X370 Motherboards - Asrock Taichi vs. Gigabyte Aorus

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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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Does anyone have any differing opinions between the two? I am interested in upgrading to Ryzen and want to pull the trigger on one of these motherboards but am having a very hard time deciding which one to get.
 
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Chugalug_
At the point where you're considering the 1600X, i'd say the 1700 is a much better deal, typically only retails for 50-60 more and gets you quite a bit more performance.
Last I saw it was going for $295, probably worth it in the long run, especially considering you don't need to buy a cooler, which brings the gap to something like 30 bucks.
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Chugalug_

Chugalug_

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The Taichi is a better board in terms of features imo, I'd rather have dual M.2 slots personally.
I presume you're talking about the X370 Gaming 5?
Both have the same sound chip; the Realtek ALC 1220, although the Gigabyte mentions in specs it has TWO of them, which is a little baffling tbh, i'm not sure if that would offer much improvement if any, never seen it before on a board.

The Gaming 5 has a 10 phase power design while the Taichi has 16, and both support up to 3200MHz RAM.
The Taichi also has .ac wifi on board as well as BT 4.2 which is a bonus, and makes use of Nichicon caps which is a tick in my book. If you have an S8 I believe this allows for bluetooth connectivity to your system, allowing you to get texts, updates and notifications in Windows which is pretty cool.
The Asrock has 1x Type A 1x Type C USB ports while the Gaming 5 has the same.
The Gigabyte's other rear USB ports are a total of eight other 3.0 USB connectors, two of which are 2.0, four of which are 3.0, and another two of which are 3.1, while the AsRock holds 6 rear USB 3.0 ports in addition to the type C and 3.1 Type A connection.

Both are equally fantastic, if you feel you'd use all of the rear I/O effectively, i'd get the Gigabyte, otherwise the AsRock seems like a better choice to me due to that M.2 storage.

Both boards then have 2x 3.0 and 2x 2.0 internal headers, so no diff there.
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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I didn't think about having dual M2 slots but now that you mention it, the Asrock definitely looks like the more appealing board.
 
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Chugalug_

Chugalug_

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Yeah, both are great choices, and given they're almost identical in price at $189 and $193 for the Gigabyte and AsRock respectively, I'd definitely go for the latter.
Although if you do heavy external drive transfer between your PC and smart TV for media, the extra 3.1 ports could be utilized, but it's a bit silly to sacrifice dual M.2 just to hook up more drives at once. :)
 
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Ditt44

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I've slobbered all over these forums about the Taichi, so I'll do it one more time.... Yes, the Taichi is a very impressive board and in my opinion, the best all-around choice available at this time. It may have fewer I/O USB compared to some, but overall you cannot get a better board. Reviews will tell you a lot. And the dual M.2 locations are perfect.

I went with the 1600x and run it at stock although I did get it to 3.95 on stock voltage but reset it after a short run. 16GB of Flare-X RAM was at 3200 with one bios tweak. I put a Samsung 960 Evo 500 m.2 in it for my OS/main apps and it's fast. The cooler I'm using is an old but solid Zalman 92mm radial design that keeps temps in the 40s most of the time under load...never over 52C yet. All of that plus an SSD and HDD in a white Corsair 760T.

The board looks great, has smooth, clean lines, is solid and hefty and just works exceptionally well. The sound quality is very impressive as guys on teamspeak sound like they're in the room with me. I do not think you can do better in an overall choice.
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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OK that's really good to know. I had also considered the MSI XPower Titanium because it was on sale at Newegg this week but I think I'll order the Taichi now. The Taichi with a 1600X is sounding like the best option for me currently.
 
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Ditt44

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I liked the look of the MSI when announced, but the more I read, researched and thought about it, the less I liked it. On paper, it reads great but in practice, not so much. The 'm.2 heat shield' is a wreck of an idea and I don't get why any maker would put the m.2 under a GPU. Silly. You'll love your choices.
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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Yeah I always thought that seemed like kind of a gimmick, like it wouldn't actually do anything to disperse heat from an M2 drive. I do plan to get an M2 drive as an eventual upgrade to this PC. My goal is I want to have one Intel rig and one AMD rig. Though since the Taichi is also on sale right now, I might splurge and get the R7-1700 as opposed to the R5-1600X.
 
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Ditt44

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Whatever your budget will allow. But get fast RAM. I think the Flare-X will OC easily to 3600, if that's a thing for you. I think it's worth the extra money. The m.2 is nice but honestly, I would have been fine with the SSD I brought over from my prior build. (The OS is still on that one but it's due to be wiped soon).

BTW... IF you are a win7 user, I got it installed and running just perfectly on the Taichi as ASRock does have drivers. Download the "Allin1" or whatever it's called to a USB and you're good to go. I put the newest bios on the stick as well, 2.20 and have not upgraded as I'm stable. Probably will upgrade later though to squeeze out more benefits. But, win7 is perfectly happy on the m.2 with this board. Was an amazingly easy build. I spent more time on running cables than everything else combined.
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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Yeah I plan on reusing most of my existing components from my current build - CPU cooler, HD(s), SSD, case, PSU, and I'll reuse my GPU right now because of how crazy the GPU market is thanks to Ethereum. I have a Noctua D14 so I will need to get the mounting kit for it. As for RAM, I have an extra set of G Skill Trident Z that I pulled from my other rig (it's DDR4-3200 at 1.2V) so I will use that until I can get another set of RAM. I think I am going to get some form of Trident Z or Corsair Vengeance.

All of my rigs run Windows 10CU so I'm caught up there, but that is good to know!
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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I wound up buying the Taichi. Now I'm deciding which CPU to get. But it will be a couple of weeks before I get it. I'm leaning toward the 1600X, but if I can find a good deal on the 1700 I may go for that.
 
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Chugalug_

Chugalug_

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At the point where you're considering the 1600X, i'd say the 1700 is a much better deal, typically only retails for 50-60 more and gets you quite a bit more performance.
Last I saw it was going for $295, probably worth it in the long run, especially considering you don't need to buy a cooler, which brings the gap to something like 30 bucks.
 
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