident Z Royal runs 98GB 3200MHz 14-14-14-14-34. BIOS: AI Tweaker>DOCP> Auto to 2933 and boot. Reboot 2933>3066.Reboot 3066>3200. That's on a first gen TR, not the ZEN2 with a separate memory controller..