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, 1 x WiFi 7 antenna, and ASRock keycap.
The ASRock X870E Taichi Lite Motherboard
Like the original X870E Taichi, the Lite version comes in a larger EATX form factor and uses a 8-Layer server-grade, x2 Copper PCB. You also get the same 24+2+1 Power Phases, 110 Amp SPS for VCore and 20K Black capacitors, for superb stability and reliability.
As far features are concerned, the X870E Taichi Lite is virtually identical to the original X870E Taichi. the main difference of course is the the I/O hood which does not come with any RGB lighting.
For cooling, the motherboard comes with XXL VRM heatsinks but there’s no cooling fan or heatpipe, however it does use the an enlarged M.2 and chipset heatsinks for maximum heat dissipation.
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 are prominent on most high-end motherboards. 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).
Expansion slots include 2 x PCIE 5.0 x16 steel slots, but lacks the EZ PCIE Release feature which is found on the original X870E Taichi. For memory, you get the same 4 x DDR5 DIMM slots, supporting XMP and AMD’s EXPO memory and memory speeds of up to DDR5-8200+.
When it comes to stroage, you get a total of 6 x SATA ports and 3 x Hyper M.2 PCIE Genx4 slots and 1 x Blazing M.2 PCIE Gen5 slot for SSDs. The new tool-less M.2 heatsink design is only available on the PCIE Gen5 M.2 slot, and allows users to mount their M.2 SSDs with ease. You also get a bottom heatsink which helps to dissipate heat more efficiently.
On the back I/O panel, you’ll find a clear CMOS and BIOS Flashback buttons, connectors for WiFi 7 antennas, HDMI output, 2 x USB 2.0 ports, 3 x USB 3.2 Gen1 ports, 5 x USB 3.2 Gen2 ports (2 x Ultra USB power port, 2 x Lightning USB ports), 2 x USB4 ports, 5GB LAN, 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector, Line-out and Mic-in.
3 comments
Thank you for review, lack of PCI EZ release feature for GPU it’s such weak idea. They kept it for normal Taichi. And price difference is just 50$. Such waste.
I would recommend updating your testing methodology: the board boasts good audio, check the implementation and whether there’s some shielding etc. Check the chipset temperatures under load: my X670 was hitting 80-90C with 2 NVMEs copying files. Check if hybrid graphics works as intended – that’s when monitors are connected to the motherboard’s ports, not GPUs. Check wi-fi and Bluetooth range. Check the functionality USB4 ports are supposed to offer. Check coil whine and other parasitic sounds.
I mean, you didn’t even check the motherboard temperatures anywhere, just the CPU. And you well know that the pcmark and whatever other tests you did just apply to the CPU/memory. I thought this is X870 motherboard review, not the 9950x CPU review.
I encourage Winston to read the overview, all pages 1 through 9. You will find that there is very little useful information and nothing really that can’t be found on the item page on Asrock’s website. Unfortunately, this overview doesn’t offer any value.
Will do… thanks for the feedback 👍