ASRock Z690 Taichi Razer Edition (Intel 1700)

Uns hat im Test vor allem die tolle Verarbeitung, die vielen Designelemente und die pralle Ausstattung überzeugt. Da wird es fast schon nebensächlich, dass das Mainboard auch noch richtig gut OCen kann. Es gibt eigentlich nichts, was das Board nicht bietet. Wer also auf nichts verzichten möchte und das nötige Kleingeld hat, liegt bei dem Z690 Taichi genau richtig. Bei diesem Gesamtpaket können wir das ASRock Z690 Taichi Mainboard ohne Bedenken mit unserem OCinside.de Overclocking Dream Award 06/2022 auszeichnen.

The ASRock Z690 Taichi RAZER EDITION is basically an original Z690 Taichi motherboard, with RAZER Chroma RGB added. If you’re an enthusiast gamer who wants to integrate and sync all their RAZER gaming products, then the ASRock Z690 Taichi RAZER EDITION is the motherboard you want. It offers amazing performance and features as you would expect from a flagship Z690 Taichi motherboard from ASRock, and you get full support for RAZER’s Chroma RGB.

The ASRock Z690 Taichi is the greatest model from Asrock’s Z690 line. It contains an integrated I/O shield, superb RGB implementation (with three aRGB connectors and one RGB compatible), PCIe 5.0 compatibility, PCIe 4.0 NVMe disks support (you may install two of them, one PCIe 3.0 drive), and 7 SATA ports. The buttons for power/reset/clear CMOS can also come in handy when overclocking. You get a 2.5 Gbe Ethernet but no Wi-Fi compatibility. The looks are nice and should fit most of the builds. Asrock Z690 Taichi has a great power delivery with 20 phase VRM with 105A MOSFETs, giving 1995A. That should be enough even for the 12900K and most possibly also the upcoming new processors for socket 1700. The power delivery section is cooled with one 30 mm fan, but the VRMs would be cool even without its aid. You will get two Thunderbolt 4.0 ports – that’s a great addition. The audio performance is more than decent, but we expect fresher than ALC1220 (although it’s good that there’s an ESS SABRE9218 DAC for Front Panel Audio). Overall there are eight fan headers – so you shouldn’t be disappointed in that department (but the location of the CPU fans headers is rather odd). The price is steep (but that’s usually a norm for the DDR5 based Z690 motherboards). 589 USD is the high-end of the market, and the competition is very strong, like MSI Z690 Unify, Asus Maximus Z690 Hero, or Biostar Z690 Valkyrie. As for the things we didn’t like, there are only six “regular” USB ports (but on the other side, there are two Thunderbolt 4.0 ports that we mentioned above), which definitely cannot be enough for some. There are seven, not the usual eight SATA ports, but as the M.2 is usually a better option – it’s not a major issue. Speaking of the M.2 – you’ll find only three of them (other Z690 boards have four), with the last one being compatible only with PCIe 3.0 x2, not x4 like the standard. The ASRock Z690 Taichi performed a bit above average; the OC was at a good level for this CPU sample of Core i9 12900K, so overall, we can give an “Approved” award. Why not the “Recommended”? The ASRock Z690 Taichi is a very solid (especially due to the used VRM) option, but nothing that would stand out (besides Thunderbolt 4.0). It’s a bit too expensive for what it offers (ALC 1220, three M.2 slots, 6 USB Type-A ports), especially since it looks like a refresh of the Z590 Taichi. While the previous time was novel, this time was not, and we expected something more... perhaps a refresh or some innovation is advised.