This premium motherboard is eye-wateringly expensive, only works with one type of processor, and may not fit your case – but it’s worth remortgaging your house for
There are a lot of reasons not to buy the new Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE high-end motherboard from ASUS. For starters, it's expensive. It is currently available for pre-order for $1,299.99.
The second reason is that it is specially designed and alone for AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7000 WX series processors (Storm Peak). And finally, the motherboard has an EEB form factor which, although it has the same dimensions as E-ATX motherboards (12 x 13 inches / 30.5 x 33.0 cm), is unlikely to fit in an E-ATX case – the screw holes will not be in the right place.
That said, if you have the money, a suitable case, and a Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7000 WX-series processor, this is the motherboard you need.
Power and efficiency
The motherboard's AMD WRX90 chipset offers serious Pro-grade features and includes up to 148 PCIe 5.0 lanes and up to 2TB quad-channel DDR5 memory across eight RAM slots.
The Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE's VRM includes (16*2)+3+3+3 power stages (with two 8-pin power connectors for the CPU) for the power and efficiency demanded by top-end Ryzen Threadripper processors.
It offers four M.2 PCIe 5.0 x4 slots (two of which accommodate the longer M.2 22110 format for higher capacity drives), four SATA III ports, and two SlimSAS connectors that allow users to add a host of additional can connect drives for a massive storage array. There are seven expansion slots: six PCIe 5.0 x16 and one PCIe 5.0 x16 (x8 mode).
The motherboard, which is compatible with both Windows 10 (64-bit only) and Windows 11, does not offer wireless or Bluetooth connectivity, but does come with two Intel 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports and one Realtek Gigabit Ethernet port.
There are several USB ports, including two USB4 Type-C ports, six USB Type-A ports (USB 3.1/3.2 Gen 2), and one USB 2.0 port. But no Thunderbolt.
There is also one VGA port, two mini DisplayPort and two audio jacks for the Realtek ALC1220P 5.1 audio.
B&H photo video currently accepting pre-orders for the Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE for $1,299.99. The motherboard is expected to be available from January 29, 2024.