AMD's Threadripper CPUs dropped onto the market last week and with it a handful of motherboards built with the AMD X399 chipset. The chipset itself is similar to the X370 chipset, as in it acts as a south bridge, with the CPU providing a large amount of IO. While the CPU SoC offers 60 lanes of PCI-E 3.0 (four other lanes connect to the X399 chipset) for up to seven devices, it also provides HD audio, eight USB 3.0 ports, and the SPI bus (BIOS communication). The X399 chipset offers eight SATA 6Gb/s ports, eight PCI-E 2.0 ports, two USB 3.1 ports, five USB 3.0 ports, and six USB 2.0 ports. There are also two PCI-E 3.0 ports in the X399 chipset that can be used for an extra four SATA ports or two SATA Express ports.