Asrock Z790 TAICHI, Intel Z790, 1700, EATX, 4 DDR5, HDMI, 2 Thunderbolt, Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5G & GB LAN, PCIe5, RGB, 5x M.2

Product Information

Wi-Fi 6E (6GHz band) will be supported by Microsoft® Windows® 11. The availability will depend on the different regulation status of each country and region. It will be activated (for supported countries) through Windows® Update and software updates once available. Supports USB PD 3.0 up to 20V@3A (60W) fast charging when you install PSU's Power Cable to the 12V 6 pin Power Connector.If the 12V 6 pin Power Connector is not plugged, this header supports USB PD 3.0 up to 9V@3A (27W) fast charging. The VRM is a real highlight. It's a 24-phase design with 105A stages cooled by big chunky heatsinks. The Z790 Taichi Lite will happily power a liquid nitrogen cooled Core i9 13900K without breaking a sweat, and it'll handle any upcoming refreshed K model under the same conditions.

Idle power consumption on our Z790 Taichi/i9-13900K combo is reasonable at 67 watts on the desktop. Load power peaked at a staggering 498W at the wall. Compared to the other three boards, which peaked between ~375-392W the Taichi used considerably more power - to the tune of 25%-plus more. 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. Whether you are using headphones, a headset, external or internal speakers, via USB, Wi-Fi, analog output or even HDMI, Nahimic Audio offers you the most engaging listening experience, vibrant and rich with details. Regarding PCIe support, two full-length PCIe 5.0 slots can operate at x16/x0 and x8/x8, with a full-length PCIe 4.0 x4 slot at the bottom. Storage support consists of one PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slot for the latest and greatest high-performance SSDs, while there are also a further four PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 SSDs. At the bottom right-hand side of the board are eight SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. 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.

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Starting with the launch of Zen 4, we’ve updated one of our games, F1 21 to F1 22, while keeping Far Cry 6. We run the games at 1920x1080 resolution using the Ultra preset (details listed above). As the resolution goes up, the CPU tends to have less impact. The goal with these settings is to determine if there are differences in performance at the most commonly used (and CPU/system bound) resolution with settings most people use or strive for (Ultra). We expect the difference between boards in these tests to be minor, with most falling within the margin of error differences. We’ve also added a minimum FPS value, which can affect your gameplay and immersion experience. If you value function over form, the Z790 Taichi Lite is one of the best options out there. It's a flagship tier board without any unnecessary bloat that in many cases, becomes entirely useless once the case side panel is shut. Put simply, there is nothing else out there that offers what Z790 Taichi Lite does. Intel® UHD Graphics Built-in Visuals and the VGA outputs can be supported only with processors which are GPU integrated.

Along the right edge of the board, we run into a USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) connector and eight SATA ports below. There’s nothing else to see here unless you want a better look at the cool marble patterns on the chipset heatsink. Thunderbolt™ graphics output may not be compatible with certain Type-C monitors. Please use graphics card outputs instead. We’ll start with the three PCIe slots in the middle of the board. The top slots (primarilyy for graphics) are reinforced and both source their lanes from the CPU. The top slot runs at PCIe 5.0 x16 when only the top slot is populated or x8/x8 speeds with PCIE_2 occupied. The bottom slot runs at PCIe 4.0 x4, with lanes coming from the chipset. When the bottom slot, PCIE3, is occupied, SATA ports 0-4 will be disabled, so you must carefully populate the board with your hardware. For those considering a multi-GPU setup (who are you?), this configuration supports AMD Crossfire, but NVIDIA SLI is not listed. The audio section is top notch. A Realtek ALC4082 codec is matched with an ESS Sabre 9218 DAC and WIMA capacitors. It'll be hard to find a better integrated solution. Across the bottom of the board are several exposed headers. You’ll find the usual, including additional USB ports, RGB headers, and power/reset buttons. Below is a complete list from left to right.I really hope other motherboard manufacturers sit up and take notice. Sometimes less really is more. If the 12V 6 pin Power Connector is not plugged, this header supports USB PD 3.0 up to 9V@3A (27W) fast charging.

Moving on to the connectivity options, the Z790 Taichi Lite has a feature set that exceeds anything else in its price range. Beginning with the rear I/O, the highlight is the dual USB 4/Thunderbolt 4 ports. They support 27W PD and display connectivity. They are joined by two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, six USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and a pair of USB 2.0 ports. The board comes with five M.2 slots, though only four can be used at a time. That might seem odd, but the twin primary slots can be used with either a PCIe 4.0 or a PCIe 5.0 drive. It means a PCIe 4.0 drive can benefit from the enlarged heatsink, while leaving the PCIe 5.0 x16 slot at full speed. When the PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot is populated, the primary x16 slot drops to x8. VRM temperatures on the Taichi Carrara were within specification during our stress test. That said, even when actively cooled, the VRMs are the warmest we’ve tested out of our four motherboards so far. If you were paying attention above, you’d realize the 350W the CPU peaked at during stress testing and sustained loads put much more stress on the robust power delivery than the other boards. This shows us that even when maxed out, the VRMs can easily handle whatever you throw at them while using ambient cooling methods. Bottom LineSwitching to gaming, the Taichi showed solid performance when paired with our GeForce RTX 3090 Ti in Time Spy and Speed Way, with both scores holding the court at the top of our charts. When switching to our real-world testing with Cyberpunk 2077, this board pulled an extra 2 FPS at the top with 1080p and even at the bottom at 4K. In the right corner, we run into the first two (of four total) RGB headers. In this case, it’s two of the three 4-pin ARGB headers. Along the bottom edge, you’ll find others, 3-pin and the third 4-pin headers. Control over these devices and the integrated RGBs is handled through the Polychrome RGB software or inside the BIOS. 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.