The Box and Packaging
Inside the box, you’ll find the motherboard,an installation guide, a regulatory notice, a RGB splitter cable, 3 x Thermal probes, 2 x SATA cables, ASRock keycap, ASRock badge, 1 x WiFi 7 antenna, and a PCIE M.2 Expansion Card.
The ASRock Z890 NOVA WiFi Motherboard
Just like the original Z890 Taichi, the board comes in a standard ATX form factor and uses a 8-Layer server-grade, x2 Copper PCB. It features the same powerful 24+1+2+1+1 Power Phases design, 110 Amp SPS for VCore and 20K Black capacitors, for superb stability and reliability.
For cooling, the motherboard is also equipped with the same large aluminium composite VRM heatsink with heat-pipe as found on the original Z890 Taichi.
On the reverse side of the motherboard, you’ll find a massive backplate which literally covers more than 75% of the board. This backplate helps with cooling and gives the motherboard more rigidity.
A Closer Look
On the top of the motherboard, there are 2 x 8-pin PCIE power connectors (which needs to be connected), and you’ll also find a diagnostic LED, as well as onboard power-on and reset buttons, which is normally found on most high-end motherboards.
The motherboard comes with 4 x DDR5 DIMM slots, supporting both Intel XMP and AMD’s EXPO memory modules with memory speeds of up to DDR5-9600 +.
Expansion slots include 1 x PCIE 5.0 x16 steel slot and 1 x PCIE 4.0 x16 slot. A nice added feature is their Graphics Card EZ Release design, which allows hassle-free installation and removal of the graphics card effortlessly.
For storage, it comes with a total of 4 x SATA ports and 5 x Hyper M.2 PCIE Genx4 slots, as well as 1 x Blazing M.2 PCIE Gen5 slot for SSDs. These M.2 slots feature tool-less design, which allows users to mount their M.2 SSDs with ease. They also come with a bottom heatsink which enables it to dissipate heat more efficiently.
For extra cooling, there’s a total of 7 x 4-pin fan headers on the board (3 at the top and 4 at the bottom).
On the back I/O panel, you’ll find the connectors for WiFi 7 antennas, HDMI output, 2 x USB 3.0 ports, 2 x Thunderbolt 4 ports, clear CMOS and BIOS Flashback buttons, 2 x Lightning USB ports, 2 x USB Power ports, 2 x USB 3.2 Gen2 ports, 2.5 GbE and 5 GbE LAN ports, 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector, Line-out and Mic-in.
