AMD laid the groundwork for the 3990X during TRX40’s design phase, so all existing motherboards can provide enough power to satiate the 280W TDP chip. As you would expect given the TDP, cooling will play a major role in how well the chip performs. AMD says you can use existing watercoolers for the 3990X, but as we’ll show on the next page, you should invest in a beefy model if you want the best performance.
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