ASRock Z390 Taichi Motherboard Review

Overclocking

Disclaimer: Overclocking is never guaranteed, so the results may vary depending on certain conditions and various hardware configurations. I am not recommending overclocking if you do not know what are you doing. High voltages may damage hardware and it will not be covered by warranty.

Believe it or not, overclocking our Core i7-8700K was a piece of cake. All I had to do was set “All Core” to 50 and up the CPU voltage to 1.45v … and voila! 5GHz here I come!

At this speed, temperatures can get extremely hot. During idling, we got a temperature of around 65 degrees Celsius. I highly recommend a large AIO liquid cooling solution.

Verdict and Conclusion

What can I say? Well, the ASRock Z390 Taichi is a well balanced motherboard that offers very good performance, great stability and excellent features. It produced very good scores in all of our benchmark tests and compares very well against its predecessor, the Z370. Is it a Z370 beater? Well, it’s a yes and a no. It does offer marginal gains over the Z370, but not significantly. I think of it as updated version of the Z370 that can support Intel’s 9th gen processor. If you pair the Z390 with an Intel Core i9-9900K (8 core/16 thread with 16Mb cache), then we’re talking business! I haven’t tried pairing the Intel Core i9-9900K with a Z370 motherboard … mmmm, maybe that’s something I’ll do when I have more spare time.

Performance aside, the ASRock Z390 Taichi like many of their Taichi range of motherboards is insanely feature-rich. These include, a 12 Power Phase design, Dual Intel^® Gigabit LAN, Intel^® 802.11ac WiFi + BT 4.2, Hyper BCLK Engine II, 8 SATA3, 3 Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4 & SATA3), 5 USB 3.1 Gen2 (1 Front Type-C, 1 Rear Type-C, 3 Rear Type-A), 8 USB 3.1 Gen1 (4 Front, 4 Rear) and 3 PCIe 3.0 x16, 2 PCIe 3.0 x1 slots.

I particularly like the heat shield for M.2 PCIE Gen3x4 SSDs and PCI steel slots, as well as the dual gigabit LAN and dual AC wifi.

What’s more, it also supports memory up to DDR4 4200+(OC), multi-GPU configuration including NVIDIA^® Quad SLI™, AMD 3-Way CrossFireX™, Purity Sound™ 4 & DTS Connect, 7.1 CH HD Audio (Realtek ALC1220 Audio Codec), ASRock Polychrome SYNC, HDMI and DisplayPort.

For overclocking, the ASRock Z390 Taichi didn’t disappoint neither. It’s not only super easy, but also very stable. I was able to overclock our Core i7-8700K to a whopping 5GHz just by increasing the CPU ratio to 50 and upping the voltage to 1.45v. Of course a large AIO liquid cooler is highly recommended.

What I’ve notice in recent few years, is that hardcore overclockers have been choosing ASRock motherboards over others … why? Well, I’m guessing ASRock is really upping their game in terms of producing high-quality motherboards designed not only for gaming or performance, but also for extreme overclocking.

You can buy the ASRock Z390 Taichi motherboard from Amazon for around USD $250 – https://amzn.to/2ENfuVL. At this price, it’s a “MUST HAVE” … that’s if you’re in to overclocking or just want a motherboard that offers great stability and performance.

Pros:

Supports both 8th and 9th gen Intel Core processors
Very Good performance
Excellent overclocking ability
Extremely stable
USB 3.1 Gen 2 (Type-A and Type-C)
Tons of features
Polychrome Sync
Purity Sound 4
PCI steel slots
M.2 heat shield

Cons:

None I can think of

Final words

If you’re planning to purchase Intel’s latest 9th gen Core processor, and you want to get the best out of our processor, then I recommend you consider the ASRock Z390 Taichi motherboard. Not only does it offer very good performance, great stability and tons of features, but also gives you excellent overclocking ability. You won’t find a better motherboard at that price range.

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