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Benchmark Results
Our standard benchmarks and power tests are performed using the CPU’s stock frequencies (including any default boost/turbo) with all power-saving features enabled. We set optimized defaults in the BIOS and the memory by enabling the XMP profile. For this baseline testing, the Windows power scheme is set to Balanced (default) so the PC idles appropriately.
Synthetic Benchmarks
Synthetics offer a valuable method for evaluating a board's performance, as identical settings are expected to yield similar results. Turbo boost wattage and advanced memory timings are areas where motherboard manufacturers can still optimize for stability or performance, though, and these settings can impact specific testing scenarios.
Performance was solid across the board in our synthetic results. Nothing really stood out in these benchmarks.
Timed Applications
The Taichi Creator happily charred through our timed applications and mixed in with the other results. We find nothing to worry about here, either!
3D Games and 3DMark
We updated our game tests with the launch of Zen 5, keeping the F1 racing game but upgrading to F1 24. We also dropped Far Cry 6 in favor of an even more popular and good-looking game in Cyberpunk 2077. We run both games at 1920x1080 resolution using the Ultra preset (details listed in the table above). Cyberpunk 2077 uses DLSS, while we left F1 24 to native resolution scaling.
The goal with these settings is to determine if there are differences in performance at the most commonly used (and CPU/system-bound) resolution with settings most people use or strive for (Ultra). We expect the difference between boards in these tests to be minor, with most falling within the margin of error. We’ve also added a minimum FPS setting, which can affect your gameplay and immersion.
In our 3DMark and game tests, the Taichi Creator was a bit slower than average in the tightly packed 3DMark benchmark, and average in Cyberpunk 2077 and F1 24. In the end, it’s apparent that the Taichi Creator excels where it’s designed to (productivity), but is also a good gamer after hours.
Overclocking
Over the past few CPU generations, overclocking headroom has been shrinking on both sides of the fence while the out-of-box potential has increased. For overclockers, this means there’s less fun to have. For the average consumer, you’re getting the most out of the processor without manual tweaking. Today’s motherboards are more robust than ever, and they easily support power-hungry flagship-class processors, so we know the hardware can handle them. There are multiple ways to extract even more performance from these processors: enabling a canned PBO setting from the BIOS, manually tweaking the PBO settings, or just going for an all-core overclock. Results will vary and depend on the cooling as well. In other words, your mileage may vary. Considering all the above, we will not be overclocking the CPU. However, we will try out all our different memory kits to ensure they meet the specifications.
ASRock boards have been finicky with our Kingston kit for a while now, but otherwise work similarly to other motherboards. We could boot our Klevv kit, but couldn't pass a stress test with what I tried. That said, our Team Group DDR5-7200 kit worked without issue, as it has on every AMD board we’ve tested. Nothing atypical here!
Power Consumption / VRM Temperatures
We used AIDA64’s System Stability Test with Stress CPU, FPU, Cache, and Memory enabled for power testing, using the peak power consumption value from the processor. The wattage reading is from the wall via a Kill-A-Watt meter to capture the entire PC (minus the monitor). The only variable that changes is the motherboard; all other parts remain the same. Please note that we have transitioned to using only the stock power use/VRM temperature charts, as this section aims to ensure the power delivery can handle flagship-class processors.
Power consumption during our worst-case stress testing reached 249W, one of the lower peak results. Idle power use was in line with others reaching almost 80W. Nothing out of whack here.
VRM temperatures peaked around 52 degrees Celsius on our sensors and 56 degrees according to the internal sensor. While these values are warmer than several boards, it’s still well within specification. For those who would like to overclock manually or PBO, there’s plenty of headroom left, even for more powerful processors.
Bottom Line
The ASRock X870 Taichi Creator is a solid motherboard around the $300 price point and was close to making our best Motherboard list. If you’re someone who needs a lot of USB ports, a flexible PCIe configuration (including dual 5.0), and fast networking, it’s one of the best for the price. Sure, any board could do the same things, but not as many at this price have three full-length PCIe slots and dual 10/5 GbE ports. This allows creatives to install capture cards for streaming or, even better, audio cards for audio work, while still having room for 3-slot-plus graphics in the primary slot. Beyond creatives, if you like the features and design here, the performance results speak for themselves: this board can do anything well.
There are a couple of competing ‘creator’ boards, like Asus’ ProArt X870E-Creator Wi-Fi ($539.99), but that one is also much more expensive and, frankly, doesn’t offer much more than this Taichi Creator at $319.99. Other, non-Creator boards do exist in this price range, but most don’t provide three PCIe slots, like the Asus ROG Strix X870-A Gaming Wi-Fi ($329.99) and Gigabyte X870 Aorus Stealth Ice ($305.99), or have tight spacing like the MSI X870 Tomahawk Wi-Fi - now $259.99. While it stands on its own merit at the current price and is worth it for those who need the features, I’d love to see this board drop to $299.99, which would make it attractive to an even broader audience.
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