Custom PC – October 2019

T

heX570Taichi’spricetaglandsin
themiddleofthepackthismonth,
adding£30tothepriceofthe
AsusROGStrixX570-EGaming,soit’sup
againstsomestiffcompetition.It looksgreat,
andit alsohasthefullrangeofPCI-E 4
support,spanningallthreeM.2ports
andallitsPCI-Eslots.
ThereareeightSATA6Gbpsportstoo,
makingtheTaichioneofthemoststorage
andbandwidth-focusedboardsontest,and
it willhappilyrunSATAandPCI-E3 SSDsin
thoseM.2slotstoo.TheASRockalsotakes
ontheAsusROGStrixX570-EGamingin
termsofoverclockingandtestingtools,
withtheTaichiincludingpowerandreset
buttons,a clear-CMOSbutton,anLEDPOST
codedisplayandUSBBIOSFlashback.
However,theASRock’schipsetfan
madea horriblewhiningdinatfirst,since
forsomereason,ASRocksetthefanprofile
toPerformancemodeinitslatestBIOS.
Switchingit toQuietmodeimprovedthisfan
noise,butit wasstilljustnoticeablewhen
thesystemwasidle– you’llhearit if the
restofyoursystemissuper-quiet.TheEFI
system(andASRock’ssoftware)isalsoa
bitbasiccomparedwiththecompetition,
withnotmuchbeyondthebareessentials.
AllthreeM.2slotssitundera large
heatsink,butthe62°Cloadtemperatureof
ourCorsairPCI-E4 SSDwasthesecond
warmestresultontest,likelyduetothe
lackoffinsontheheatsinkandthefactit
coolsallthreeslots,soit wasalsocooling
ourSamsung 970 EvowithourOSonit.The
largeheatsinkmeansyou’llneedtoremove
allyourPCI-Edevicesinordertoaccess
yourM.2SSDsaswell,whichisn’tideal.
Meanwhile,twolarge,heatpipe-equipped
heatsinks cool the 14-phase power delivery
system, and the VRMs seemed to hover
at 60°C under load at stock speed using
our IR laser probe, which is reasonable.

ASROCK X570

TAICHI/£335inc VAT

SUPPLIER scan.co.uk

Meanwhile, the rear I/O panel offers seven

Type-A USB ports, although only a pair of

USB 3.1 Gen ports. The board also lacks the

faster LAN ports of some boards on test too,

but it does at least include 802.11ax Wi-Fi.

In terms of performance, the X570 Taichi

performed well, with decent results across

our benchmarks and chart-topping numbers

in Far Cry 5 and the Cinebench R20 single-

threaded test too. We managed to overclock

our Ryzen 9 3900X to 4.3GHz on it with

a 1.425V vcore, which wasn’t the best on

test but equal to most of the other boards.

This overclock saw the system score rise

from 298,064 to 302,525, and while the

M.2 SSD was a little on the warm side, it still

posted read and write speeds of 4,981MB/

secand4,267MB/secrespectively.

Conclusion

TheX570Taichiis a decentX570

motherboard,buttheAsusROGStrix

X570-EGamingjustpipsit tothepost,thanks

toa quieterchipsetfan,similarfeatures

andperformance,anda lowerprice.

SPEC

Chipset AMD X570

CPU socket AMD Socket AM4 (Zen+, Zen 2)

Memory support 4 slots: max 128GB

DDR4 (up to 4666MHz)

Expansion slots Three 16x PCI-E 4, two 1x PCI-E 4

Sound 8-channel Realtek ALC1220

Networking Intel Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ax Wi-Fi

Overclocking Base clock 100-

200MHz, CPU multiplier 23-63x; max

voltages: CPU 1.6V, RAM 1.8V

Ports 8 x SATA 6Gbps 3 x M.2 PCI-E 4,

1 x USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C,

6 x USB 3, 3 x surround audio out

Dimensions (mm) 305 x 244

PERFORMANCE

33 / 35

VALUE

22 / 30

FEATURES

26 / 35

OVERALLSCORE

81 %

VERDICT

A solid effort, but there's a couple of niggles

and slightly cheaper alternatives.

MARTIALART

+ Solidperformance

+ Plentyofstorage

options

+ Attractive design

MARTIALLAW

• Noisychipsetfan


• M.2 SSDs hard^
  toaccess


• Sub-parEFI
  andsoftware