Introduction

The wait is finally over. After CES, Computex, and finally E3, it seemed as if the hype for the new AMD Ryzen lineup had overwhelmed the whole industry. Now, it is finally time to see what lies beneath the hype. Was Ryzen 3000 worth the wait and is the new X570 chipset worth the cost? What has ASRock brought to the table with their latest installment in an award-winning line of motherboards with the ASRock X570 Taichi?

Unlike Intel, AMD has made a commitment to supporting the AM4 socket over multiple CPU generations. So far, the team in red has held to that promise, and the new Zen 2 processors are widely supported on older-generation motherboards. While this is great for consumers, it also creates more complexity as more choice inevitably must. Do you need a new X570 motherboard? Due to the cost of the new chipset, the new generation of boards are more expensive feature for feature than the last two generations. This is largely due to PCIe 4.0, a costly and complex feature to implement.

In the graphics department, no card on the market saturates even PCIe 3.0 yet, at least in the x16 configuration. The largest immediate benefit is with high-speed storage. NVMe drives in RAID configurations can and will take advantage of the extra bandwidth to push never before seen sequential read and write speeds. With the average game, even the switch from SATA to NVMe can be hard to notice, let alone an even faster and more expensive RAID array. This is more relevant for content creation and media production, where high-speed storage can save significant time and therefore money. This role is further bolstered by the near-HEDT core counts on the high-end Ryzen 3000 CPUs. Of course, graphics cards will eventually catch up as well, so for the discerning gamer who only upgrades every three to five years, the new standard could prove a good investment.

As for the ASRock X570 Taichi, it holds to the Taichi theme, but with a significant update to the implementation. The new look is modernized and features an even more premium build quality and feature set—from the newly integrated rear I/O shield to the metal backplate or intricate cog and gear motif. The ASRock X570 Taichi even features WiFi 6 support, offering the best wireless connectivity available. For power delivery, the ASRock X570 Taichi relies on a 14 phase VRM design, which should handle even the yet-to-release AMD Ryzen 3950X.

A great new style on a brand new chipset, the X570 Taichi has a lot going for it, but is the performance able to match the hype?

Specifications

Our exhaustive coverage of AMD's 7/7 Launch Day includes the following content:
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-core processor | AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-core processor | AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card | AMD Radeon RX 5700 graphics card | AMD Zen 2 Memory Performance Scaling | Ryzen 3900X and 3700 on X470 vs X570 platforms | Radeon RX 5700 XT Navi PCI-Express 4.0 Performance Scaling | ASRock X570 Taichi motherboard | ASUS Prime X570-Pro motherboard