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

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.

In the middle of the board, we’ll start with the three PCIe slots. The top slots (primary graphics) both source their lanes from the CPU and run at PCIe 5.0 x16 if 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. If the bottom slot, PCIE3, is occupied, SATA ports 0-4 will be disabled, so you need to be careful populating the board with your hardware. For those considering a multi-GPU setup (whoever you are), this configuration supports AMD Crossfire, but NVIDIA SLI is not listed. 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.You get dual PCIe 5.0 x16 slots and support for up to 192GB of DDR5 at 7200MHz. The Wi-Fi card looks a bit unsightly, but that will be hidden underneath a graphics card, so it's not a concern. Supports two 4K displays or one 8K display* Only the CPU's embedded graphics can be displayed through Thunderbolt™ ports. If you want to display to a Thunderbolt™ monitor, please use CPU models with embedded graphics.

We default to our Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark for gaming, testing 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. Taichi scored 204 FPS at 1080p, 159 FPS at 1440p, and 92 FPS at 4K. Final Thoughts 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 almost 2 years, Intel have fallen behind AMD in terms of multi-core performance. But will the launch of their 13th Gen processors, plus the Z790 chipset turn things around? Anyway, now that both AMD and Intel have launched their next-gen platforms for 2022 … the real battle now begins for desktop dominance! Let’s go! Intel Z790 Chipset 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.

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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.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 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. 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.