The ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate Motherboard Review: Aquantia 10GbE on Ryzen
by Gavin Bonshor on August 2, 2018 9:00 AM ESTBoard Features
The X470 Taichi Ultimate is the new flagship board from ASRock with premium features such as a 10 Gigabit Aquantia AQC107 LAN port, an integrated Intel-based 802.11ac Wi-Fi module and a Texas Instruments NE5532 headphone amplifier for the front panel complimenting the Realtek ALC 1220 7.1 channel HD audio codec. While the Taichi Ultimate incorporates two M.2 slots, only the top and primary slot has NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 support, while the secondary slot only supports PCIe 2.0 x4. A total of three full-length PCIe slots are featured with the top two operating at PCIe 3.0 x16 or x8/x8, featuring steel armor reinforcements on the slots, and the bottom slot operates at PCIe 2.0 x4 which shares bandwidth with the secondary M.2 slot so when an SSD is installed in that M.2 slot, the full-length slot is disabled.
ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate ATX Motherboard | |||
Warranty Period | 3 Years | ||
Product Page | Link | ||
Price | $300 | ||
Size | ATX | ||
CPU Interface | AM4 | ||
Chipset | AMD X470 | ||
Memory Slots (DDR4) | Four DDR4 Supporting 64GB Dual Channel Up to DDR4-3466+ |
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Video Outputs | 1 x HDMI 1.4b | ||
Network Connectivity | Aquantia AQC107 10GbE LAN Intel I211-AT Gigabit LAN Intel 802.11ac Wi-Fi |
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Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC1220 | ||
PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 | ||
PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH) | 1 x PCIe 2.0 x4 2 x PCIe 2.0 x1 |
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Onboard SATA | Six, RAID 0/1/10 Two, ASMedia Controller |
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Onboard M.2 | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA 1 x PCIe 2.0 x4/SATA |
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USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) | 1 x Type-A Rear Panel 1 x Type-C Rear Panel 1 x Type-C Front Panel |
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USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) | 6 x Type-A Rear Panel 2 x Header (four ports) |
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USB 2.0 | 2 x Header (four ports) | ||
Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin ATX 1 x 8pin CPU 1 x 4pin CPU |
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Fan Headers | 1 x CPU (4-pin) 1 x CPU/Water Pump (4-pin) 3 x System (4-pin) 1 x AMD Fan LED Header |
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IO Panel | 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A 6 x USB 3.0 Type-A 1 x Network RJ45 (AQUANTIA 10G) 1 x Network RJ-45 (Intel I211-AT) 1 x HDMI 1.4b 1 x Combo PS/2 6 x 3.5mm Audio Jacks (Realtek) 1 x S/PDIF Output (Realtek) 1 x Clear CMOS button 2 x Antenna Ports |
For an expensive $300 AM4 motherboard aiming to satisfy enthusiasts and hardcore gamers, something that's a little disappointing is the board only hosts a total of five 4-pin fan headers (including CPU). While it's impossible to fit everything onto a PCB, ASRock could have supplied an external fan hub, but enthusiast system builders will most likely use fan splitters anyway. Even in regards to onboard graphics capabilities, the X470 Taichi Ultimate has a single HDMI 1.4b port which screams mediocre, even if users looking at this board most probably wouldn't be using an APU.
Test Bed
As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
Test Setup | |||
Processor | AMD Ryzen 7 1700, 65W, $300, 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) |
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Motherboard | ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate (BIOS 1.10) | ||
Cooling | Thermaltake Floe Riing RGB 360 | ||
Power Supply | Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W Gold PSU | ||
Memory | 2x16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2400 | ||
Video Card | ASUS GTX 980 STRIX (1178/1279 Boost) | ||
Hard Drive | Crucial MX300 1TB | ||
Case | Open Test Bed | ||
Operating System | Windows 10 Pro |
Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.
Many thanks to...
Thank you to ASUS for providing us with GTX 980 Strix GPUs. At the time of release, the STRIX brand from ASUS was aimed at silent running, or to use the marketing term: '0dB Silent Gaming'. This enables the card to disable the fans when the GPU is dealing with low loads well within temperature specifications. These cards equip the GTX 980 silicon with ASUS' Direct CU II cooler and 10-phase digital VRMs, aimed at high-efficiency conversion. Along with the card, ASUS bundles GPU Tweak software for overclocking and streaming assistance.
The GTX 980 uses NVIDIA's GM204 silicon die, built upon their Maxwell architecture. This die is 5.2 billion transistors for a die size of 298 mm2, built on TMSC's 28nm process. A GTX 980 uses the full GM204 core, with 2048 CUDA Cores and 64 ROPs with a 256-bit memory bus to GDDR5. The official power rating for the GTX 980 is 165W.
The ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB (or the full name of STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC-4GD5) runs a reasonable overclock over a reference GTX 980 card, with frequencies in the range of 1178-1279 MHz. The memory runs at stock, in this case 7010 MHz. Video outputs include three DisplayPort connectors, one HDMI 2.0 connector and a DVI-I.
Further Reading: AnandTech's NVIDIA GTX 980 Review
Thank you to Crucial for providing us with MX200/MX300 SSDs. Crucial stepped up to the plate as our benchmark list grows larger with newer benchmarks and titles, and the 1TB units are strong performers. The MX200s are based on Marvell's 88SS9189 controller and using Micron's 16nm 128Gbit MLC flash, these are 7mm high, 2.5-inch drives rated for 100K random read IOPs and 555/500 MB/s sequential read and write speeds. The 1TB models we are using here support TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE-1667 (eDrive) encryption and have a 320TB rated endurance with a three-year warranty.
Further Reading: AnandTech's Crucial MX200 (250 GB, 500 GB & 1TB) Review
Thank you to Corsair for providing us with Vengeance LPX DDR4 Memory
Corsair kindly sent a set of their Vengeance LPX low profile, high-performance memory. The heatsink is made of pure aluminum to help remove heat from the sticks and has an eight-layer PCB. The heatsink is a low profile design to help fit in spaces where there may not be room for a tall heat spreader; think a SFF case or using a large heatsink.
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crotach - Friday, August 3, 2018 - link
I wonder why B350 and X370 perform so much better than the new chipset, the differences are quite substantial. Even power draw is lower, and the X370 chipset draws more power than X470!It must be all those christmas lights on the board :)
virpuain@gmail.com - Friday, August 3, 2018 - link
A beautiful piece of hardware with the worst bios support. AsRock bios support is garbage, two months ago that board was in really bad shape because of that, the X370 Taichi they have yet to released a decent bios supporting 12 nm CPUs, and there are still a crapload of issues with 14 nm cpus with that bios.Just check asrock own forums and the Taichi thread on OCN.
WasHopingForAnHonestReview - Friday, August 3, 2018 - link
My goodness. Im not sure if this comment section is all trolls or just self hating types, but wow is it annoying to read you girls cry about typos or grammar mistakes.PeachNCream - Friday, August 3, 2018 - link
It's annoying to read someone call people girls as if referring to us as female is an insult while at the same time not knowing our genders.WasHopingForAnHonestReview - Friday, August 3, 2018 - link
ExactlyTchamber - Friday, August 3, 2018 - link
You mention that none of these boards are optimized for DPC latency, yet they best most every Intel board you've listed. What kind of latency is noticeable? The last time I noticed it was in my OLD Core 2 Quad laptop.https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph12706/dpc...
Wolfclaw - Saturday, August 4, 2018 - link
Drop the wifi and put in a couple oi USB2's for older stuff and a thunderbolt.atomicparticle - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Their hardware might be good but their bios team is just really B A D.FIY they can't even have a fix the basics like a proper "SAVE PROFILE" function that can actually save things on their now more than one year old X370 Taichi. The same board that still uses hexadecimal numbers for memory timings. The same board that doesn't have a functional clockgenerator. The same board have memory badwidth losses up to 20% if manual overclocking is in use.
I understand every company is limited on resources but AsRock is just REALLY BAD at supporting their boards.
What is worth a great motherboard with a crap bios ? AVOID ASROCK
http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=8668&a...
https://www.overclock.net/forum/27481658-post3765....
Dug - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
And the things you listed should be tested under a motherboard review.atomicparticle - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link
I was flaming them with a copypasta in their products so they would hear us because they have been ignoring us for months. Now they seem to be fixing their BIOS so there has been some progress with their bios support, if they keep it Ill stop flaming and even praise them in the future.