ASRock X670E Taichi Motherboard Review

Our second AMD AM5 motherboard review focuses on the ASRock X670E Taichi, a flagship board at a mid-range price. Is there a better board for the money?

Published
Manufacturer: ASRock
6 minutes & 13 seconds read time
TweakTown's Rating: 94%
TweakTown award

The Bottom Line

ASRock delivers not only on features with the Taichi but nails pricing perfectly, offering a flagship board at mid-range pricing!

Pros

  • + DDR5/PCIe 5.0
  • + USB4 Thunderbolt
  • + Killer networking
  • + Price
  • + Cooling

Cons

  • - No DisplayPort outputs

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

Taichi has been the flagship motherboard for ASRock on both sides of the aisle for years now. We typically see several iterations of this motherboard come to market. In the past, the Razer Edition has filled this void. This year we will be introduced to the Taichi Carrara in an upcoming review. Today, we have the OG on the bench, the X670E Taichi.

Specifications for this board start with the AMD AM5 socket, which is supported by four slots for DDR5 memory. Maximum capacity is set at 128GB, with speeds from 4400MHz JEDEC and 6600MHz+ via OC. Display outputs include HDMI 2.1 and dual USB4 ports if you have the correct USB-C to DP adapter or cable.

The expansion includes two PCIe 5.0 slots supporting x16 lanes in x16 mode or x8x8 if operating both slots further. Storage includes one m.2 slot off the CPU lanes at Gen5 and another three slots pulling from the chipset at Gen4 speeds. Legacy storage is still available, with eight SATA ports split between the chipset and a secondary ASMedia bridge.

Connectivity includes a host of USB 3.2 ports. These are split between five Gen 2 ports, two supporting lightning gaming, and three additionals at Gen 1. ASRock has also tapped in USB4 on this board, supporting 40Gb/s and USB PD 3.0 up to 27 watts. On the networking side, the Taichi supports 2.5Gbe and Wi-Fi 6e, both from the Killer Networking stable.

Pricing

The pricing on the ASRock X670E Taichi comes in at $499.99 with a three-year warranty.

Buy at Amazon

ASRock X670E Taichi Motherboard

TodayYesterday7 days ago30 days ago
$469.99$539.00$548.00
* Prices last scanned on 3/17/2024 at 11:44 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Packaging, Accessories, and Overview

Packaging and Accessories

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Getting into packaging, the Taichi keeps with the theme and colorway of past platforms with slight design changes. CPU and chipset support are listed at the bottom.

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On the back, we get an image of the board to the left, with a port breakdown to the right. Down below, we have features listed, including this board's huge 26-phase power design and support for Thunderbolt 4 and USB4.

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Included with the board we find reading materials in the manual along with the Wi-Fi antenna.

Motherboard Overview

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The Taichi has a slightly new aesthetic but pulls elements from past boards in the chipset heatsink. The board offers heatsinks for all m.2 slots, and in between, we find the two PCIe 5.0 slots. The VRM is heatsinked heavily.

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On the backside, we have a half backplate covering all but the right edge of the board.

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The rear I/O includes BIOS flashback and CLR CMOS at the top, followed by both SMA antenna connections. Following these, we run into HDMI and two Lightning Gaming ports which then run us into the 2.5Gbe LAN port. Further down, we push into the limited audio output offering both analog 3.5mm jacks and digital audio with the SPDIF.

Finishing up the rear I/O, we have the stack of USB 3.2 ports, the lighter blue ports being 10Gbps, and the darker being 5GBps ports.

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Running around the internal connectivity of this board, we have front-panel audio starting things off with WIMA audio caps. Further down the bottom of the board, we have RGB headers alongside fan headers.

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On the far end, we find the debug LED and power button next to the front panel connections for your chassis.

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Around the corner, we have all eight SATA connections with USB 3.2 internal headers on the far right.

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Getting to the top of the board, we have the 24-pin power input and additional RGB headers.

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Across the top of the board, we find fan headers above the memory slots.

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Rounding this out, we have two 8-pin CPU power connections.

UEFI, Software and Test System

UEFI

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This BIOS should look familiar to anyone that has used an AORUS platform in the last few generations. At the top is an EZMode for those who do not want to dig in too much. For our review, we focused on the features behind Advanced Mode.

Tweaker is where you will find all the manual voltage and clock ratios; most multipliers will also be found here. If we move over to Settings, we will dive into platform power and find the I/O port setup. This includes the ability to change the IDO and configure items like Bifurcation and Re-Size Bar.

Motherboard Software

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Killer Intelligence Engine allows for control of LAN and WiFi6e adapter, even allowing additional technologies like Killer Xtend and Doubleshot Pro.

Motherboard Testing Supporters

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Sabrent supports our storage testing with the Rocket 4 Plus.

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We crank up a set of Sabrent DDR5 for our testing, running DDR5 6000MHz at CL30 with 1.4v.

AMD Motherboard Test System

Cinebench R23,Crossmark and AIDA64

Cinebench R23

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been heavily relied upon by both Intel and AMD to highlight their newest platforms during unveils. The benchmark has two tests, a single-core workload utilizing one thread or 1T and a multi-threaded test that uses all threads or nT of a tested CPU.

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The Taichi was tested with BIOS 1.06 for this review. Looking at our first results, we have an R23 1T score of 1979. nT landed at 15178 for the Taichi.

CrossMark

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CrossMark landed us an overall of 2204.

AIDA64 Memory

AIDA was recently updated to version 6.6, which improved performance in both AES and SHA3 workloads for Alder Lake CPUs. You will notice this performance jump in the charts below compared to any earlier Z690 reviews.

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In AES, we picked up 147250 for the Taichi, a touch under the AORUS Master.

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SHA3 tapped in at 4045.

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Memory latency was on par with the AORUS Master, with a time of 65.9ns.

UL Procyon,3DMark, and CrossMark Benchmarks

UL Procyon Suite

The UL Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark uses Microsoft Office apps to measure PC performance for office productivity work.

The Photo Editing benchmark uses Adobe Lightroom to import, process, and modify a selection of images. In the second part of the test, multiple edits and layer effects are applied to a photograph in Adobe Photoshop.

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We begin with Procyon Office. In this setup, we landed a score of 9148, the same result found with the Master.

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Photo Editing came in at 10688.

3DMark

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Starting with CPU Profile, the Taichi produced a 1119 single thread score and 9396 at sixteen threads.

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Flipping over to storage, we see a 3DMark score of 3412 from the Taichi.

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During our storage benchmark testing above, we monitor the temperatures of the Rocket 4 Plus to see how well the motherboard handles the heat load. This will be a crucial part of these boards after Gen5 drives are released with increased heat output.

With that, the Taichi did hold quite well, peaking just above 50c in its stock setup. ASRock does include a premium m.2 heatsink with the Taichi, and after testing with it, we dropped another 10c from our Rocket Plus G.

Gaming Benchmarks and Final Thoughts

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Timespy landed at 18439 with our 3090 Ti.

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Gaming tests include both Forza Horizon 5 and Cyberpunk 2077. We evaluate both 1080p and 1440p resolutions.

Starting with Cyberpunk, the Taichi picked up a solid 188 FPS at 1080p. This moved to 155 FPS at 1440p. For Forza, we saw 201 FPS at 1080p and 180 FPS at 1440p.

Final Thoughts

At launch, it appears ASRock may be looking at a new angle for its flagship motherboards. The Taichi is now offered at a $499 MSRP, making it one of the best values available on X670E, especially considering how well-outfitted this board is.

At the top, this platform offers two PCIe 5.0 slots and a Gen5 m.2 slot. Additionally, this may be one of the lowest-priced boards to offer USB4 and Thunderbolt 4, along with a premium networking stack with Intel Killer 2.5Gbe and WiFi6e.

In testing, this motherboard performed on par with our AORUS Master baseline, pushing 1980 single thread in R23 and a score of 2204 in Crossmark. Memory latency was quite good with our limited tuning at 65.9ns, while performance when moving into Procyon workloads also matched the AORUS Master.

Storage was quite good for the Taichi, scoring a touch above the AORUS at 3412, and testing the board cooling capability proved good stock, keeping our drive hovering around 50c at load, while the added fanned heatsink dropped another 10c.

Connectivity is solid on this board. ASRock offers 10 USB ports on the rear I/O, including USB4 and USB 3.2. We also note digital and analog audio outputs, high-end WIMA audio caps to reduce noise, and a fantastic networking kit.

If we were to mention anything we missed on this board, the big thing to note is the lack of DisplayPort outputs, though you can use the USB4 ports if you have a proper cable or perhaps a dongle.

Photo of product for sale

Performance

90%

Quality

90%

Features

95%

Value

99%

Overall

94%

The Bottom Line

ASRock delivers not only on features with the Taichi but nails pricing perfectly, offering a flagship board at mid-range pricing!

TweakTown award
94%

ASRock X670E Taichi Motherboard

TodayYesterday7 days ago30 days ago
$469.99$539.00$548.00
* Prices last scanned on 3/17/2024 at 11:44 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Tyler joined the TweakTown team in 2013 and has since reviewed 100s of new techy items. Growing up in a small farm town, tech wasn't around, unless it was in a tractor. At an early age, Tyler's parents brought home their first PC. Tyler was hooked and learned what it meant to format a HDD, spending many nights reinstalling Windows 95. Tyler's love and enthusiast nature always kept his PC nearby. Eager to get deeper into tech, he started reviewing.

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