ASRock Plans Five New X670 and X670E Motherboards

ASRock X670E Taichi Carrara
(Image credit: ASRock)

ASRock has revealed five upcoming X670 and X670E motherboards on its main site, including the X670E Taichi Carrara, Taichi, Steel Legend, Pro RS, and the X670 PG Lightning. All five boards will serve as ASRock's introduction into the AM5 platform and are designed to run AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7000 series processors.

The newest entry in ASRock's lineup is the X670E Taichi Carrara. This board appears to be nothing more than an outfit change over the vanilla X670E Taichi, with general specifications being identical between the two motherboards. The Carrara sub-variant features a rather extravagant looking white marble top spread out over the entire bottom and rear I/O section of the motherboard. This design is accompanied by a matte black finish in the top and top-right sections of the motherboard, paired with a line of RGB LEDs to the bottom right.

This design is a huge departure from the Taichi aesthetic we're used to seeing. If you didn't see the board's name at all, you would think it's an entirely different motherboard model from ASRock.

ASRock X670E Taichi

(Image credit: ASRock)

The standard X670E Taichi sticks to its roots and takes design queues from all of ASRock's previous Taichi models. However, unlike previous designs, the X670E Taichi is the most mature-looking design with the least amount of bling and graphics ever on a Taichi board. The board is doused in a pure black finish from top to bottom, featuring both matte black and glossy black finishes. To keep the board true to its predecessors, it features gold and silver accents all around the board's edges and features gear-like icons on the chipset cooler and rear I/O panel.

Both the Taichi and Taichi Carrara boards feature identical core specifications, including an X670E chipset, dual PCIe x16 5.0 slots (one with 8 lanes), and a beefy 26 Phase SPS power delivery system being the primary key points.

I/O connectivity includes a plethora of ports, with two USB Type-C ports that serve as either Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 connectors, a single front USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C port, five rear USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, and seven USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports with four of those designed for front I/O.

Audio comes in the form of a Realtek ALC4082 audio codec, assisted by an ESS Sabre 9218 DAC. Internet connectivity comes in the form of a killer E3100G 2.5Gbps ethernet port and a Killer AX1675X Wi-Fi 6E wireless module.

Storage solutions are extensive, including a single M.2 Gen5 slot, dual M.2 PCIe Gen4 slots, and a single M.2 slot that can run either PCIe Gen 4 or SATA 6Gbps based SSDs, for a total of four M.2 slots. On top of this, both boards also feature eight SATA connectors for standard SATA-based hard drives and SSDs.

For now, it appears the Taichi and Taichi Carrara will both serve as ASRock's flagship motherboards on the AM5 platform with the only differences being aesthetics, though it's possible ASRock will position the Carrara at an even higher price point.

X670E Steel Legend

The next motherboard on the list is the X670E Steel Legend. Not much is known about this board, but it should be one of ASRock's cheapest gaming motherboards packing the X670E chipset if it serves the same role as the previous generation X570 Steel Legend.

Unfortunately, ASRock has only listed a few general specifications and no listing image to speak of, so we have no idea what this board looks like. According to the product page, it will be a substantial downgrade compared to its Taichi counterparts.

Specs for the Steel Legend include a single PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, with Realtek ALC 1220 audio codec paired to Nahimic Audio software. M.2 storage comes in the form of a single PCIe Gen5 slot, and all that's known about the USB ports is that there will be USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C connectivity. Finally, network connectivity consists of a Dragon 2.5Gbps LAN port and an unknown Wi-Fi 6E module.

We should know more details once ASRock gets around to finishing the product pages of all its AM5 motherboards.

X670E Pro RS

ASRock X670E Pro RS

(Image credit: ASRock)

The final X670E chipset motherboard in ASRock's lineup is the X670E Pro RS, which is ASRock's first AM5 motherboard aimed at professional users. Thankfully we have a product image to reference, however specs again are very vague.

The most interesting feature about the X670E Pro RS is its PCIe slot setup. The board forgoes the addition of a secondary x16 slot entirely, giving users only a single primary x16 5.0 slot to play with. The only other PCIe slots on the board are a pair of x1 slots for small add-in cards. We believe ASRock made this change to save cost, since PCIe 5.0 is very expensive to implement on a motherboard with its extremely high bandwidth requirements.

On the flip side, ASRock is able to use the additional room to give users two more M.2 slots covered by a very long M.2 heatsink. That gives the board a total of five M.2 slots, plus a sixth if you count the M.2 WiFi slot.

Aesthetically the board features the same color scheme as ASRock's older Pro SKUs with a black and grey finish. Overall, it fits the design language of a professional mainboard of being stealthy and fitting into the environment with its color-neutral tone.

General specifications are largely the same as the Steel Legend with a Dragon 2.5Gbps LAN port, and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C connectivity. The only note-worthy change is the use of the rather outdated ALC897 Realtek Audio codec.

X670 PG Lightning

Last but not least is ASRock's only currently announced X670 motherboard called the X670 PG Lighting. Unfortunately, ASRock has again neglected to include a product image like the Steel Legend, so we don't know what the board will look like. The current spec sheet is even vaguer than the previous product pages of the other AM5 motherboards.

All we know is the board will feature HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, an ALC 897 audio codec, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C connectivity, and a Dragon 2.5Gbps network port. That's it.

However, we can make some assumptions based on previous PG (Phantom Gaming) models about where this board will lie in ASRock's lineup. PG has traditionally been ASRock's midrange gaming motherboard lineup, with slightly better features and power delivery systems than the Steel Legend series, and slightly fewer features than the Taichi motherboards. We expect the X670 PG Lighting to fill in that same role on the AM5 platform.

ASRock has always had a higher tier PG motherboard as well, with either a flagship AMD or Intel chipset, so we should expect ASRock to come up with an X670E variant of the Lighting sometime in the future.

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • TheJoker2020
    Error spotted, the X670E Pro RS has 5x nVME drives for Storage, plus the WiFi M2 slot.!
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    I still wonder why AMD went with X670 and X670E instead of X670 and X690...
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    TheJoker2020 said:
    Error spotted, the X670E Pro RS has 5x nVME drives for Storage, plus the WiFi M2 slot.!
    Fixed.
    Reply
  • Lilykit
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    I still wonder why AMD went with X670 and X670E instead of X670 and X690...
    Because it's the same chipset. X670 and X670E motherboard both use the same chips. The E is just amd certified Tag that denotes that the board has 2 full size gen 5 pcie , a 4x pcie gen 5 and some level of overlooking worthy power delivery circuit ( whatever that means. I don't think amd stated how many phases and what wattage per phase ).
    Reply
  • KananX
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    I still wonder why AMD went with X670 and X670E instead of X670 and X690...
    Valid point, they should’ve done that. And numbers can mean anything btw, the important thing is to make it have a different name.
    Reply
  • xstrike9999
    How is the 7-channel audio on the X670E motherboards only being done with two audio jacks? I just see one mic input jack and one output jack
    Reply
  • kerberos_20
    xstrike9999 said:
    How is the 7-channel audio on the X670E motherboards only being done with two audio jacks? I just see one mic input jack and one output jack
    you gonna use two jacks at front + two jacks at back
    Reply
  • xstrike9999
    kerberos_20 said:
    you gonna use two jacks at front + two jacks at back

    That doesn't make sense. Motherboards have had three output jacks on the back for 5.1/7.1 speakers for as long as I remember. So we're supposed to connect two speaker wires to the front of the case!?

    Did a bit of searching and found out that Gigabyte did this non-standard audio BS with 12th Gen Intel boards too. Now AsRock is joining the mix. These are $400, probably $500+ boards. The least they could do is add proper audio capabilities. Sigh,
    Reply
  • kerberos_20
    xstrike9999 said:
    That doesn't make sense. Motherboards have had three output jacks on the back for 5.1/7.1 speakers for as long as I remember. So we're supposed to connect two speaker wires to the front of the case!?
    three ouput jacks is 5.1 only, for 7.1 you had to use one front panel connector...so nothing new really
    Reply