Gigabyte Unveils Flagship TR4 X399 Designare EX Motherboard

Gigabyte is launching the X399 Designare EX, its flagship socket TR4 motherboard. The Designare EX – which supports AMD’s Threadripper processors – is effectively an Aorus X399 Gaming 7 board refresh. In fact, the Designare EX features the same PCB, but with armour-plated metallic silver motifs and lashings of RGB LEDs.

The Designare EX features an ATX form-factor, DDR4-3600 memory support (maximum of 128GB), four PCI-Express3.0 slots, and one PCI-Express3.0. In addition, the board boasts three 32Gbps M.2 slots and eight SATA 6Gbps ports. The board also supports 4-way AMD Crossfire/NVIDIA SLI. Presumably, that also includes 2-way AMD mGPU support for RX Vega cards.

Gigabyte X399 Designare EX Specifications

• Socket: Socket TR4
• Chipset: AMD X399
• Form Factor: ATX
• Memory slot: DDR4-3600 + × 8 (up to 128GB / ECC support)
• Expansion slots: PCI-Express3.0 (x16) × 2, PCI-Express3.0 (x8 / x16 shape) × 2, PCI-Express2.0 (x4 / x16 shape) × 1
• Storage: SATA3.0 (6Gbps) × 8, M.2 22110 × 2, M.2 2280 × 1
• LAN: Dual Gigabit LAN (Intel I211AT × 2), IEEE 802.11ac wireless LAN, Bluetooth 4.2
• Sound: 7.1ch HD audio (Realtek ALC1220)
• Interface: USB3.1 Gen.2 × 2 (Type-A / Type-C), USB3.1 Gen.1 × 8, PS / 2 × 1, gigabit LAN × 2, audio terminals × 5, an optical audio terminal × 1
• Dimensions: 305 × 244mm

Availability and Pricing

Gigabyte is yet to announce release date– although ETA is mid-October – or price. However, expect to pay more than the Aorus X399 Gaming 7’s $399.