ASRock X870E Taichi OCF Motherboard Review: The right formula for extreme AMD overclocking

Firmware

Like other ASRock boards, the X870 Taichi OCF starts in the informative Easy Mode, but it also lets you adjust several options (XMP, profiles, boot order, access to Fan-Tastic Tuning, etc.). The OCF uses a black background with white characters and yellow highlights, matching the OCF theme and making it easy to read. The standard BIOS displays headings across the top, with subheadings and details below.

You can tweak everything here, as ASRock includes every option you can think of. Overclocking is straightforward, with most options readily available. The layout is logical, and the mouse movement is smooth. We have no significant complaints about the ASRock firmware, and this board even has room for two (which is also helpful for extreme overclocking and pushing the limits). But it certainly needs an update to match the UEFIs from recent Gigabyte and MSI offerings.

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Software

ASRock offers several different software options. These include the App Shop, which lets users install drivers and software; the Nahimic 3 audio control panel; the A-Tuning application that lets you overclock and control fans; the Polychrome RGB software; and more. There’s also a Blazing OC Tuner and a pop-up to install drivers when the system first boots. ASRock’s software provides everything users need to manage and tweak their systems.

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Test System / Comparison Products

We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 (23H2) 64-bit OS with all updates applied as of late September 2024 (this includes the Branch Prediction Optimizations for AMD). Hardware-wise, we’ve updated the RAM kits (matching our Intel test system), cooling, storage, and video card. Unless otherwise noted, we use the latest publicly available non-beta motherboard BIOS. The hardware we used is as follows:

TEST SYSTEM COMPONENTS

• CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
• Cooling - Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420
• Storage - Crucial 2TB T705 M.2 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD
• RAM - Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-6000 CL36 (KF560C36BBEAK2-32)
• RAM - Teamgroup T-Froce Delta DDR5-7200 CL34 (FF3D518G7200HC34ABK)
• RAM - Klevv Cras XR5 RGB DDR5-8000 (KD5AGUA80-80R380S)
• GPU - Asus TUF RTX 4080 16G
• PSU - EVGA Supernova 850W P6
• Windows 11 64-bit (24H2)
• NVIDIA Driver 561.09

Benchmark Settings

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