The ASRock X399 Taichi Motherboard Review: Cost-Effective Threadripper
by E. Fylladitakis on October 26, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- ASRock
- ThreadRipper
- X399
Test Bed and Setup
As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
| Test Setup | |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X, 16 Cores, 32 Threads, 3.4 GHz (4.0 GHz Boost) |
| Motherboards | ASRock X399 Taichi (BIOS P2.00) |
| Cooling | Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 |
| Power Supply | Corsair AX1200i Platinum PSU |
| Memory | Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4 DRAM 2666MHz |
| Memory Settings | XMP @ 2666 |
| Video Cards | ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 570 |
| Hard Drive | Crucial MX200 1TB |
| Case | Open Test Bed |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Build 1803 64-bit |
Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives in essence an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the stock BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.
The ASRock X399 Taichi has the "Overclock Mode" setting in BIOS set to "Auto" by default. "Auto" means that it is turned on, as the motherboard was temporarily boosting our Ryzen Threadripper 1950X processor up to about 4.0 GHz. The Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.) is set to "Auto" by default, which does not use any profile but safe settings for the RAM. Our DDR4-2666 modules were set to 2133 MHz by default. We enabled the X.M.P. profile manually.
Users will note that we are using an RX 570 graphics card here, which is not 'the best of the best' for a high-end platform like Threadripper. This was ultimately down to logistics at the time of testing; our gaming tests rarely become more than a checkbox to ensure that no fishy business is going on.
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.
| Hardware Providers | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
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| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Silverstone Fans |
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The_Assimilator - Friday, October 26, 2018 - link
At least it isn't covered with tacky, useless, cost-increasing RGB bling.HideOut - Friday, October 26, 2018 - link
FFS I agree. and the ones t hat have RGB need to have an option to at least disable it. Sometimes you buy the product because of other features (or because some sale makes it cheaper than the non RGB version)twtech - Friday, October 26, 2018 - link
Yeah, I have to say I miss the days when a motherboard attempting to appeal to aesthetics merely had a black PCB instead of green, and perhaps a still relatively hard to see logo painted on as well.Now they end up looking like cheap toys for children 10 and under. Plastic non-functional action-toy type pieces sticking out, flashing lights, etc.
Lord of the Bored - Sunday, October 28, 2018 - link
I remember the period when RED motherboards were the new hotness, and I thought they were just extremely gaudy.If I only knew what the future held...
PEJUman - Sunday, October 28, 2018 - link
the Taichi here means Ultimate/Supreme, probably not the best translation but the closest I can think off. The martial arts is actually ‘Taichi chuan’, often shortened TaiChi. I can’t explain the gears, but understand this board meant to be the X399 flagship line from the Taichi name.PeachNCream - Monday, October 29, 2018 - link
The branding failure doesn't take away from the fact that ASRock is offering a competitive product at a reasonable price. If the company's marketing department just needs to lay off the mind-altering, illegal substances.prateekprakash - Friday, October 26, 2018 - link
Could you please confirm if the 3 m.2 slots are derived from the cpu or chipset lanes?Atari2600 - Friday, October 26, 2018 - link
IIRC at least two of them are direct to CPU.kobblestown - Friday, October 26, 2018 - link
Yes, all three of them are connected to the CPU. That's what you do when you have 64 PCIe lanes to play with. One of the dies provides X16 + x8 + 2*x4 for 2 M.2 slots and the other provides x16 + x8 + x4(M.2) + x4(to the X399 chip). Plus this board should support PCIe bifurcation so you can have a relatively cheap (just ~$50 because it doesn't require PCIe switch chip) card that allows you to plug 4 NVMe cards into one of the x16 slots so you get 7 NVMes to the CPU!The_Assimilator - Friday, October 26, 2018 - link
Is it just me, or are the yellow M.2 attachment points on the bottommost slot (the one closest to the SATA ports) on the *back* of the board as opposed to the front? Have a look at the board pictures on the "Visual Inspection" page to see what I mean.I'm glad that motherboard manufacturers are finally starting to offer a decent number of USB 3 ports on the back panel, but I'd still like to see at least a couple extra 2.0 ports for slower peripherals (mice and keyboards).
I take issue with this claim: "The concept is technically sound from an engineering point of view but it also could create compatibility problems because several PSUs have both CPU 12V connectors on a single cable, meaning that an extension would be necessary to reach the second connector on the motherboard." No decent PSU released in recent years with multiple EPS12V connectors has had them on the same cable, for the simple reason that the amount of current drawn if both were fully loaded would require wire that's thicker than the 16 or 18 gauge normally used, in order to not be a fire hazard.