Conclusion
...both boards offer support for up to seven M.2 drives, four PCIe x16 lanes, leading-edge Wi-Fi and Ethernet, and robust cooling.The high-end desktop (HEDT) landscape has changed for the better with the introduction of the 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper and latest Intel Core X-series chips. Performance and connectivity both see major advances, and in an unusual turn of events, it is Intel on the back foot in terms of pricing and features.
MSI taps into this space with a couple of Creator boards for the TRX40 and X299 chipsets. Offering a clean aesthetic and doing away with over-the-top RGB, both boards offer support for up to seven M.2 drives, four PCIe x16 lanes, leading-edge Wi-Fi and Ethernet, and robust cooling.
The layout of the Creator X299 is marginally better, offering double-width access to all PCIe x16 slots, though we'd question the need for eight SATA ports and a U.2 for a 2019 board. The Creator TRX40, on the other hand, by dint of its chipset and CPU, trounces the X299 variant in both PCIe lanes and bandwidth, which may be important if you plan to build an HEDT rig big on storage and GPUs. Performance, too, is better on AMD.
Neither board is perfect. We'd like to see the TRX40 receive a revised layout enabling full-width cards, a third 8-pin CPU, as well as improved audio and, for style purposes, a rotated 24-pin connector. The X299, meanwhile, being about £200 cheaper, could do with matching the TRX40's location of the debug LED and power/reset buttons, alongside beefing-up USB support from additional controllers.
Overall, the MSI Creator boards leave a generally positive impression; they look good, offer excellent stability, and would both be good homes to ultimate HEDT machines. Approved.
Support seven M.2 drives
Clean aesthetics
Top-notching networking
Good temperatures
Could do with better audio
MSI Creator TRX40
MSI Creator X299
HEXUS.where2buy
The MSI Creator TRX40 is available from Scan Computers. The MSI Creator X299 is available from Novatech.
HEXUS.right2reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
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