Having started life exclusively as a system-integrator solution, AMD’s hugely impressive Threadripper Pro 5000 WX Series processors are beginning to make their way to retail, much to the delight of DIY enthusiasts.
Overclocking records are already being smashed, but such activities are not for the faint hearted. A flagship 64-core Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX will set you back £6,400 at retail, and then there’s the motherboard to consider.
ASRock wants to be in contention with its all-singing, all-dancing WRX80 Creator, now available for a cool £1,195.
Sure looks impressive, doesn’t it? This jam-packed E-ATX (305mm x 272mm) layout sees a gargantuan Threadripper Pro socket flanked by an eight-channel memory configuration that supports up to 2,048GB of DDR4-3200 natively or DDR4-4533 when overclocked.
Continuing those beautiful horizontal lines are seven PCIe 4.0 expansion slots, five of which can operate at x16 speeds simultaneously. Ideal for “professional design, deep learning, simulation and rendering applications,” says ASRock, who also includes four-way AMD CrossFireX support because, well, why not?
Storage is catered for through a pair of M.2 PCIe Gen 4 x4, a single U.2, and eight SATA 6Gbps connectors. USB is plentiful, too, with a front-panel USB 3.2 Gen Type-C header, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 and a single USB 2.0. Around back, the I/O panel is home to dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C, four URB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, and a pair of 10GbE LAN ports alongside onboard Wi-Fi 6E connectivity.
Enthusiasts’ jaws may be hitting floors, but this is primarily a professional board and is geared as such. A third RJ45 serves as a dedicated IPMI LAN port for hardware-based platform management, and onboard video output over VGA is enabled through an Aspeed AST2500 BMC controller supporting a 1920×1200 resolution at 60Hz.
Full specifications are now available via the official product page, and though this remains a very niche product, we imagine a few deep-pocketed enthusiasts are gearing up for a whole lot of fun and overclocking shenanigans.
