ASRock Z890 Taichi Aqua Motherboard Review - Flagship features without the flagship price

TweakTown Rating: 94%

Our Verdict

ASRock's Z890 Taichi Aqua delivers flagship features at a discounted price that defies belief.

Pros

• Mega VRM and excellent cooling
• Six M.2 slots
• 10G and 5G LAN + 320MHz WiFi 7
• Lovely design and fast memory support
• Long-running heavy discount

Cons

• No front USB PD support
• Fan tuning BIOS page
• No future for LGA 1851
• Too many Type-C?

Should you buy it?

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Buy at Amazon for $463.94 USD

Also at Newegg $656.99 USD

Buy at Newegg for $752.41 CAD

Up 75% vs 30 days ago

Also at Amazon $968.11 CAD

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

The launch of the Intel Core Ultra 250K Plus and 270K Plus breathed new life into the Z890 platform. While MSI and GIGABYTE took the opportunity to launch refreshed Z890 boards, ASRock has taken a lower-key approach. There are new budget ASRock models, but the high-end is unchanged. By no means is that a bad thing. High-end first-generation Z890 boards are still more than capable, with features and specifications that are still right up to date in 2026. A case in point is the ASRock Z890 Taichi Aqua that we have in for review today. It's not the newest model on the block, but it's got a helluva feature set, and as it's been on the market for over a year, it's available at a heavy discount.

As the name suggests, the Z890 Taichi Aqua's differentiating selling point is its support for water cooling. It includes an integrated VRM and M.2 cooling block. With the Z890 model, ASRock toned it down a little. The Z690 Aqua included a CPU water block, LCD screen, and two DIMM slots. With the Z890 Taichi Aqua, ASRock hit the right balance, allowing users to use their own blocks or even air coolers, therefore improving its practicality and lowering its cost.

Feature-wise, the Z890 Taichi Aqua includes everything you'd expect from a flagship motherboard. About the only thing missing is an integrated LCD or Thunderbolt 5, but that's one of the reasons some boards can cost over $1000 - or much more.

The other eye-catching design choice is the board's complete lack of rear Type-A USB ports. The back panel USB complement consists entirely of Type-C ports, with the dual Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports being the fastest.

The board is packed with flagship features. You get six M.2 slots, three PCIe x16 expansion slots, and a bonkers 28+2+1 phase VRM. Add to that 10G and 5G LAN, 320MHz WiFi 7, ESS Sabre DAC, and support for DDR5-9600+, and you've got a flagship spec with a unique design that demands to be shown off inside a windowed case.

The Z890 Taichi Aqua launched at a hefty $799, but that price has since dropped BY A LOT. It is currently available at Newegg for an incredible $399. It doesn't appear to be a one-off discount either, as a check of the price history shows it has fluctuated between $429 and $399 over the past six months. There's nothing in that price range that can match the specifications of the Z890 Taichi Aqua.

Best Deals: ASRock Z890 Taichi Aqua Motherboard

Prices last scanned 5 minutes ago

Today7 days ago30 days agoBuy

$463.94 USD

7 days ago: $463.94 USD

$463.94 USD

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BuyBuy at Amazon

$656.99 USD

7 days ago: $249.99 USD30 days ago: $329.99 USD

$249.99 USD

$329.99 USD

BuyBuy at Newegg

$752.41 CAD

7 days ago: $319.98 CAD30 days ago: $429.99 CAD

$319.98 CAD

$429.99 CAD

BuyBuy at Newegg

$968.11 CAD

7 days ago: $1230.86 CAD30 days ago: $1007.40 CAD

$1230.86 CAD

$1007.40 CAD

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Packaging, Accessories, and Overview

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The Z890 Taichi Aqua comes in a refreshingly simple box. It looks classy with just a few of the licensed logos on the front.

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In contrast, the rear of the box is chock full of all the board's key features and specifications.

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The board comes with a fairly standard set of accessories. As mentioned, the board doesn't include Type-C ports on the rear. ASRock wisely included a USB 2.0 Type-A adapter, which connects to one of the onboard headers. The WiFi antenna is standard fare. It comes with a sticker so you can mount it anywhere.

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The other accessories include four SATA cables, three thermistor cables, an ARGB splitter cable, a quick installation guide, and a regulatory notice.

For drivers and software, you'll need to visit the ASRock website.

Motherboard Overview

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The ASRock Z890 Taichi Aqua is an extended ATX offering with an eye-catching silver-and-white design. It's not a board you'd want to hide in a case. Light coloured boards lend themselves well to RGB lighting, and there are three ARGB headers and a single RGB header, so you're all set to choose colors that suit your build.

Other important headers include eight 4-pin fan and pump headers, power and reset buttons, three thermistor headers for use with the bundled cables, and a debug LED display.

There are headers for two Type-C 20Gbps ports, four 5Gbps ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. The front ports don't support USB PD, which is one of the few notable omissions on this board. I'd also like to see a little more OC functionality, such as BCLK or multiplier adjustments. To be fair to ASRock, the Z890 Taichi OCF is purpose-built for overclocking purists.

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A backplate covers the rear of the board. It adds rigidity and helps to cool the rear of the VRM area. It also acts as an anchor support for the front water blocks.

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The Z890 Taichi Aqua's four DIMM slots support DDR5-9600+ speeds. You'll need CUDIMMs to get anywhere near that. That's about as good as it gets from a four-slot board. Of course, with higher capacities, that won't be possible. I would like to see white slots, but I was once told they are more difficult to manufacture than black ones. That seems to have been rectified, as many updated white X870 and Z890 boards now include them.

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The Z890 Taichi Aqua comes with one of the most extreme VRM designs you will find on any consumer motherboard. It's a 28+1+2 phase design with 110A stages. That's enough power to handle anything you care to throw at it, even with liquid nitrogen cooling. For comparison's sake, the overclocking-centric Z890 Taichi OCF comes with 22 Vcore phases. ASRock clearly spared no expense.

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The board's VRM heatsink is a real highlight, and it's more than capable of taming the VRM when powering a Core Ultra 270K Plus. We saw a peak temperature of 54 degrees. Of course, this will be even lower when using water-cooling.

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The Z890 Taichi Aqua features six M.2 slots mounted on the PCB. M2_1 and M2_2 support PCIe 5.0 drives. They are both equipped with dedicated heatsinks. The other four support PCIe 4.0. Four SATA ports join the four M.2 slots.

Six slots mean there will be unavoidable lane-sharing compromises if all six are populated, but this appears to be limited to the M2_2 slot, which forces the primary PCIe slots to x8 and x4 modes. PCIe 5.0 x8 is equivalent to PCIe 4.0 x16, so it's not much of a compromise unless you're using a high-end graphics card, and even then, any performance loss will be minimal.

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The primary M.2 slot has its own dedicated cooler. It locks into the VRM heatsink to provide a 180-degree water-flow channel around the CPU socket. I was quite surprised by the performance of the M.2 heatsink. It's got a deceptively large surface area. I saw a peak temperature of 53 degrees.

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The M.2 slot next to the memory slots has its own heatsink with an easy-release mechanism. The bottom four slots are cooled by a single large plate that's attached with screws. I'd be careful when using three or four of the slots under a hot graphics card. That area will get toasty. Good case airflow is a must.

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The I/O section of the Z890 Taichi Aqua is unique. The USB complement includes a pair of 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 ports, which also support USB4. These ports support up to 15W of power delivery. The other ports consist of four 10Gbps ports and four 5Gbps ports. I still think it's too early for an all-Type-C I/O, but credit to ASRock for including a dual-port USB 2.0 adapter that can be placed in an unused PCIe slot in a case.

The board's networking capabilities are excellent. A Realtek RTL8126 controller delivers 5G LAN, and a Marvell AQC113 controller adds 10G. An Intel Killer BE1750 WiFi 7 controller supports 320MHz connections and provides Bluetooth 5.4 support. Dual 10G aside, that's about as good as it gets for a consumer motherboard.

Next are the audio ports, which consist of 3.5mm line-in and line-out ports and S/PDIF. A Realtek ALC4082 codec drives these. ASRock includes some extra goodies such as an ESS SABRE9219 DAC and WIMA capacitors.

Next up are the CMOS clear and BIOS flashback buttons. The latter is critical, as the older stock of the Z890 Taichi Aqua will not support Core Ultra Plus CPUs without an updated BIOS.

If I had to be critical, I'd like to see a DP or HDMI output, though you can use the TB4/USB4 ports for multi-monitor support.

UEFI and Test System

UEFI

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The Z890 Taichi Aqua features a UEFI design that reflects the board's aesthetic. The fonts are clear and easy to read. ASRock packed the BIOS with settings to tweak. Anyone familiar with ASRock boards will find everything logically laid out and easy to find.

As I have said in all recent ASRock motherboard reviews, the Fan-tastic control page stands out like a sore thumb, as shown in the screenshot above. It looks about 20 years out of date. I hope ASRock is hard at work creating something new for its next-generation boards.

I try to avoid installing motherboard manufacturers' complete software suites due to excessive bloat. A visit to the ASRock website will give you options to download utilities such as the ASRock motherboard control utility and Polychrome RGB control software. The Nahimic audio software might be worth a look, too.

All the relevant drivers are available, too, though it's worth checking the respective websites for newer versions of the chipset and integrated graphics drivers.

Test System

• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus - Buy from Amazon
• GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X - Buy from Amazon
• RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Neo RGB 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 - Buy from Amazon
• Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux - Buy from Amazon
• OS Storage: Teamgroup T-Force Z540 2TB - Buy from Amazon
• Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Titanium 850W - Buy from Amazon
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro - Buy from Amazon

Benchmarks - Rendering and Encoding

Cinebench 2024

Cinebench 2024 is a reliable, widely used benchmark that measures both single- and multi-threaded performance. Note that all our benchmark testing used the latest available Windows updates.

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We've switched over to the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus for ongoing Z890 motherboard reviews. So far, the number of results is limited. The Z890 Taichi Aqua is a little behind here, and in many of the benchmarks that follow, but a percent or two here and there isn't a cause for concern.

Blender

Intel's Core Ultra CPUs perform well in this test thanks to their high core count. We use the Whitelands demo file and record how long it takes to render the image.

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This looks worse than it really is. The margins aren't significant in percentage terms.

Handbrake

Handbrake is a simple-to-use video encoding and transcoding application. Here, we convert a 4K movie trailer to 1080p. The results below show the average FPS, where a higher value indicates the task will take less time to complete.

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The Z890 Taichi Aqua is again a touch behind.

Benchmarks - File Compression and Memory Latency

7Zip

7Zip is a commonly used free file compression and decompression app. It's very sensitive to changes in memory speed and latency, and scales with the number of CPU threads.

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The ASRock gets a bit closer here.

AIDA64 Memory Latency

Memory latency has been an area where Intel has traditionally held an advantage. Chiplet architectures inevitably add some latency compared to monolithic chips. The real-world benefits aren't that important, though.

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Look at how much better the 270K Plus's latency is compared to the 285K.

Benchmarks - 3DMark

3DMark Storage

UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. It is superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs of the actual game.

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There we go: ASRock takes the top spot, if only by a fraction.

3DMark Time Spy Extreme

Time Spy Extreme has lost favor as a graphics benchmark to Speed Way and Steel Nomad, but its CPU test is still a good measure of multi-core performance.

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The margins are again small, with only a couple of hundred points separating the boards when measured by CPU score.

Benchmarks - Gaming

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is brutal on graphics cards, but when things like ray tracing are removed, it becomes more sensitive to CPU and memory performance differences.

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It's impressive to see the uplift the 270K Plus achieves over the supposedly faster 285K, particularly the minimum FPS results. Also, it's no surprise that the motherboard makes little difference in graphically limited scenarios.

Horizon Zero Dawn

When using the 'favor performance' preset, Horizon Zero Dawn can achieve high frame rates with powerful graphics cards.

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The differences here are negligible. If you're lucky enough to own an RTX 5090, the margins would be a little larger. Again, these results show the boards with the 270K Plus easily outperform the more expensive 285K.

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition

Metro Exodus received an update that added improved DLSS support, enhanced ray tracing features, and variable rate shading, among other things. Still, with a powerful graphics card, it is affected by CPU and memory performance at 1080p, though less so with a card like the RTX 4070 Ti Super.

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Only a few frames cover the 270K-equipped boards in this test.

VRM and SSD Temperatures

These tests are performed to show off the differences between each motherboard's cooling assemblies. Each board is subjected to a 20-minute Cinebench loop, while the SSD test records the peak temperature during the lengthy 3DMark Storage test.

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A peak temperature of 54 degrees is an excellent result. The surface area isn't anywhere near what you'd get with a finned design, but ASRock is doing something right here. Maybe it's the thermal pads or the distributed load of the high MOSFET count. Whatever the reason, it works.

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The high surface area of the Z890 Taichi Aqua's primary M.2 heatsink works well here. It extends halfway along the rear I/O, which is usually right in the path of front-to-back case airflow. It makes you wonder if water-cooling is even necessary on this board!

Final Thoughts

The ASRock Z890 Taichi Aqua isn't as absurd as the likes of the MSI Z890 Godlike or ASUS ROG Maximus Z890 Extreme, but only in terms of pricing. With very few feature exceptions, it matches those boards at a much lower price. Assuming the long-running discount holds, it matches them for a third of the price or less. That alone makes the Z890 Taichi Aqua a very easy recommendation.

Systems with full custom loops have always been a niche, and even less so since the widespread adoption of AIO coolers. For users still interested in custom water-cooling, there are fewer options these days. CPU water blocks are available, but if you want to cool the VRM and primary SSD, your options become far more limited and expensive. The Z890 Taichi Aqua stands out as a readymade, feature-rich board for users looking to build a showcase water-cooled system.

It's the kind of board you'd use to run an overclocked CPU and RAM, install a water-cooled RTX 5090, and load up with fast SSDs. And it will look fantastic.

It's a shame the LGA1851 has a short life ahead of it, though the launch of Core Ultra 200 Plus CPUs has breathed new life into the socket. It's not like a 270K Plus is going to become obsolete overnight. If you're a gamer, you're still likely to be GPU limited with all the eye candy turned up, while a multitasker or content creator will appreciate the great performance on offer from the high core count Core Ultra 200S Plus series. LGA 1851 isn't dead yet.

With the exception of features like Thunderbolt 5 or an integrated LCD screen, the ASRock Z890 Taichi Aqua includes pretty much every conceivable feature you can get on a consumer motherboard. Six M.2 slots, 10G and 5G LAN, 320MHz WiFi 7, dual Thunderbolt 4, and fast memory support are common flagship-tier features. Add to that one of the most overengineered VRM solutions available, integrated water-cooling, and a high-end audio solution.

Some might argue that the USB ecosystem isn't ready for a board with all Type-C ports. That's mitigated by the inclusion of a USB 2.0 Type-A bracket, but those with devices such as an external HDD or SSD may need to buy another cable or adapter. Type-C is here to stay, and in the years ahead, those Type-C ports might prove to be very valuable. You be the judge on that.

Everything else aside, at $799 the ASRock Z890 Taichi Aqua faces stiff competition, but at $399 it becomes something else entirely. That's low enough to undercut the ROG Maximus range. Normally, I wouldn't focus much on discounts, as they can be fleeting, but in this case, it's been available at around that price for six months, and it's likely to stay that way until ASRock ends production of the board. It may have done so already, as availability appears limited.

In conclusion, if you're after a genuinely high-end motherboard to house a top-spec Intel Arrow Lake system, the ASRock Z890 Taichi Aqua is an easy choice. Nothing can match its specifications at its long-running discounted price. And if you're a water-cooling enthusiast, it gets even better.