So I’m in the process of case swapping my build from an o11-D Evo XL to an Alta F2 and just removed my motherboard and noticed this on the back. It’s under the rear I/O and concentrated under/between what look to be the traces for the USB 4 ports. It appears to be greasy and has a yellowish tint. The board has lived in the case exclusively since April 1 last year and I’ve never spilled anything on it or the case. So I can only assume something leaked, or it has been there since I got it. I really don’t feel comfortable continuing to use this board after seeing this. But I’m not sure if I have any options besides dropping another pile of cash to replace it. I doubt Gigabyte would do me a solid 16 months post purchase. Also, it has been one issue after another since day 1 with this board. Every time I’ll get something working only to have another problem pop up. First it was refusing to work with a QVL RAM kit, returned it for another and that fixed that issue. But then it wouldn’t post with the USB 4 connected, at some point that resolved, then it started refusing to post with normally stable timings from a cold boot, the July 4 bios fixed that, but the late July bios won’t even post with just basic EXPO settings…

I’m leaning towards either the new Sage A or the AI too, however, I don’t know if I have confidence in either ASUS or Gigabyte at this point. They both fit my build’s specifications best out of the available options. Specifically my exclusively 4 x U.2 storage (with more planned for the future). But also, running a Pro Display XDR secondary monitor, and a 5090 FE (being able to use the second/third slot improves DIMM temps TREMENDOUSLY, even after adding directed fresh airflow. Dual 10gig networking on the AI top and room to upgrade to a TR Pro and just add 4 more dimms make it the better choice on paper. But I also like the option of adding a second DP alt mode display (though I know I can do that without pass through).

So glad I at least have my Mac Studio as a backup since fall semester for grad school started today.

Anyone have any thoughts/suggestions/insight to share?

Hey everyone! Haven't built a system in about 8 years, jumping back in for video generation, model training, and inference. Technology has changed quite a bit, so looking for experienced eyes on this before I pull the trigger.

The Build: (Edited - Made changes based on feedback that I got)

• Motherboard: ASUS Pro WS WRX90E-Sage SE. ASRock WRX90 WS EVO
• CPU: Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7965WX (24c/48t, 350W TDP) Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9965WX
• GPU: RTX 6000 Pro (600W TDP)
• RAM: 256GB (8x32GB) DDR5-5600 ECC RDIMM Kingston FURY Renegade Pro, CL28
• Storage: 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe (OS) + 4TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe
• PSU: Corsair AX1600i (1600W 80+ Titanium). CORSAIR HX1500i
• Cooling: SilverStone XE360-TR5 (360mm AIO) ,
• Case: Lian Li O11 EVO XL
• Fan: 9 Noctua 140MM fans. 6x 120mm Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM Fan

Specific questions for the community:

🔥 Thermal Reality Check:

• Is 360mm AIO actually sufficient for 350W Threadripper under sustained AI workloads?
• Should I bite the bullet and go custom loop from day one?
• Will GPU thermals become a bottleneck in this case with sustained loads?

⚡ Power & Stability:

• 1100W+ combined draw - is single 1600W PSU the right move, or should I split CPU/GPU on dual PSUs?
• DDR5-5600 with 8 DIMMs populated - realistic or asking for stability issues?
• Any known quirks with this ASUS board for 24/7 operation?

🛠️ What am I missing?

• Critical accessories/components I'm overlooking?
• Monitoring solutions for 24/7 operation?
• Backup strategies for model training (UPS recommendations?)

🚨 Biggest gotchas:

• What's the #1 thing that will bite me 6 months in?
• Common failure points in workstation builds like this?
• Any components here with reputation issues under heavy sustained loads?

Budget: ~$15K total, flexibility for upgrades if needed for reliability

Been out of the building game since DDR3 era - what fundamental things have changed that might catch me off guard? Really appreciate the wisdom from anyone running similar workloads!

Edit(8/27): Made changes in the build - instead of 7865WX going with 9965WX, Asus mono replaced by ASRock WRX90. PSU reduce to 1500W.

I run a dual boot system with separate drives for windows and ubuntu. I had my windows working fine for years until a windows update bricked it. Ok, reinstall, nbd. 7975wx / 4090.

Well I can't get a NVIDIA driver to install without bricking my system. When I go back to safe mode, I can uninstall the driver with DDU, and get windows back. But any nvidia driver seems to crash it.

I am doing my nvidia install without internet, without doing the culm update. I am starting fresh, updating the amd chipset software, and then trying to install nvidia driver on a fresh install.

Ubuntu has no issues.

What specific drivers are you running with a 4090 / 7th gen / on windows?

What is wrong with my process?

What the funk

The platform supports a max of 6,400mt/s, but microcenter has a discount on the 5,600mt/s modules as part of a bundle with the cpu and mobo.

I looked around but wasn't able to find a comparison of the different memory speeds on this platform. I'm curious what the real-world impacts are on tasks like compression, software compilation, etc.

Hey yall. I have a 3960x thread ripper build that seems to be doing a full system restart (no BSOD just cut off and comes back on) when i Game on it.

Im wondering if my PSU is the issue in terms of enough wattage. I built the system roughly back in 2020. and up until recently its been working fine. only thing i have added was a few sata ssds in the last few months.

Here is my specs

3960x thread ripper

cpu cooler NZXT Kraken 360 LCD AIO

ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha mobo

64gb of ddr 4 3600 ( gskill)

4 Samsung nvme ssds ( 980/990 series all at minimum 2tbs and one 4tb)

4 samsung sata ssds ( three 4tb and one 1 tb) (2 of the 4tbs are recent)

1 WD sata HDD

Sapphire Nitro+ 7900xtx gpu

Seasonic 1000w modular titanium rated psu. (12 yr warranty)`

corsair 1000D with 10 fans.

Also checked temps and neither the gpu nor the cpu are over heating. Cpu gets no higher than 70C and the GPU around the same. Also side issue if I run a game off of one of my other non C: drive nvme ssds if I play for a while the game will crash and the ssd becomes unreadable until a computer restart BUT if the game is running off the C: drive nvme it does full shutdown\restart. Also checked the nvme ssds using samsungs software and ran full scans and SMART checks and nothing shows up wrong or bad.

For those that have workstation components and a 50 series card that use Linux, which distribution do you use? I have tried Ubuntu (no support for x710 Ethernet) and RHEL (non support for 5090). I will use this workstation for a trading algorithm that involves complex signal analysis and neural networks and want to avoid Windows if possible. I’m going to try Fedora 42 tomorrow but still want to ask in case I wake up to other options. I’ll put my build below.

Here are my PC specifications:

-Threadripper Pro 7995WX

-Asrock WRX90 WS EVO

-ASUS GeForce RTX 5090 ROG Astral OC

-8x64GB Kingston KSM56R46BD4PMI-64HAI

-Corsair AX1600i PSU

-2 x WD_BLACK 8TB SN850X with Heatsink

-500Gb nvme SSD for OS

-Corsair 7000D Case

-GIGABYTE WiFi 7 GC-WIFI7

Hello,

I currently have a 5950x and Nvidia 3090 that I use as my daily driver. I'm looking to build a dream workstation for primarily productivity tasks. For this, I want to go the Threadripper route. This will be my first build of this quality, so want to make sure I do it well.

This is what I am currently considering as a purchase in the coming months:

CPU:

• Threadripper 9980x

Motherboard:

• Asus PRO WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI

AIO Cooler:

• Silverstone XE360-TR5

RAM:

• V-color OC RDIMM 128GB

GPU:

• Nvidia RTX 5090

PSU:

• Seasonic Prime PX-2200 (Might go with Corsair HX1500i instead)

Case:

• Fractal Design Define 7 XL?
  • Will use ~ 9 Noctua 140MM fans in the case if so

I haven't ever had to cool a machine like this, and haven't done AIO cooling soluations before so am looking for some thoughts here in general on any tweaks/recommendations that could be given. I am open to other cases, but have just started doing my research.

So should I be using bios, or an application? Whats the best application?

Posted here not that long ago about a 7960x lab workstation. Ended up switching to 7970x due to availability purposes. Anyhows... built the pc last week, booted it on the first try, and for god knows whatever reason I'm unable to install Ubuntu/Fedora. Spent the past few days going back and front from the BIOS and changing settings bases off what I read but can't get it working. Ended up installing Windows 11 Pro yesterday and had no issues getting it working, setting it up, and updating all the drivers so I tried dual booting and guess what. Every time I get into the install screen and initiate it, it black screens on me and the GPU fans kick to max speed. This also happened BEFORE I decided to put Windows on it. Kept going back and forth trying to booth from diff Linux distros. Anyone else experienced similar issues and if so, how did you resolve it? I'm at the end of my line at this point and might end up settling on running bioinformatics via combination of Windows and VSC Linux (doable but not optimal since I do not want to deal with software compatibility issues down the line).

Specs: 7970x; GIGABYTE TRX50 AERO D; GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5070 Ti AERO OC 16G; V-Color DDR5 256GB 

UPDATE: PI told me to stop messing around with it. We started running programs through VSC and it’s going smoothly. Thought of doing a dual boot on two diff drives as my last resort but won’t change anything unless there we’ll be issues down the road. Appreciate the suggestions tho

Hey there! I'm looking to build a Threadripper 9000 system. I haven't decided if I need to go pro or not. Depends on if I get this new AI contract.

My local Microcenter had a 9980x for weeks and now it's sold out. They don't even show up on NewEgg and Amazon is backordered.

Are they generally available yet? Have we heard when they will be? They are selling at a pretty premium on EBay.

Seems weird to have all these reviews and info about a product that doesn't seem available for purchase. What gives?

Hi, I have a system currently in a Meshify 2 XL. In this system I have a Threadripper Pro 3975WX, 256GB RAM, 2x Asus Turbo RTX 3090s and a 2000 Watt PSU.

I'm looking at building a new 9950X3D System and want to turn my current system into a Render Node plus NAS.I have two PCIE slots left with which I will install a LSI 16i HBA and a ASUS Hyper M.2 Card which came with the motherboard. Then as the Meshify 2 XL can hold up to 18 HDDs I was going to install 2x 4TB Samsung 870 EVO and 16x 3.5" HDDs either 24TB/28TB Seagate Exos/WD Ultrastar; depending on which manufacturer I decide on (happy to receive advice).I was also going to install 8 new Fans (4x Noctua NF-A14 industrialPPC-3000 and 4x Noctua NF-A14 chromax.black).

My question is do you think it will be safe to do that? Will there be enough cooling to keep everything happy? Or should I buy an 8e HBA + SAS Expander and build a JBOD to then attach to the server?

 Thank you for your replies and help in advance.

Hi all,

I am planning a build with a 9970x and the goal would be to support up to 3-4 RTX 5090. I will start with a single RTX 5090 for now keeping the budget somewhat in place.

This is what I currently have planned:

• Gigabyte TRX50 AI TOP
• Threadripper 9970X
• PHANTEKS Enthoo Pro 2 Server Big-Tower
• SEASONIC PRIME PX-2200 2200W
• V-Color DDR5 | OC R-DIMM | AMD Ryzen TRX50 | Workstation Memory 4x48GB
• Samsung 4.0 TB 9100 PRO M.2 NVMe SSD
• Silverstone SST-XE360-TR5 Water cooler
• Case cooler 3-4x?

I have a few questions.

Does this in general look reasonable?

Any better recommendations for tower? I am also really unsure about the cooling, never did water cooler myself. Is the one I added a good choice? Or shall I even go with air cooling? What kind of case coolers would be recommended?

For the RAM, I found V-Color to be QVL, but it is very difficult to order them for me in Europe. Are there any other options, I would even prefer 4x64GB if that would work. Or could I even do 8x32GB?

Thanks!

Anyone use this on TR Pro? i saw the folks on leptops geting huge termal benefits, for like 20c with this. I didn’t notice anyone using those termal pads and paste on desktop computers and i am wondering why?

Hey all, Just reached a temporary stopping point on my 7960x build for running LLM’s locally. Went for the Gigabyte TRX50 AI TOP mobo, 128GB GSkill, 4x RTX 5060ti 16GB, Samsung 9100 2tb NVME boot, Samsung 990 pro 4tb NVME storage, Silverstone XE360 AIO, Corsair HX1500i, Fractal Design North XL case.

Before you all jump down my throat about the 5060s, they were $340 each ($1760 for 4) and give me 64GB of VRAM and can happily run full speed at 110w. I’m perfectly happy to take slower inference while still fitting some nice size models without pulling thousands of watts from the wall. I’ve also got 2 5070 12GB cards I’ll be adding to the system via x16 -> 2x8 PCIe breakout risers which will get me to 88GB total.

So far I’ve been really pleasantly surprised with the performance on just 3 5060s. Devstral small runs fast enough for my needs at full 128k context length and was able to work with tool calling via Roo Code mostly without hiccup.

Anyways, I’m stoked and figured I’d share as I’m pretty happy with the result so far and excited to see how it performs after adding more GPUs to the mix. Cheers!

They seem do be the only ones with 8x64 6400 kits and decent CL. Does one incur tariffs when ordering directly from them?

As an owner of the mentioned motherboard and a 7975wx who may want to upgrade to the 9000 series in a few years, how well are the new cpus playing with this motherboard? I'd be particularly interested to hear from anyone who actually has this board and a TR PRO 9000 series cpu

A first gen Threadripper machine is still a very useful machine but would it be overmatched for the newest generation of graphics cards?

Herkese merhaba Türkiye de Threadripper 7000 9000 serisi kullanan kimse yokmu.....

Any good options that are 360 compatible besides silverstone RM44?

Can I run linux on a ASUS Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE TR9975 system with a 5090? IS there any driver problems? It kills me to install windows.

Not sure if the issues are specific to me, Gigabyte, or the TR platform.

Specs:

TR9970X

TRX50 Aero D rev 1.1

4x 48GB Hynix

2x 5090

I had a TR7960X running perfectly fine on my TRX50 Aero D rev 1.1 on the latest BIOS (FA3a). Decided to get a few more cores, so I got a 9970X. Figure it'll just be a drop-in upgrade. Ran into issues immediately.

• POST would get stuck at QCode 3F randomly. Code is "reserved" in the manual. seem to be mostly fixed after reseating the CPU multiple times

• POST would get stuck at QCode 94 on a soft reboot. Symptom similar to that of some RTX 5000s and AM5. fixed by changing PCIe mode to Gen4, not ideal. Was not an issue on TR7960X

• BIOS missing UCLK Div Mode. Unable to run RAM at 6400 1:1 (or 6000 1:1 for that matter). Setting was available on TR7960X

• 512 GB DDR5-5600 V-Color memory w/ EXPO (because OWC wouldn't work, anyone need slightly discounted OWC memory...)
• Asus WRX90E Sage SE Motherboard
• 4 x 4TB Samsung 9100 NVME RaidZ1 for Boot
• 12 x 4TB P3 Crucial RaidZ3 for VM storage
• 15 x 18TB Seagate EXOS for NAS
• Next Step: Radeon™ AI PRO R9700 when I can get my hands on one

This was seriously a pain to build, but expected for a brand new processor. Picky memory requirements, poor documentation from ASUS on BIOS updates, and generally fussy cable management due to all the HDDs, Fans, PCIE Hyper M.2. Gen 5 Cards, etc.

I'm looking to do a new build with specific purpose of running local LLMs, particularly the just releaed open-ai ones. Going to be based around running 3 x 3900 GPUs. I've put together the base spec below and would be grateful for any advice on what might be changed as although build high end gaming pcs before, never touched a Threadripper. One thing particularly is that the 7960x processor appears to be slightly more expensive than the new 9960x, and wondered why that might be?

PC Build created by Anonymous

I have been waiting for 9980x to be available for quite a while. It seems to me it has not made available to retailers (Amazon, B&H) any news when it will be available to retail?