The AMD X570 Motherboard Overview: Over 35+ Motherboards Analyzed
by Gavin Bonshor on July 9, 2019 8:00 AM ESTASRock X570 Taichi
Moving a step down the product stack from the X570 Aqua is the ASRock X570 Taichi which includes a new RGB inspired design, and shifts away from the usual black and white Taichi theme. While still targetted at premium users and enthusiasts, the ASRock X570 Taichi is representative of one of its most well-known lines which in previous generations has combined quality, performance, and a solid feature set at a reasonable price point. The ASRock X570 Taichi also uses its fabled signature cogwheel design across the board covers and integrates ARGB into multiple areas.
The ASRock X570 Taichi redefines the range and marks a change in aesthetics across the entirety of the board. On the majority of the board is its memorable cogwheel design is still a main element of the design but it now includes black heatsink armor around the PCIe slot area. The X570 chipset is actively cooled by a fan, mainly due to the X570 chipsets tendency to run warmer than previous generations. On the rear panel cover as with the chipset heatsink is ARGB for users looking to make a visual statement with their system. The X570 Taichi uses a 14-phase power delivery and has one 8-pin and one 4-pin 12 V CPU power inputs.
On the X570 Taichi is three full-length PCIe 4.0 slots operating at x16, x8/x8, and x8/x8/x4, with two PCIe 4.0 x1 slots. Underneath the heatsink armor is three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, while the board also supports up to eight SATA devices. For users looking for Thunderbolt connectivity, a Thunderbolt AIC 5-pin connector is present, but support is limited to ASRock's separately supplied AIC card. A total of four memory slots with support for DDR4-4666 are present, with a maximum supported capacity of up to 128 GB.
On the rear panel is a single Intel I211-AT Gigabit port, and also includes the new 802.11ax Killer AX1650 Wi-Fi 6 wireless adapter. There are three USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, a single USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, and four USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports. An HDMI video output is present for users looking to use the integrated graphics on Ryzen APUs, while there's five 3.5 mm color coded audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output which is powered by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec. For legacy users, a PS/2 combo port is featured, along with a BIOS Flashback button and a button to reset the CMOS.
The ASRock X570 Taichi has an MSRP of $300 and represents one of its most recognisable ranges for the last decade. Users looking for a mid-range option with plenty of features including triple PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, plenty of SATA, and solid power delivery will be hard pushed to find a better board in its price range.
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PeachNCream - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Pretty much this. Modern games on DX12 won't see any benefit unless the game developer bakes in support (which they appear uninterested in doing for cost reasons) and older games run very well on a single modern GPU. AMD and NV are hardly acknowledging SLI these days either and nowhere but at the top end so there is even less compulsion for developers to bother with supporting it. All in all, you're better off not worrying about SLI unless the industry changes direction significantly in the next few years.ajlueke - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
The real question however, is does all this power delivery actually have any practical benefits? If I drop a 3000 series CPU in an X570 board vs X470, can I achieve any additional performance? And what is the power consumption differences in the respective chipsets? That is the type of info I would like to see.PeachNCream - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
It's a marketng differentiator only as motherboard manufacturers all use the same core components and are quick to emulate one another with similar features. Through branding and obscure features that do not significantly impact computer operation, they search for something they can offer that may encourage you to make a purchase in a very, very crowded field of offerings.lopri - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Solid power delivery for high-performance CPUs is perhaps the farthest thing from obscure marketing features. OEMs do play with marketing BS for differentiation, but the underlying power delivery system is extremely important and can impact everyday operation for these multi-core CPUs.PeachNCream - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
At long as it meets AMD specifications, no it won't. If it doesn't meet specifications, then it's a bad design. There's no reason to tout being mediocre or a hair or two above mediocre unless you're running out of unique bullet points for the backside of the box that nobody bothers to read anyway.Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Stock performance will be the same across the board unless the manufacturer royally screwed up and the power delivery has to throttle due to temperatures (which there are some cases of with super cheap motherboards and 8 cores). Doing OC (and PBO is already OC) is where things start to change. More / better phases means less heat output and better voltages (ripple). This can potentially give you better clocks. But most of this is only useful when you start OCing on water or sub zero systems. Air cooled overclocking will hardly benefit at all. And regarding power consumption you can go into a lot of detail. Sometimes more power phases simply destroys efficiency, when they are all fired up all the time. Sometimes more power phases are smartly managed and load balanced to be kept at their optimal efficiency. It really depends on the implementation.Peter2k - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
If you leave everything at stock, then there is no real reason to upgradeMost people would think keeping the socket backwards compatible as an upside
In a desktop the only real reason why we think about power draw going up from 5w to 11w is because manufactures like to keep the cooling block small, and those need a fan
Chipset fans bring back memories out of terrible noisy days
Also I remember chipset coolers to be a bit bigger in the past, I'm sure if you're just trying to provide food cooling, without trying to hit that gamer look, then you can cool that chipset without active fan
If you want to try your hand at OC'ing you should probably want the better power delivery
And there is no telling if the older boards will also run fine with higher memory speeds
Guessing they would, at least until the magical 3600, that's not that outlandish high
And how much that affects performance this time around still has to be tested
Short story
You have a Ryzen already, just make it a drop in replacement
No need to throw out the board
Peter2k - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
Any one that would argue about the electricity costs going up (I've encountered those) should also not that all that shiny bling probably draws more watts then the 6w or so difference between last gen and this genpavag - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
I expected benchmarks.sorten - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
You expected benchmarks on 35+ boards that were released two days ago, and many of which aren't even available at retail?