Gigabyte X399 Aorus Xtreme Review (w/ AMD 2990WX)

1. Introducing Gigabyte X399 Aorus Xtreme2. Xtreme Features and Hardware3. Testing with Threadripper 2990WX4. Testing: CPU Benchmarks5. Performance and Overclocking Overview6. Cooling Performance and Power Draw7. Closing Thoughts8. View All Pages

Testing

Testing this mighty motherboard required a mighty CPU and the natural choice was the 32-core 2990WX. It seemed fairly pointless to look at low thread count performance as the idea of pushing two or four cores to high speeds means you are effectively ignoring 28 or 30 cores.

We instead concentrated on all-core performance and that threw up an intriguing point as the 180W 2920X and 2950X models have a base speed of 3.5GHz while the 2990WX and 2970WX have a base speed that is a mere 3.0GHz. We expected to see the 2990WX CPU Boost beyond that speed but as we demonstrate in our video, when you use Auto settings the initial boost was only to 3.15GHz that dropped back to 3.05GHz.

Essentially the 2990WX wouldn’t Boost beyond the base speed unless we gave it a helping hand, however that wasn’t exactly the same thing as overclocking to a fixed speed.

As you will have seen in our video. That specific point became the focus of our testing.

Test system
CPU: AMD Threadripper 2990WX
RAM: 32GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200MHz
Graphics: EVGA GTX 1080Ti SC 11GB GDDR5
SSD: 1TB WD Black M.2 NVMe
Power Supply: Seasonic Prime Platinum 1300W

CPU Cooler Custom loop components:
CPU Block: Watercool Heatkiller IV
Pump/Reservoir: EKWB XRES 140 Revo D5 PWM set to 2,200rpm
Radiator: Alphacool NexXxos XT45 240mm
Fans: 3x BlackNoise eLoop B12-1 800rpm set to Full Speed
Fittings: Alphacool 10/16mm
Tubing: Mayhems Ultra Clear 10/16mm
Coolant: Mayhems Pastel Purple
Thermal Compound: Arctic MX-4

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