Intel have officially released and launched their latest 13th Gen Core processor (Raptor Lake) on 20th October. So today, we’ll be taking a look at another flagship motherboard from ASRock – the Z790 Taichi. It uses Intel’s latest Z790 chipset and supports all the new Intel 13th Gen Core processors.
It features ASRock’s powerful 24+2+1 Phase Power Design, and SPS for VCore+GT, which is provides extra stability especially when overclocking your processor. It also supports the new PCIE 5.0 standards for both graphics cards and M.2 NVME SSDs, as well as supporting DDR5 ram with speeds of up to DDR5-6600MHz (OC). It comes with reinforced DIMM Slots, as well as PCIe 5.0 steel slots + Surface-Mount Tech.
The Z790 Taichi has 2 x PCIe 5.0 x16 slots and 1 x 1 PCIe 4.0 x16 slot. For storage, it comes with a total of 8 x SATA3 ports, and 5 x M.2 slots for SSDs. These include 1 x Blazing M.2 (PCIe Gen5 x4), 4 x Hyper M.2 (PCIe Gen4x4) slots.
For connectivity, it comes with Intel’s Gigabit LAN, as well as the Killer E3100 2.5G LAN and Killer AX1675 802.11ax (WiFi 6E) + Bluetooth 5.0. And as usual, the audio is powered ESS SABRE9218 DAC and Realtek 5.1 CH HD audio codec with WIMA Audio Caps.
If you need USB ports for connecting external devices, the Z790 Taichi has plenty. You get 1 x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C (Front), 2 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A (Rear), 10 x USB 3.2 Gen1 (6 Rear, 4 Front), 6 x USB 2.0 (2 Rear, 4 Front). You also get 2 x Thunderbolt 4 (Type-C) ports giving lightning-fast data transfer of up to 40Gbps.
We’ve tested many ASRock Taichi motherboards in the past, the most recent was the ASRock X670E designed for AMD’s latest Ryzen 7000 series of processors. It was a fantastic motherboard that offered amazing features with performance to match. So I expect more of the same with the ASRock Z790 Taichi.
For almost 2 years, Intel have fallen behind AMD in terms of multi-core performance. But will the launch of their 13th Gen processors, plus the Z790 chipset turn things around? Anyway, now that both AMD and Intel have launched their next-gen platforms for 2022 … the real battle now begins for desktop dominance! Let’s go!
Intel Z790 Chipset
The 13th Gen Intel® Core™ desktop processors, when paired with the Z790 chipset, deliver the breakthrough performance and features that gamers, creators, and professionals need to work at their best. Optimized for overclocking1 and precision tuning when paired with an unlocked processor, the Z790 chipset empowers you with the control and confidence to choose the best performance and thermal characteristics for the task at hand. Harness the processing power, responsiveness, and connectivity of up to 38 high-speed I/O lanes—including 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes, 8 PCIe 3.0 lanes, and 5 USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20G) ports—as well as Intel® Killer™ Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+) to take your gaming, content creation, and productivity to the next level.
The Z790 chipset allows a total 20 usable PCIE 4.0 lanes, with upto a maximum memory capacity of 128GB. It’s also capable of up to 10 x USB 3.2 Gen1 5Gbps, 10 x USB 3.2 Gen2 10Gbps and up to 5 x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 20Gbps. Strangley no mention of PCIE 5.0 Gen5 support for NVME SSDs.
Below is the SKU chart of all the available Intel 13th Gen Core processors (Raptor Lake) at launch.
“”Taichi” represents the philosophical state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential. It’s ASRock’s biggest offering in the easy-to-use, rock-solidly stable line of motherboards that fulfills every task – with style! Specially designed for the all-round PC user who wants a motherboard packed with premium features.”
I would like to thank ASRock for providing the review sample. This is a snippet from what ASRock has to say about themselves on their website:
ASRock Inc. is established in 2002, specialized in the field of motherboards. ASRock strives to build up its own brand. With the 3C design concept, “Creativity, Consideration, Cost-effectiveness”, the company explores the limit of motherboards manufacturing while paying attention on the eco issue at the same time, developing products with the consideration of eco-friendly concept.
ASRock has been growing fast and become world third largest motherboard brand with headquarter in Taipei, Taiwan and branches in Europe and the USA. The young and vibrant company targets from mainstream to enthusiast MB segments for different kinds of users, owning reputation around the world market with its reliability and proficiency.
We’ll be testing the ASRock Z790 Taichi Motherboard with an Intel 13th Gen Core i9-13900K (Raptor Lake) processor at default speed, along with 32GB of Patriot Viper RGB DDR5-6200, Adata Legend 840 PCIE Gen4 SSD, and an EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card. And as usual, I’m expecting excellent performance from Intel. I’m looking forward to the Cinenbench score as well as it’s single core performance, which Intel are known to excel.
We didn’t get a MSRP on the ASRock Z790 Taichi motherboard at the time of our review, but expect to pay between USD $500-600.
You can buy something similar – the ASRock Z790 Taichi
OK, let’s dive straight in and begin by taking a look at the specifications and features in our next page.
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