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ASRock X370 Taichi AM4 Motherboard Review

Introduction and Technical Specifications

Published: 12th May 2017 | Source: ASRock | Price: £225 | Author: Tom Logan

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

13-05-2017, 04:43:57

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.Quote

13-05-2017, 06:07:00

Excalabur50

Shame after all the effort you took to get it running in the first place that it was mostly underwhelming for you, and really bad they released a board with a bios you can't update, totally boggles the mind really, thanks for your efforts in reviewing it though and considering how many people pestered you for the review I would have expected more comments TBHQuote

13-05-2017, 09:00:01

Avet

Quote:

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.

Boot time has no value in testing. It is so dependant on component combination, OS junk, etc. It is irrelevant in motherboard benchmarks.

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

13-05-2017, 09:01:32

11:14

First of all I have the Graphics card about 2 days ago. Since then I have been on it. I agree with most of what you said in the video but what disturbs me the most is the fact that there is no tutorial for it. You have to teach yourself to fly a plane. No instructions what so ever. I am a total novice when it comes to overclocking and I watched a load of tutorials of how to do it and luckily i got a video from Brian at techcity - that helped alot. But I have a problem with the M.2 Drive. I bought a Samsung M.2 960 Evo 250 gb. Now the motherboard does not recognize the slot no matter what I did. It just does not see the drive in the UEFI. Is it something like a prayer that I need to do? I looked on Asrocks site and I saw that only the 500 gb Samsung 960 Evo is listed and I am confused... like hell. In the video you say something about overclocking the PCI E lanes for the M.2 to work with the OS installed already on the M.2... that made it even more confusing. any help would be appreciated.
Greetings from Copenhagen. Love your videos and I am amazed of how you can talk for 30 minutes without montage . keep it up.Quote

13-05-2017, 09:09:44

Avet

You won't find any single overclocking tutorial. I am not aware of it yet. You need to collect info from many sources, and work it out your self, because every CPU is different, and you need to find it's sweet spot.

Try 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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