Today, we will be taking a look at the ASRock Z790 Taichi Lite motherboard. This motherboard uses Intel’s usual Z790 chipset and is suitable for all the latest Intel 13th Gen and older 12th Gen processors on the LGA1700 socket.
The ASRock Z790 Taichi Lite is basically the same as the original ASRock Z790 Taichi motherboard, but with less heatsinks, and therefore reducing the overall weight and cost of the motherboard. The RGB lighting is removed from the I/O hood and the chipset heatsink, and is now re-positioned on the bottom heatsink covering the M.2 SSD slots. Other than that, everything else seem to remain the same.
As far as features are concerned, the Z790 Taichi Lite features same 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 DDR5-7600MHz +(OC).
The motherboard has 2 x PCIe 5.0 x16 slots (with Surface-Mount Tech), 1 x 1 PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, and 1 x M.2 Socket (Key E).
For connectivity, it comes with Intel’s Gigabit LAN, as well as the Killer E3100 2.5G LAN and Wi-Fi 6E 802.11ax + 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.
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.
You’ll also find plenty of ports including 2 x Thunderbolt™ 4/USB4 Type-C, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Front Type-C (Supports 60W Fast Charging 20V/3A), 2 x Rear USB 3.2 Gen2 Type A, and a total of 10 x USB 3.2 Gen1 (6 Rear, 4 Front).
And finally you get all of ASRock’s uniques features including the 7.1 HD Nahimic audio, Lightning gaming ports, Dr.MOS, 8-layer PCB and ASRock’s Polychrome RGB.
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.
Below is the SKU chart of all the available Intel 13th Gen Core processors (Raptor Lake) at launch.
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.
I think the ASRock Z790 Taichi Lite (USD $ 380) is ideal choice and perfect for users who want all the enthusiast features found on the original Z790 Taichi (USD $ 480), but at an affordable price. It’s literally USD $100 less!
We’ll be testing this motherboard using an Intel Core i9-13900K, along with some nice DDR5-7200 ram and a Radeon RX 7900 XTX to see how it peforms.
OK, let’s dive right in and start by taking a look at the specifications and features in our next page.
You can buy the original ASRock Z790 Taichi
Related articles
- ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XTX Taichi White 24GB OC Graphics Card Review
- ASRock Phantom Gaming Z790 PG-ITX/TB4 Motherboard Review
- ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XTX Phantom Gaming 24GB OC Graphics Card Review
- ASRock Z790 PG SONIC Motherboard Review
- ASRock Z790 LiveMixer Motherboard Review
- ASRock Z790 Steel Legend WiFi Motherboard Review
- ASRock Z790 Taichi Motherboard Review
2 comments
There is no flash bios button on the back panel….
In the Overview section there doesn’t seem to be a mention of the wired 1.0Gb LAN.