Review ASRock X670E Taichi Review: AM5 Meets Zen

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It's a beautiful board, full of all the features that I need, for sure. But what I don't understand is why the manufacturers keep making the top pcie slot the fast one. The obvious need here is to move the graphics card to the bottom slot to make way for some spiffy M.2 heatsinks and show off the art over near the chipset and fan. Since graphics don't so pcie 5 right now anyway, my question would be whether the bottom slot can handle max throughput for the card at pcie 4 or 3. I need those M.2 heatsinks, otherwise I throttle when copying large (>100GB) files around (which I do often!).
 
with "speed" also comes latency to deal with. remember the x16 pcie slot and fastest m.2 slots get their lanes direct from the cpu.

the closer to the cpu, the less latency in getting data to and from the cpu. that's why ram slots are as close as possible to minimize how far the data has to go thus lowering latency as much as possible.

that's why the slots are closest to the cpu.

i do agree though that covering the m.2 slot with a gpu, does take away using the heatsinks and such that can be needed or are just pretty to look at. i'm not sure where you could move it though to keep it close to the cpu, yet not under the gpu. lowering the pcie slot to put it above the gpu, though not very far, would add to the latency of the gpu and people would lose their freaking minds if some reviewer showed .2 fps less or some other trivial number due to moving it the couple inches.

under the mobo would be a good option except you'd still not get thick heatsinks under there. that and the vrm's and such near the cpu can get aweful hot and mounting an m.2 drive right under them would probably burn it up real fast.
 
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RichardtST said:
my question would be whether the bottom slot can handle max throughput for the card at pcie 4 or 3.
Click to expand...

Three words: latency and cost. The farther your GPU is from the CPU socket the more latency added. That will steal fps from your system (miniscule amount) and limit responsiveness in games. Then there are the redrivers for PCIe 5.0 they need to be added to extend the signal (it degrades quickly for PCIe 4.0/5.0) which adds costs to the BOM.
 
the bottom slot would be plenty fast for a gpu. the problem is we have a VERY EXTREME case of FOMO.

that bottom slot at x8 at 4.0 (which recall is x16 at 3.0 speeds) is enough for the gpu. but then it would not be x16 and 5.0. and OMG if there is a higher number i don't have, then i am not getting what i could. does not matter that performance would not be impacted. there is still a bigger number i don't have and I NEED IT!!!!

we don't need pcie 5.0 as it is, yet there it is and we all must have it. so yah they could move some stuff around and still make a fine board, but the buyers would never go for having a smaller number than someone else has. egos and FOMO would never allow such a thing. :)
 
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RichardtST said:
It's a beautiful board, full of all the features that I need, for sure. But what I don't understand is why the manufacturers keep making the top pcie slot the fast one. The obvious need here is to move the graphics card to the bottom slot to make way for some spiffy M.2 heatsinks and show off the art over near the chipset and fan. Since graphics don't so pcie 5 right now anyway, my question would be whether the bottom slot can handle max throughput for the card at pcie 4 or 3. I need those M.2 heatsinks, otherwise I throttle when copying large (>100GB) files around (which I do often!).
Click to expand...

The answer is no. It will be a bottleneck. I am not sure if the bottom slot is 8 or 16x pcie 4.0 slot. However, that doesn't matter. It's from the chipset. The path between CPU and chipset is just pcie 4.0 4x... Any nvme using chipset will have to use that as well.
 
This is, indeed, a very nice board. I have one problem with it. I need to have a 10Gb NIC in the lower slot. If I get an RTX 4090 board, there will not be enough space for it between the slots. When it is time for a 4090, I guess I'll have to get a mobo with the 10Gb interface built in.

This is a concern for several of the x670e boards available.
 
Well, I actually have this MB running a Ryzen 9-7900, Gskill 32gb memory at 6K mhz, Samsung 980 Pro and a Samsung 970 EVO. Graphics card is a Gigabyte 3080 with a 1200 watt Power Supply. I have some issues with the board.
  1. System takes forever to boot, even after memory training and using a Samsung 980 pro. It takes at least 60 seconds and then after it boots into windows it will boot itself again EVERY TIME after about two minutes. Troubleshooting with ASROCK has not fixed any of this, even with new Bios. Once system is up it runs well however. I have not tried OC the CPU yet.
  2. The board comes with the primary M2 active heatsink cooler with fan.....but I cannot use it because it interferes with my two slot RTX 3080. Back side of RTX 3080 hits the heat sink and card has a hard time seating properly.
  3. The onboard sound is not good. I get bad distortions in sound as if something is interfering with the sound circuits or controller.
  4. To solve the sound issue, I had to install a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Z sound card. This highlights another issue. The PCIE slots (only two of them) are so close together that the SB Z half card masks the first fan on my RTX 3080. There is NO WAY I could install a new RTX 3090 that is a three slot design with anything in the second PCIE slot. The only way to to install a RTX 4090 would be to buy one with a AIO cooler that keeps the RTX board to a one or two slot size. Good luck on finding one of those in the next year.

The board itself, once it finally boots up, runs great...but the above issues make me regret buying it. I was looking on getting a MSI X670E Carbon but none to be had. To everyone upgrading, if you are planning and running a RTX 4090 then avoid this board. Hopefull rev 2.0 of this board will fix some of these early issues. I have always had ASROCK MB's in my builds but they dropped the ball on some design issues on this one.
 
Ugly i/o ports on back, deceiving ... this was my favorite mobo to buy, but with my asus phoenix 2.5 (chubby) slots thickness i have doubts, should fit .... mmm

The Msi Carbon seems nicer on the i/o's ports
 
sailorjeff said:
Well, I actually have this MB running a Ryzen 9-7900, Gskill 32gb memory at 6K mhz, Samsung 980 Pro and a Samsung 970 EVO. Graphics card is a Gigabyte 3080 with a 1200 watt Power Supply. I have some issues with the board.
  1. System takes forever to boot, even after memory training and using a Samsung 980 pro. It takes at least 60 seconds and then after it boots into windows it will boot itself again EVERY TIME after about two minutes. Troubleshooting with ASROCK has not fixed any of this, even with new Bios. Once system is up it runs well however. I have not tried OC the CPU yet.
  2. The board comes with the primary M2 active heatsink cooler with fan.....but I cannot use it because it interferes with my two slot RTX 3080. Back side of RTX 3080 hits the heat sink and card has a hard time seating properly.
  3. The onboard sound is not good. I get bad distortions in sound as if something is interfering with the sound circuits or controller.
  4. To solve the sound issue, I had to install a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Z sound card. This highlights another issue. The PCIE slots (only two of them) are so close together that the SB Z half card masks the first fan on my RTX 3080. There is NO WAY I could install a new RTX 3090 that is a three slot design with anything in the second PCIE slot. The only way to to install a RTX 4090 would be to buy one with a AIO cooler that keeps the RTX board to a one or two slot size. Good luck on finding one of those in the next year.
The board itself, once it finally boots up, runs great...but the above issues make me regret buying it. I was looking on getting a MSI X670E Carbon but none to be had. To everyone upgrading, if you are planning and running a RTX 4090 then avoid this board. Hopefull rev 2.0 of this board will fix some of these early issues. I have always had ASROCK MB's in my builds but they dropped the ball on some design issues on this one.
Click to expand...

Understand that the AM5 is a completely new platform and it will take some time to sort out driver and AGESA issues. This is always the case with any new platform regardless of the mobo brand. The latest BIOS that I have seen is 1.09 for most Asrock boards with an updated AGESA from AMD. Now days there is almost an infinite combination of add-in components for a PC so it's not easy for any mobo maker to test every combination. That being said Asrock IME does seem to address issues fairly quickly.

Clearly there are people using this specific mobo without issues so it's highly unlikely that there is a fundamental design issue with this mobo as all motherboard makers work from AMDs design guide. More than likely over the next few months the issues will be resolved but there is always challenges for early adopters.
 
I picked X670E PG Lightning. Not as posh, but comes with Gen5 both for PCIe slot and for M.2. A number of X650E motherboards have the same, with only 8 usable PCIe lanes less (up to 36 instead of up to 44, of which in both cases up to 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes). But the cheapest of these are here currently available at around the same price as the one I picked.

B650 and X670 mothreboards were no option for me, as these MBs have no PCIe 5.0 slot and at best just for M.2.
Of course, PCIe 5.0 is not needed for current-gen GPUs, and a bit of an open question if already in about a week released new AMD GPUs will make use of it. But I hope the MB will last me at least several years, and probably some more GPU developments in that time as well.


RichardtST said:
... why the manufacturers keep making the top pcie slot the fast one. ...
Click to expand...

An usual mid-tower would leave little to no room at the bottom slot for proper air ventilation. So it doesn't seem much of a mainstream solution to ask everyone to use the bottom slot (even aside of the mentioned issue of latency).

But, e.g. specifically the reviewed X670E Taichi has a second PCIe 5.0 x16 slot at the bottom (only one can be used as x16 at the same time), and the X650E Taichi has the Gen5 M.2 to the side of the RAM. Or e.g. ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming WiFi, that one has likewise two PCIe 5.0 16x slots, and it has two Gen5 M.2 spots, one of which is at the bottom.

The price may be an issue of course. Which is why I went for a MB which has the Gen5 M.2 inbetween GPU and CPU, where I personally worry more about an eventual M.2 cooler colliding with a larger CPU air cooler (which then led me to pick a case with among other clearance for the CPU cooler height, to leave me soom options if or when I upgrade the CPU - something which is also relevant in regard to RAM, as DDR5 has a bit more height).

But if one wants to be able to hit the ground running with Gen5 M.2 SSDs, without having to wait for improved M.2 cooler solutions and/or without having to rethink the entire rig cooling in use, then there are as mentioned already some motherboards to consider.
 
DavidLejdar said:
I picked X670E PG Lightning. Not as posh, but comes with Gen5 both for PCIe slot and for M.2. A number of X650E motherboards have the same, with only 8 usable PCIe lanes less (up to 36 instead of up to 44, of which in both cases up to 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes). But the cheapest of these are here currently available at around the same price as the one I picked.

B650 and X670 mothreboards were no option for me, as these MBs have no PCIe 5.0 slot and at best just for M.2.
Of course, PCIe 5.0 is not needed for current-gen GPUs, and a bit of an open question if already in about a week released new AMD GPUs will make use of it. But I hope the MB will last me at least several years, and probably some more GPU developments in that time as well.




An usual mid-tower would leave little to no room at the bottom slot for proper air ventilation. So it doesn't seem much of a mainstream solution to ask everyone to use the bottom slot (even aside of the mentioned issue of latency).

But, e.g. specifically the reviewed X670E Taichi has a second PCIe 5.0 x16 slot at the bottom (only one can be used as x16 at the same time), and the X650E Taichi has the Gen5 M.2 to the side of the RAM. Or e.g. ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming WiFi, that one has likewise two PCIe 5.0 16x slots, and it has two Gen5 M.2 spots, one of which is at the bottom.

The price may be an issue of course. Which is why I went for a MB which has the Gen5 M.2 inbetween GPU and CPU, where I personally worry more about an eventual M.2 cooler colliding with a larger CPU air cooler (which then led me to pick a case with among other clearance for the CPU cooler height, to leave me soom options if or when I upgrade the CPU - something which is also relevant in regard to RAM, as DDR5 has a bit more height).

But if one wants to be able to hit the ground running with Gen5 M.2 SSDs, without having to wait for improved M.2 cooler solutions and/or without having to rethink the entire rig cooling in use, then there are as mentioned already some motherboards to consider.
Click to expand...

GPUs are not dependent on pcie bandwidth and have no use for pcie 5.0.

The only real benefit is that gpus can even use 8x or even 4x pcie 5.0 to reduce cost.
 
One thing I've been curious about for a little while is how much need is there on average for SATA ports these days. Speaking just for myself my system has two populated m.2 slots and a RAID card plugged into four SAS SSDs for an all-flash arrangement. No optical drive either so I'm not using any of the onboard SATA ports. I imagine some have m.2s with perhaps a few bigger drives hanging off SATA ports but eight ports? Do they get used for RAID situations or something?
 
Thanks for the review. It's good to know these boards at least do work nicely.

Also, can you guys start testing everything inside cases going forward, please?

I mention this, because now there's some really power hungry parts and that will translate on how well we can manage temperatures and, at the same time, it's become an actual important variable to consider when testing components now. I know we all want to test parts with as little restrictions as possible, but we've reached the point where open benches are deviating way too much from how they'd behave inside a closed case.

Regards.
 
These board prices are insane, my friend built a new 13600k + z690 system and he saved $150 because the amd midrange b650 mobo and ddr5 were so expensive. And the x670p and x670e were even more 🤦🏼‍♂️
 
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peachpuff said:
These board prices are insane, my friend built a new 13600k + z690 system and he saved $150 because the midrange b650 mobo and ddr5 were so expensive. And the x670p and x670e were even more 🤦🏼‍♂️
Click to expand...

They are insane but people must buy them otherwise we would not see so many of them from every motherboard manufacturer.
 
sailorjeff said:
Well, I actually have this MB running a Ryzen 9-7900, Gskill 32gb memory at 6K mhz, Samsung 980 Pro and a Samsung 970 EVO. Graphics card is a Gigabyte 3080 with a 1200 watt Power Supply. I have some issues with the board.
  1. System takes forever to boot, even after memory training and using a Samsung 980 pro. It takes at least 60 seconds and then after it boots into windows it will boot itself again EVERY TIME after about two minutes. Troubleshooting with ASROCK has not fixed any of this, even with new Bios. Once system is up it runs well however. I have not tried OC the CPU yet.
  2. The board comes with the primary M2 active heatsink cooler with fan.....but I cannot use it because it interferes with my two slot RTX 3080. Back side of RTX 3080 hits the heat sink and card has a hard time seating properly.
  3. The onboard sound is not good. I get bad distortions in sound as if something is interfering with the sound circuits or controller.
  4. To solve the sound issue, I had to install a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Z sound card. This highlights another issue. The PCIE slots (only two of them) are so close together that the SB Z half card masks the first fan on my RTX 3080. There is NO WAY I could install a new RTX 3090 that is a three slot design with anything in the second PCIE slot. The only way to to install a RTX 4090 would be to buy one with a AIO cooler that keeps the RTX board to a one or two slot size. Good luck on finding one of those in the next year.
The board itself, once it finally boots up, runs great...but the above issues make me regret buying it. I was looking on getting a MSI X670E Carbon but none to be had. To everyone upgrading, if you are planning and running a RTX 4090 then avoid this board. Hopefull rev 2.0 of this board will fix some of these early issues. I have always had ASROCK MB's in my builds but they dropped the ball on some design issues on this one.
Click to expand...


Have you tried to get the latest bios? It seems the Boot time thing is also on other brands, it's a AMD issue but I heard Asrock already tweaked their bios to address that.
 
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