Storage Tests
The big difference, obviously, is with M.2 speeds. Having PCIe 4.0 at the helm introduces an extra 56 per cent reading speed on the same drive, while writing is up 39 per cent.
Is this important for the creator? Arguably yes, because having multiple NVMe drives in one system - both boards support three from the get-go, plus another four via the Xpander card - is beneficial to digital video artists. Moving 1TB of data is fundamentally quicker on AMD than on Intel.
If we look closer at USB support, both boards have a single USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C on the front, plus support for 4x 3.2 Gen 1. The differences are on the rear, where whilst both have that single super-fast 3.2 Gen 2 2x2, the Creator TRX40 also includes 5x 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A and 4x 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A. The Creator X299, meanwhile, has 7x 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A.
The AMD-based Creator therefore wins out in terms of PCIe coverage and USB support. The Intel-based Creator has two extra SATA ports - 8 vs. 6 - and U.2.
