# ASRock X570 Taichi



## Black Haru (Jul 7, 2019)

Finally, the wait is over. Ryzen 3000 has landed, and with it, brand new X570 motherboards. The ASRock X570 Taichi features updated looks, brand new WiFi 6 support, and a VRM that promises to tame even the most power-hungry Ryzen CPU.

*Show full review*


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## Bwaze (Jul 7, 2019)

Is the price really $370? Because Newegg sells them for $*299*.99...


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## Black Haru (Jul 7, 2019)

Bwaze said:


> Is the price really $370? Because Newegg sells them for $*299*.99...



I was not working with final prices. Thanks for catching that, I have updated the conclusion accordingly.


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## Endeavour (Jul 7, 2019)

Any info on how often does the chipset fan work and its noise levels?


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## Hades (Jul 7, 2019)

When talking about VRMs: it's not the ViGPU, it's SOC VRM, no?


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## Black Haru (Jul 7, 2019)

Endeavour said:


> Any info on how often does the chipset fan work and its noise levels?



The chipset fan is on full speed all the time by default. The only reason I know that though is because I sifted through the BIOS, the fan is very quiet. You can see the setting in the BIOS screenshot I used on the "Fan Control" page of the review. I don't have any way to measure exact noise levels, but unless you are running a very quiet system it will not be noticeable at all. 



Hades said:


> When talking about VRMs: it's not the ViGPU, it's SOC VRM, no?



Perhaps more accurately, yes. SOC VRM has significant duties besides powering the iGPU when present, however those are generally relatively low power draw. Thus, powering the iGPU is the criteria the SOC VRM are designed around.

I will update it in future reviews, as you are right it is SOC VRM.


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## Deleted member 158293 (Jul 7, 2019)

Definitely still my choice for $/perf x570 motherboard, even with all the additional choices this generation.  Good review overall, although I do not really agree with the cons.

My x470 Tai Chi is still doing amazing and should run a x3950 no problems, so maybe a x670 next Gen or later for me.  Nice to have choice!


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## lukart (Jul 7, 2019)

yakk said:


> Definitely still my choice for $/perf x570 motherboard, even with all the additional choices this generation.  Good review overall, although I do not really agree with the cons.
> 
> My x470 Tai Chi is still doing amazing and should run a x3950 no problems, so maybe a x670 next Gen or later for me.  Nice to have choice!



Same here, but the upgrading path is always exciting. Still looking to see other models tests, but I'm tempted in going Taichi again, this one never let me down.


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## bug (Jul 7, 2019)

I always tell people not to cheap out on the mobo (you know, the one component holding your every other quality components together), but $300 is a lot of $$$. And while the presence of WiFi6 is nice, I don't think it justifies the lack of dual LAN ports. Should I expect to pay even more for that feature?
Also, are owners of first gen Ryzen really screwed?


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## Joss (Jul 7, 2019)

The graphics card on the first pci-e 16 will totally cover the chipset fan grill.


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## EarthDog (Jul 7, 2019)

Joss said:


> The graphics card on the first pci-e 16 will totally cover the chipset fan grill.


If it was a fat daddy 3x wide cooler, it would cover half. A dual slot solution would leave it all exposed (top down).


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## Dristun (Jul 7, 2019)

Is the X570 Creator coming your way for a review? That one really piqued my interest because of onboard TB3 ports, which is by far the most exciting feature I'd love to have on a Ryzen rig (in advance of possible questions: _much _lower latencies on audio interfaces equipped with it than the usual usb-stuff and I'm into music production as a hobby)


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## Joss (Jul 7, 2019)

Another bummer is that you have to remove all that large cover to access the M.2 slots.


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## theonek (Jul 7, 2019)

Joss said:


> Another bummer is that you have to remove all that large cover to access the M.2 slots.


and when you have an nvme drive with his own heatsink.... nice!


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## Black Haru (Jul 7, 2019)

Dristun said:


> Is the X570 Creator coming your way for a review? That one really piqued my interest because of onboard TB3 ports, which is by far the most exciting feature I'd love to have on a Ryzen rig (in advance of possible questions: _much _lower latencies on audio interfaces equipped with it than the usual usb-stuff and I'm into music production as a hobby)



I don't know what else ASRock has lined up for me just yet.



Joss said:


> Another bummer is that you have to remove all that large cover to access the M.2 slots.



It's three screws instead of the normal two, not that big a deal. In fact, since you don't need a screw for the M.2 drive it's the same number of screws.


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## bug (Jul 7, 2019)

Black Haru said:


> It's three screws instead of the normal two, not that big a deal. In fact, since you don't need a screw for the M.2 drive it's the same number of screws.


Does the cover double as a heatsink? Because if it doesn't, your shiny M.2 drive will be sweating under there. And as pointed above, good lock putting the cover back if your drive already comes with a heatsink. Major design flaw if you ask me. Looking at a review using an Asus ROG, there's the same mistake over there, too.


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## Black Haru (Jul 7, 2019)

bug said:


> Does the cover double as a heatsink? Because if it doesn't, your shiny M.2 drive will be sweating under there. And as pointed above, good lock putting the cover back if your drive already comes with a heatsink. Major design flaw if you ask me. Looking at a review using an Asus ROG, there's the same mistake over there, too.



Yes, it is one massive piece of aluminum, and it is interfaced with the chipset (and chipset fan) via thermal pad. No M.2 drive that has a heatsink will work with any motherboard M.2 thermal solution. While I see your point, since you may not want a whole new drive with your new system, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. This solution will give you far greater thermal overhead than any individual heatsinks (even ones of the same size) so long as you are populating two slots or less.


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## bug (Jul 7, 2019)

Black Haru said:


> Yes, it is one massive piece of aluminum, and it is interfaced with the chipset (and chipset fan) via thermal pad.


I was asking whether the plate makes contact with the M.2 drives or not.


Black Haru said:


> No M.2 drive that has a heatsink will work with any motherboard M.2 thermal solution. *While I see your point, since you may not want a whole new drive with your new system, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.* This solution will give you far greater thermal overhead than any individual heatsinks (even ones of the same size) so long as you are populating two slots or less.


What? You lost me.


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## Black Haru (Jul 7, 2019)

bug said:


> I was asking whether the plate makes contact with the M.2 drives or not.
> 
> What? You lost me.



Yes, there are thermal pads for the M.2 drives on the heatsink.

The point I was going for was that because this is a single monolithic heatsink instead of three small ones, you gain access to the the entire mass and surface area of the heatsink even if you are only populating one or two drive slots.


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## bug (Jul 7, 2019)

Black Haru said:


> Yes, there are thermal pads for the M.2 drives on the heatsink.
> 
> The point I was going for was that because this is a single monolithic heatsink instead of three small ones, you gain access to the the entire mass and surface area of the heatsink even if you are only populating one or two drive slots.


Ok, that makes sense. Still a flawed design as far as I'm concerned.


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## kilis (Jul 8, 2019)

What about chipset fan running at almost 6000 rpm decided to fail after unpredictable time of usage ? Another tech website already complaining about noise of same mobo.


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## 0wl (Jul 8, 2019)

kilis said:


> What about chipset fan running at almost 6000 rpm decided to fail after unpredictable time of usage ? Another tech website already complaining about noise of same mobo.



Same here - could you please show which options for the chipset fan are available? Is this the one which is set to full speed? I can't imagine, that 6000rpm is quiet regarding a silent system. At least in idle there should be the possibility to lower the rpm...


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## Joss (Jul 8, 2019)

0wl said:


> I can't imagine, that 6000rpm is quiet regarding a silent system


That's laptop fan speed, irritating noise.


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## bug (Jul 8, 2019)

0wl said:


> Same here - could you please show which options for the chipset fan are available? Is this the one which is set to full speed? I can't imagine, that 6000rpm is quiet regarding a silent system. At least in idle there should be the possibility to lower the rpm...


Even if it's quiet today, at 6,000rpm it won't stay quiet for long.
And I really need to read these reviews more carefully, because I still haven't picked up on _why_ does a southbridge need a fan in 2019.


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## Black Haru (Jul 8, 2019)

bug said:


> Even if it's quiet today, at 6,000rpm it won't stay quiet for long.
> And I really need to read these reviews more carefully, because I still haven't picked up on _why_ does a southbridge need a fan in 2019.



The X570 chipset uses more than double the power of previous generations, and from my understanding it pulls that power pretty much continously. That is why fans made a comeback. 

In fact I typically saw some of the highest temps on the chipset while in the BIOS, on both boards I have tested so far.


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## EarthDog (Jul 8, 2019)

Black Haru said:


> and from my understanding it pulls that power pretty much continously.


Hmm... I recall hearing bits on the web that these only would spin up when using PCIe4 devices or using the chipset set heavily (many devices, lots of IO)?

Apologies if it is mentioned in the review (did not read them yet), but what was the fan behavior on this board? The other?

The BIOS just sits there without power savings and almost comes off like it has a slight load on it.


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## bug (Jul 8, 2019)

Black Haru said:


> The X570 chipset uses more than double the power of previous generations, and from my understanding it pulls that power pretty much continously. That is why fans made a comeback.
> 
> In fact I typically saw some of the highest temps on the chipset while in the BIOS, on both boards I have tested so far.


Obviously they didn't put the fan there because the chipset was running cool 
The question is why does it need to draw that much power.


EarthDog said:


> Hmm... I recall hearing bits on the web that these only would spin up when using PCIe4 devices or using the chipset set heavily (many devices, lots of IO)?
> 
> Apologies if it is mentioned in the review (did not read them yet), but what was the fan behavior on this board? The other?
> 
> The BIOS just sits there without power savings and almost comes off like it has a slight load on it.


Aren't some of the PCIe 4.0 links used to communicate with the CPU? That would means they always in use as long as you use a Zen2 CPU.


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## EarthDog (Jul 8, 2019)

bug said:


> Aren't some of the PCIe 4.0 links used to communicate with the CPU? That would means they always in use as long as you use a Zen2 CPU.


Edited: Yes. 

But with Intel, simply using the DMI (yes, its PCIe3) doesn't seem to cause the chipset to heat up. I am swimming out of my lane here, but I don't know why that would be different on that particular communication line (from chipset to CPU).


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## Black Haru (Jul 8, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> Hmm... I recall hearing bits on the web that these only would spin up when using PCIe4 devices or using the chipset set heavily (many devices, lots of IO)?
> 
> Apologies if it is mentioned in the review (did not read them yet), but what was the fan behavior on this board? The other?
> 
> The BIOS just sits there without power savings and almost comes off like it has a slight load on it.



The fan runs full speed by default on the current BIOS.


bug said:


> Obviously they didn't put the fan there because the chipset was running cool
> The question is why does it need to draw that much power.
> 
> Aren't some of the PCIe 4.0 links used to communicate with the CPU? That would means they always in use as long as you use a Zen2 CPU.



PCIe 4.0 uses way more power.


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## EarthDog (Jul 8, 2019)

Black Haru said:


> The fan runs full speed by default on the current BIOS.


Oof...

Even at idle it can't be passive? Yikes. I should get my boards in for testing this week... hopefully some have a 'zero fan' capability.


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## kilis (Jul 8, 2019)

MSI has cheap model X-570 A PRO with chipset fan stopping below certain temperature (they did not mentioned at which temp) with user selectable fan speed-temp curve.
Any chance Techpowerup reviewing their new mobos to see how they are dealing with this issue ?


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## Black Haru (Jul 8, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> Oof...
> 
> Even at idle it can't be passive? Yikes. I should get my boards in for testing this week... hopefully some have a 'zero fan' capability.



It can be adjusted, but I always test at default. I didn't mess with the settings too much because I couldn't hear the fan over the ambient system noise (its not a quiet bench), and the GPU obscures it so I can't see it either.

I should have tested the Taichi with the fan off, it has enough mass that it might be ok, so long as the M.2 drive isn't heavily loaded. The ASUS Prime X570-Pro absolutely needs the fan, the heatsink is relatively small.


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## bug (Jul 8, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> Edited: Yes.
> 
> But with Intel, simply using the DMI (yes, its PCIe3) doesn't seem to cause the chipset to heat up. I am swimming out of my lane here, but I don't know why that would be different on that particular communication line (from chipset to CPU).


Eh, even AMD's own X470 or X370 didn't need half that power for PCIe 3.0.
And it's not like PCIe 4.0 uses more current or voltage, because it's backwards compatible. Oh well...


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## Black Haru (Jul 8, 2019)

bug said:


> Eh, even AMD's own X470 or X370 didn't need half that power for PCIe 3.0.
> And it's not like PCIe 4.0 uses more current or voltage, because it's backwards compatible. Oh well...



My understanding is that maintaining signal integrity for 4.0 requires more power.


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## Dristun (Jul 8, 2019)

To be honest, even if it's tdp is 25W (I remember people saying here that it's around 15?), I don't see how that can't be cooled passively with a copper finstack, maybe connected with heatpipes to another somewhere else on the board. 
I mean, intel x48 was at *30W *and I don't recall any motherboards having coolers. Yes, there's the issue of long GPUs conflicting with a big radiator but maybe some creative positioning could do away with that one too.


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## iamnoobtroll266 (Jul 8, 2019)

Is the audio output from this motherboard up to par with the likes of the crosshair hero and gigabyte's higher end boards? 

Also, regarding the fan, how loud is at 50% fan speed (I've heard that's the lowest it goes)?


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## bug (Jul 8, 2019)

Dristun said:


> To be honest, even if it's tdp is 25W (I remember people saying here that it's around 15?), I don't see how that can't be cooled passively with a copper finstack, maybe connected with heatpipes to another somewhere else on the board.
> I mean, intel x48 was at *30W *and I don't recall any motherboards having coolers. Yes, there's the issue of long GPUs conflicting with a big radiator but maybe some creative positioning could do away with that one too.


Apparently there are two X570 versions: a 15W and a 11W one. But get this, the 15W is reserved more for workstations because it sports more PCIe lanes.


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## EarthDog (Jul 8, 2019)

iamnoobtroll266 said:


> Is the audio output from this motherboard up to par with the likes of the crosshair hero and gigabyte's higher end boards?
> 
> Also, regarding the fan, how loud is at 50% fan speed (I've heard that's the lowest it goes)?


Look up the specs and compare.


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## iamnoobtroll266 (Jul 8, 2019)

I only see NE5532 amp for the front panel connector on their website, can't find any other info about it other than it's ALC1220


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## EarthDog (Jul 8, 2019)

iamnoobtroll266 said:


> I only see NE5532 amp for the front panel connector on their website, can't find any other info about it other than it's ALC1220


What more are you looking for? Are you an audio guy that needs to dig into the minutia of SnR etc?

ALC1220 is one of the high end audio chips on motherboards.


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## iamnoobtroll266 (Jul 8, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> What more are you looking for? Are you an audio guy that needs to dig into the minutia of SnR etc?
> 
> ALC1220 is one of the high end audio chips on motherboards.



No not an audio guy, i've used 2 motherboards that both sport the ALC1220 codec, however one of them had a much better amp/dac combo than the other, and there's a sizeable difference (Z270mx-gaming-5 & Z370 gaming 7). Before I pull the trigger on a motherboard, I just want to make sure the audio part is up to par, nothing worse then buying a high-end mobo and getting short-changed.
Suppose I should wait longer for more reviews to come out and then decide.


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## EarthDog (Jul 8, 2019)

The specifications page and/or features typically have sections which go into detail on the respective audio bits... I would try looking at the website of the boards you are looking at and see.

Id imagine the crosshair uses the tweaked ALC1220 (Supreme FX 1220) and it will list the DAC, etc.

EDIT: I went to the board's page and there is the info. Not all pages will be like this, but its a good starting point.


> ROG's SupremeFX audio technology has levelled up, delivering an exceptional 113dB signal-to-noise ratio on the line-in connection to provide best-ever recording quality. We've also added a low-dropout regulator for cleaner power delivery to the SupremeFX S1220 codec, an ESS® ES9023P digital-to-analog converter for superior front-panel output, and a Texas Instruments® RC4580 op amp for high gain with low distortion


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