
The Bottom Line
Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

Taichi has been the flagship motherboard coming out of the ASRock enthusiast lineup for the last several generations. Initial offerings from the AMD X570 variant nearly a year and a half ago gave us a solid 14 phase platform equipped with PCIe 4.0 slots and a plentiful amount of USB 3.2 ports.
With the launch of AMD Zen 3, many vendors are updating their motherboard platforms, and ASRock is certainly one of them. For the revamped Taichi, they partnered with Razer, one of the largest gaming brands on the planet, to release the X570 Taichi Razer Edition. This new motherboard carries over many features from the initial design but has some updated features that we will touch on below.
Specifications and Marketing

Comparing both platforms, the Razer Edition is a slightly beefier solution with a bolstered power design including dual 8-pin CPU inputs to handle the new Ryzen 5000 series processors. We also have updated networking with Killer Networks on both LAN and WLAN. Audio has seen a redesign, still using the ALC1220 but with an added ESS Sabre DAC and a 2V power amplifier.
The rest of the motherboard carries on the proven design of the X570 Taichi, albeit flavored with Razer design.
Pricing
The ASRock X570 Taichi Razer Edition carries an MSRP of $399.99 with a three-year warranty.

Packaging, Accessories, and Overview
Packaging and Accessories

As expected, Razer has put their design into the motherboard packaging as well, with green flair added to the box. You will find an image of the board centered with supported platforms across the top.

The back offers an overview of the board above, while down below, we have supported features including AMD CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI.

Included in the box, we have a quick install guide in several languages and a software setup guide. You will want to hold onto the software CD to the left as you will need it if you want LAN support.

Further accessories include the Wi-Fi antenna, a screwdriver for removing the m.2 heat sinks, and SATA cables.
ASRock X570 Taichi Razer Edition Overview


Above, we have the front and back of the motherboard adorned with Razer aesthetics. This includes a custom backplate with Razer's "For Gamers by Gamers" motto and heat sink covers that includes Razer Chroma lighting.

Getting closer to the board, we start with the PCIe 4.0 slots, three that are full x16 physically but x16, x8, and x4 electrically in order. Along the bottom, things are quite busy, but a few things stand out, including the WIMA film capacitors on the left, Thunderbolt 3 header in the middle, and debug LED / power to the right.

Diving around the corner, we find 8x SATA ports, USB 3.2 Gen 1 header, and a Gen 2 header above it.

Further up that side, we run into another front panel header for USB 3.2 Gen 1 and the 24-pin power connection.

Wrapping around the next edge, we roll into ARGB and RGB headers, CPU fan, and both 8-pin CPU power connections.

The rear I/O includes BIOS Flashback and clear CMOS at the top, followed by the antenna and PS2 connections. We then run into the USB 3.2 arrangement that includes 6x Gen 1 ports and 2x Gen 2 ports.
PCB and Circuit Analysis


Diving into the power design, we start with a total of 16x Vishay SIC654 Power Stages offering 50A current output. These are similar to the SIC634 used in the original X570 Taichi, but with added technologies including OCP and OTP.

A Nuvoton NCT6796 was brought in to handle Super I/O.

The AMD X570 chipset takes a large portion of the Taichi's real estate, sitting just below the memory slots.

Audio CODEC is the ALC1220 from Realtek with an added ESS Sabre DAC just below.

The heat sink platform for the X570 Taichi features a heat pipe design for the VRM area and a single-piece setup for the chipset and middle M.2 slot. The large backplate does offer some heat dissipation to the rear-mounted stage doublers used on the board's back.
UEFI, Software and Test System
UEFI

















The setup offers a fantastic colorful EFI that brings life to the Razer Edition. The main menu provides a quick overview of the installed CPU and memory, while OC Tweaker brings overclocking options for CPU, memory, Infinity Fabric, and PCIe.
The advanced menu holds most of your basic menu options, including onboard device configuration. The tools menu includes support for Razer Chroma setup without the need for software. You can also see Easy RAID, SSD Secure Erase, and NVMe Sanitize to manage your storage. Instant flash is available to update your BIOS.
Software
Multiple pieces of software support the X570 Taichi. The first we will look at is Killer Control Center.

We have looked at Killer Control Center on several occasions, so it's certainly a welcomed addition to the Razer Edition.

KCC has several features, and one of those includes GameFast optimizations that manage your system for the best gaming experience possible.

Another huge feature is the ability to utilize your gaming PC, with the Razer Edition motherboard to create a hotspot for your nearby wireless devices or xTend your existing network.

Last, we have bandwidth settings from which you can run a speed test to set those correctly and Doubleshot Pro in the bottom menu, allowing you to spread the network load of your machine between your wired and wireless NICs.

Razer Synapse is our next piece of software for the X570 Taichi. This allows you to manage Razer Chroma effects by device and with the ability to add modules with everything from Philips Hue and Amazon Alexa.

Moving to the System menu, you can move through your devices, including the motherboard, to setup lighting profiles using either Chroma Studio or Visualizer.

Within Chroma Studio, you can customize all the way down to per LED.

The Last piece of software is A tuning. This software gives you full control over all overclocking frequencies and voltage within Windows and is probably the best vendor made software for this.
Test System

Furthering the X570 Taichi Razer Edition experience, the Tomahawk ATX chassis from Razer was sent over for the build and testing.
- Motherboard: ASRock X570 Taichi Razer Edition (buy from Amazon)
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (buy from Amazon)
- RAM: ADATA XPG 2x16GB Spectrix (buy from Amazon)
- Cooler: NZXT X73 (buy from Amazon)
- Case: Razer Tomahawk (buy from Amazon)
- OS Storage: Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 (buy from Amazon)
- Power Supply: Corsair RM750 (buy from Amazon)
- OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)
WPrime, Cinebench and AIDA64
WPrime
WPrime is a leading multi-threaded benchmark. In our setup, we will manually set the number of cores for the CPU under test. The ROG Crosshair VIII Hero is our baseline motherboard for all charts.

Adding the X570 Razer Edition, we start with WPrime, where we see equal performance to the Hero.
CPUz Bench

CPUz bench has been added to our reviews as a simple bench to tune your system. For our Razer Edition and 5800X, we get 657 in single thread and 6627 in multithread workloads.
Cinebench
Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been heavily relied upon by both Intel and AMD to showcase their newest platforms during unveils. The benchmark has two tests, a single-core workload that will utilize one thread or 1T. There is also a multi-threaded test which uses all threads or nT of a tested CPU

Cinebench testing has been moved to R23, our Razer Edition showing 15389 in nT and 1600 points in 1T.
RealBench

Realbench uses both video and photo workloads to benchmark your CPU. We use the Heavy Multitasking workload in this setup. The Razer Edition was a little quicker in this test at 32.20 seconds.
AIDA64 Memory

AIDA64 has stayed as our means of testing memory bandwidth. The Razer Edition offers a peak of 50987 read and 49473 write, both a touch quicker than the ROG Hero.
Unigine and UL Benchmarks
PCMark 10
PCMark is a benchmark from UL and tests various workload types to represent typical workloads for a PC. Everything from video conferencing, image import, and editing, along with 3D rendering, are tested.

Focusing on workload scores, we find the Razer Edition slightly quicker in productivity with the other two workloads nearly identical.
Unigine Superposition
Superposition from Unigine is a DX12 based benchmark. We test with the 720p LOW preset as this removes all but the most basic GPU loading, with all of the FPS coming from the CPU.

The Razer Edition scores just under the ROG Hero in Unigine, with only 3 FPS separating the two boards.
3DMark Timespy

Pushing through TimeSpy, we see graphics advantage go to the Razer Edition while the Hero takes CPU by 200 points.
3DMark Firestrike

Razer Edition takes combined and graphics performance in Firestrike.
Horizon Zero Dawn and Gears Tactics
Metro is one of the first games to support RTX. For our testing, we used the Low and Ultra presets, both without RTX enabled.

Running through some real gaming scenarios, Horizon shows 182 FPS for the Razer Edition. Gears Tactics also offers an advantage to the X570 Taichi by 3FPS.
System I/O Benchmarks and Power Consumption
System I/O Benchmarks
Storage with CrystalDiskMark
Storage tests are all handled by our Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 SSD.

Starting testing, we dive into USB 3.2 testing with our WD Black P50. In this test, we find 1029 MB/s read and 942 MB/s write.

With CDM, we see 4997 MB/s read and 2514 MB/s write from our Rocket NVMe 4.0.

4KQ1 reaches 62.11 MB/s read for the Razer Edition. Write touches 243 MB/s.
Networking with iPerf

Wired and Wireless throughput on the Razer Edition was fantastic. We were able to reach 2348 Mb/s in wired throughput and 1369 Mb/s with the Killer AX1650.
Power Consumption

Power consumption was quite a bit lower for the Razer Edition compared to the ROG Hero. At peak gaming load hits 605 watts, idle at 151, and CPU load in R23 at 332 watts.
Overclocking, Thermals and Final Thoughts
Overclocking

Overclocking on the Razer Edition was quite good and equal with all previous platforms tested. To reach our prescribed 4.7GHz, it took the Taichi 1.25v with a load voltage of 1.19v.

Overclocking our 5800X on the Razer Edition Taichi, we reached an R23 score of 16193.
Thermals

Thermals stayed well within range for the 5800X. We enjoyed a frosty 29c idle while load peaked this CPU at 75c.

I changed the thermal imager to use a larger contrast in colors to better show the hotspots on the Razer Edition. As you can see above, the VRM area is around 45c, a little heat in the m.2 heat sink as well lower 40s.
Final Thoughts
The Razer Edition is a great board, and you don't necessarily have to be a fan of Razer to use it. This is due to the addition of Chroma that allows addressable RGB for the entire motherboard independently, the chipset, edge lighting, and VRM can all be different colors if you want.
I'm extremely happy to see ASRock put effort into this board on the hardware side, making it a new hardware design with beefed-up power delivery for Zen 3 and swapped out the entire networking arrangement for a gaming driven platform with Killer Networks E3100G and AX1650.
What We Like
Power Delivery: The Razer Edition has a legit overbuilt power delivery with 16x 50A power stages.
PCIe 4.0 for days: The Razer Edition is equipped with three PCIe slots all supporting Gen4 - and this moves to storage too with all three M.2 slots.
Razer Chroma: Customization is strong with the Razer Edition, with full ARGB support across the entire motherboard.
What Could Be Better
Internal USB Headers: ASRock almost perfected this board but left out attention to detail with the internal USB headers. I would certainly like to see all of these headers angled to allow for a cleaner installation.
Price: Revisions cost money, especially when its more than a few aesthetics changes. The ASRock X570 Taichi Razer Edition reflects this with a price tag of $399.99.