ASRock B650E Taichi Motherboard Review

The box is again HUGE, and packaging is very similar to ASRock’s other Taichi motherboards. You get the usual user’s manual, AM5 CPU installation guide, a Taichi postcard, a Taichi keycap, 2 pairs of SATA cables, 2 sets of M.2 screws, a pair of velcro straps for cable management, a USB bracket, and a set of WiFi 6e antennas.

The ASRock B650E Taichi Motherboard

The B650E Taichi comes with the usual matte finish and features a nice metal backplate at the rear. This gives the motherboard extra sturdiness and helps with the cooling.

You’ll find massive heatsinks which cover the VRMs/Mofets along the top and left side of the motherboard. There are also heatsinks which cover the M.2 slots on the right side of the board, as well as around the PCIE 5.0 x16 slots and chipset. All these heatsinks make the motherboard is really HEAVY, weighing in at well over 2kg!

The I/O panel has large heatsink and is completely covered by a shround displaying the Tachi logo. However, there’s no RGB illumination here. On closer inspection of the I/O hood, you’ll find an active fan inside, which is a great added bonus and helps cool the heatsinks around the VRM/Mofets.

A Closer Look

If you love your RGB, then there’s 2 x 3-pin ARGB (5V) headers located near the top right side of the motherboard, and 1 x 3-pin ARGB (5V) header, as well as1 x 4-pin RGB (12V) near the bottom right side of the board.

For connectivity, you get the Killer E3100 2.5G LAN as well as the Killer AX1675 802.11ax (WiFi 6E) + Bluetooth 5.0. And for storage options, you get 4 x SATA3 ports, and 3 x M.2 slots for SSDs. These include 1 x Blazing M.2 (PCIe Gen5 x4), and 2 x Hyper M.2 (PCIe Gen4x4) slots.

There are 2 x 8-pin PCIE power connectors on the top left-hand corner of the board. These are required to power the board and to give you that extra stability.

For audio, it features ESS SABRE9218 DAC and Realtek 5.1 CH HD Audio codec. There are 4 little red squares located on the bottom left-hand corned of the board, and these are the high end audio WIMA Caps.

There’s plenty of USB connectivity. You get 1 x USB4 Type-C (Rear), 1 x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C (Front), 3 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A (Rear), and a massive 10 x USB 3.2 Gen1 (8 Rear, 2 Front). And as with all Taichi motherboards, ASRock have included the onboard power on/off and reset buttons, as well as the diagnostic LEDs.

There are only 2 x PCIE 5.0 x16 slots on the B650E Taichi, but it does come with surface mount technology, which gives it better physical strength, as well as a more stable memory signal.  The motherboard comes with reinforced DDR5 DIMMS slots which is great. This unique design allows you to dramatically overclock your DDR5 ram up to 6400MHz OC+. Please take note: The DDR5 memory slot is NOT compatible with DDR4 ram. 

The rear I/O panel include the BIOS flashback button, clear CMOS, connectors for your WiFi 6e antenna, HDMI port, lightning gamning ports, Killer E3100 2.5G LAN port,  8 x USB 3.2 Gen2 ports,  and 1 x USB4 Type-C port, and for audio there’s the mic-in, line-out, and SPDIF out.