Review ASRock Z690 Taichi Review: More M.2, Please

[Admin]

The ASRock Z690 Taichi has three M.2 sockets, 105A VRMs, a last-gen premium audio codec, 2.5 GbE and integrated Wi-Fi 6E, while carrying over the signature Taichi appearance. At $589.99, it’s a capable but pricey option to build your Z690 system around.

ASRock Z690 Taichi Review: More M.2, Please : Read more

 

[truerock]

I hate it when a reviewer downgrades a product for not having enough obsolete technology.
Thank god Joe Shields has finally decided he can live without floppy disk drives,
How many decades before he can give up his type-A/B USB devices?
In my opinion, if you need obsolete technology, use an obsolete PC.

 

[larkspur]

AGP cards are obsolete, floppies are obsolete. USB-A continues to be ubiquitous in the world of peripherals. I think only three m.2 slots is definitely a head-scratcher on a board of this class. I mean even a "cheapie" $220 MSI Pro Z690-A has four m.2 slots. This is a $589 board, for goodness sake!

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

I hate it when a reviewer downgrades a product for not having enough obsolete technology.
Thank god Joe Shields has finally decided he can live without floppy disk drives,
How many decades before he can give up his type-A/B USB devices?
In my opinion, if you need obsolete technology, use an obsolete PC.

The cons are not the only negative points, they're things to consider. For some people, six USB Type-A is limiting, and three M.2 might be as well. The biggest issue for me would be the price. For $580 a motherboard should be near perfection, and this isn't. Hence, 7/10 score.

 

[wifiburger]

and.... I would say not many will buy / have this board since DDR5 is nowhere to be found

 

[Co BIY]

What is the advantage of the Lightning gaming ports ? Is this primarily for VR ?

Seems like this is a major feature of a board that otherwise is overpriced.

Does it work? is their actually lower latency in competitive gaming ? Will it help me go pro?

Board/PSU only USB bios update seems like a nice feature but is that standard at this level ?

I think the easy replaceability/upgradability of the board cooling fan is an important feature to cover. I was concerned that an included fan was a point of failure but the fan is easily replaceable.

(Updated: After looking at this on the ARrock website I have two impressions:

1 - Game controller independence seems like a neat concept that is worth testing. They claim that mouse and keyboard inputs run on the same USB controller interfere with each other interrupting your gameplay. They separate the mouse and keyboard inputs sending the mouse through a USB controller and Keyboard through a separate PCIe controller eliminating the interference.

2 - The naming, marketing, and labeling of this feature is dishonest and probably intentionally misleading. It confuses "High-speed Thunderbolt USB" ports (40gbps) with this separated I/O controller technology "Lightning Gaming USB" ports in a way that confused me and I'm a fairly savvy consumer of motherboards. )

 

[basisunus]

I do some photo-video editing, graphics programming, and gaming on my home computer. I had specific requirements for a motherboard when the Z590 platform came around and I was considering an upgrade.
First, I want one x16 PCIE Gen4 slot for a graphics card.
Second, I need a x1 and a x4 slots for a sound card and a video capture card.
Third, I want two M.2 slots for Gen4 NVMe drives and configured to RAID0.
Fourth, I want a Thunderbolt port for testing external PCIE devices. This could be done via onboard connectors or an add-in card.
Furthermore, I want no PCIE lanes are shared among all above devices.
Other expectations include:
An Intel CPU with integrated GPU for UHD Bluray playback,
8x8 PCIE support for dual graphics card,
Wifi and Bluetooth,
Integrated IO shield for better ESD protection on a testbench-style case.
I skipped the Z590 platform because I didn't find a single motherboard that met the major requirements. For the Z690 platform, the Asrock Taichi is the only one that meets the requirements. I preordered it when the order was open. It's still on preorder. But I never looked at other boards. It seems it might take me a long time to finally finish the build because of the shortages.