ASUS TRX40 Prime Pro Review

Introduction

Normally when we test a new processor for the first time we utilise the ASUS Prime motherboard as our baseline. It might not have the flash and flair of their ROG products but throughout history the Prime has been the best of the none-ROG branded options around and always provides a solid performance set without being so enthusiast based that everything else would pale in comparison. It’s the motherboard for those who want the reliability and feature set the ASUS name is so legendary for, without the lighting and game-focussed elements that are common to their ROG suite of products.

This time around the Prime-Pro gets a review all to itself, as we’ve already looked at the ROG Zenith II Extreme when we first saw what the 3rd Generation Ryzen Threadripper CPUs had to offer, so now we’ll see how the top of the non-ROG range motherboard in the ASUS range brings to the party.

Stripping it of the ROG featureset lower the price, whilst the move towards all-black PCBs with RGB lighting means the Prime-Pro is also one of the few largely white motherboards left on the market. Both of those elements are things which are bound to be attractive to a certain set of the audience, so let’s find out if the Prime still has the chops to rock our socks.

Technical Specifications

Whilst the Prime-Pro might not have the elements so familiar to us from the ASUS ROG range, it’s not without a large selection of features designed to give you the best possible user experience. If you’ve been following along with our TRX40 reviews then much of this will be familiar as so much is built into the latest AMD chipset. We find USB 3.2 Gen2 in both Type-A and Type-C formats. There are front panel USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C connectors if you’ve got a new case ready and waiting. Network connectivity steps away from the massive bandwidth options only available to those with high-end home networking and instead stays with the reliable Gigabit Intel Ethernet. Storage is handled by three M.2 22110 ports, one of which is vertically mounted in the centre of the right end, whilst eight SATA ports are available to you if you’ve got older drives stuffed with family photos and media. Just because the Prime Pro isn’t designed for the gamer doesn’t mean that there isn’t the full selection of ASUS AURA Sync lighting though, with both RGB and addressable headers available at the top and bottom edges.

Let’s look at it in the flesh.