ASRock X370 Taichi AM4 Motherboard Review
Introduction and Technical Specifications
Published: 12th May 2017 | Source: ASRock | Price: £225 |
Introduction
It's been a while since we've looked at an ASRock motherboard. This is partly because in the X58 days they used to be significantly more affordable than a lot of other options, but the subsequent models have seen the "major" manufacturers massively improving their affordability and thus making it difficult to find a place in the crowded market for what ASRock brought to the table.
However, with the release of the X370 chipset and the latest AMD Zen architecture ASRock have maintained the affordable entry price, but really gone all in on the quality of their product so as to make them genuine contenders. Couple this to a lot of people who've had early versions of the Taichi raving about it, and we just knew we had to find out if all the hype stood up to scrutiny.
So with our Ryzen 7 CPU on hand, and a space cleared in our schedule, let's discover if the ASRock should find its way onto your shortlist.
Technical Specifications
Certainly if your decisions are made based upon the hardware then the Taichi ticks a lot of boxes. Black Caps, a BCLK Engine clock generator and 16 Phase Power handle the overclocking duties. Connectivity is full of the technologies that you would expect to find on a modern motherboard, from WiFi to USB 3.1 and the super speedy M.2. It's also worth noting how many SATA ports there are on the Taichi. If, like some of us, you've a collection of drives of various sizes then it's nice to have so many connectors to utilise. ASRock have even supplied the Taichi with the popular steel bracing on the PCI Express slots, and the de rigueur RGB LED headers.
Most Recent Comments
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Originally Posted by Speaker
Since now you've got all the top boards from the major brands I think it would be interesting to do some boot time comparisons. See which board is the fastest.
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Another great review Tom. You kept it nice and touched all the important aspects. As you pointed out, this board is so good on one end, and so lacking in the other. It got hyped because it's component quality, and price point. But... Bios is a very long way from optimal. Also very hard to navigate. Lack of candy in the box is not that of a problem, because you end up not using half the stuff you get. I would call it adequate.
I think in the end it could be a top contender if they get BIOS to utilize all that sweet hardware. Without that it just gets outshined by competition. Just if they could iron out that UI in BIOS, and get the code right we could have one of the best enthusiast overclocking board. And it would be massive to beat more expensive boards in overclocking.
As with all Ryzen it is not quite there. Competition is still ahead in BIOS. I hope future updates will be fruitful. But until then...
Excellent potential, but if only... that pretty much sums it up.Quote
Greetings from Copenhagen. Love your videos and I am amazed of how you can talk for 30 minutes without montage
. keep it up.QuoteTry to set your m.2 drive to 4x PCI-E. It may be on SATA setting.
It is recommended to install OS before you overclock your BCLK. But you would already do that, because you don't have a way to test your overclock.Quote
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