ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite Review: Slimmed down Taichi for the mid-range

ASRock and its Taichi series has always been about high-end hardware at a reasonable price. The Taichi Lite takes that same hardware but changes the appearance, aiming for a decidedly more mid-range aesthetic. It even forgoes RGB lighting to save on costs. Priced at $399.99 ($50 more than the Z790 version), it’s not the least expensive motherboard, and it doesn’t offer as many user-friendly or ‘AI’ features, but you still get a lot for your money. To start, the Z890 Taichi Lite comes with six M.2 sockets (the most you’ll find native), robust VRMs, fast networking with Wi-Fi 7 and dual NICs, flagship-class audio, and more.

ASRock has a total of 18 Z890 models listed on its website. All of the familiar models are still there, including the Nova, Lightning, Riptide, Pro, and Steel Legend. There is even an Aqua board and the company has brought back the overclocking-centered OCF (Overclock Formula). ASRock offers a slew of boards in varying shapes and sizes (including MicroATX and Mini-ITX) with price points ranging from around $200 to $1,000 for the Halo OCF. In short, there’s something for everyone – even white PCB options.

The performance of the Z890 Taichi Lite was one of the best we’ve tested overall. Using the ‘Performance Mode’ preset, it excelled in most activities, including gaming. It was one of the only boards to let our Intel Core Ultra 9 285K reach the 250W power limit for the preset, and to nobody’s surprise, it used more power than our other tested boards under load. If that’s a concern, you can leave it at the Intel defaults and get remarkably similar performance.

Below, we’ll examine the board's details and determine whether it deserves a spot on our Best Motherboards list. But before we share test results and discuss details, we’ll list the specifications from ASRock’s website.

Specifications of the ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite

Inside the Box of the ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite

ASRock includes a few accessories to get you going: SATA cables (four), the Wi-Fi antenna, three thermistor cables, an ARGB splitter, and finally M.2 screws and standoffs. It’s not missing anything, but you don’t get a lot of extras.

Design of the Taichi Lite

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Like all Z890 boards, the Z890 Taichi Lite also receives a facelift. The board is still on a black, server-grade, 8-layer PCB with and advertised 2 ounces of copper and uses “XXL heatsinks” on the VRMs. The bottom of the board uses a plate-style heatsink to cool the four M.2 sockets and chipset below, all with a brushed aluminum finish. The PCIe 5.0-capable M.2 socket uses a toolless multi-layer heatsink. ASRock changed from black heatsinks to silver here, and the cog/gear theme remains a staple in the Taichi lineup, stenciled in black on most metallic surfaces.

If you’re looking for integrated RGBs, you’ll have to step up to the pricier Taichi, or buy a different board, as this one doesn’t have any. You can purchase and attach your own to the four headers, but it’s otherwise LED-free outside of the power and reset buttons and the Dr. Debug display. Overall, we like what we see, and the neutral theme should blend in with most build themes.

In the upper left corner, we find the two high-density 8-pin EPS connectors (one needed) to power the processor. The “XXL” heatsink is not actively cooled like on the Taichi, but still works fine for gaming or other mainstream tasks. Past the socket area, before the DRAM slots, is the first 4-pin fan header (of eight), with two more in the corner. The CPU_FAN1 supports up to 1A/12W, while the rest of the headers can output up to 3A/36W. There’s plenty of power for AIOs and even custom water cooling configurations.

The four DRAM slots have locking mechanisms on both sides and don’t use any reinforcement. ASRock lists capacity up to 256GB, with speeds up DDR5-9600(OC)+. Our test system had no issues running any of our kits, including the faster DDR5-8200 Kingston and GSkill CU-DIMMs kits. With the board rated to DDR5-9600, there’s still a lot of headroom left if you want more.

Cruising down the right edge, we run into the first two 3-pin ARGB headers, with the third ARGB and a single 5-pin RGB header on the bottom edge. ASRock’s Polychrome Sync application controls any attached RGB strips or compatible hardware (such as RAM and video card RGBs). Just below that is the Dr. Debug display to help with POST issues (and reads temperatures in Windows), the 24-pin ATX connector to power the board, a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C header, and finally, a 19-pin USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) connector.

Power delivery on the Z890 is one of the most capable, consisting of 23 phases with 20 assigned to Vcore. Power moves from the EPS connector(s) to a Renesas RAA229130 PWM controller and onto 20 Renesas R2209004 110A MOSFETs in a ‘teamed’ or ‘dual’ configuration. The 2,220 Amps available is plenty and won’t get in the way of overclocking. The primary limitation of this system is its cooling capacity.

On the bottom left-hand side is a fully exposed audio section based on the flagship Realtek ALC4082 codec and the ESS Sabre219 DAC. Visible are four red WIMA audio capacitors and the ever-present audio separation line.

In the middle of the board are two full-length PCIe slots and a slew (five to be exact, with the sixth further to the right) of M.2 sockets. The top full-length reinforced PCIe slot connects through the CPU and runs up to PCIe 5.0 x16 speeds but does support x8.x8 or x8/x4/x4 for risers cards. The bottom slot connects through the chipset and runs up to PCIe 4.0 x4. Note that when this, the bottom slot, is in use, M2_4 will be disabled.

Mixed in among the PCIe slots and offset to the right are six M.2 sockets. The top socket connects via the CPU and is your only socket capable of PCIe 5.0 x4 (128 Gbps). The remaining five are all PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps), with one socket (M2_3) supporting PCIe and SATA-based M.2 modules. The Z890 Taichi also offers four SATA ports, which should be plenty, but down from the eight Z790 offered. Both SATA and NVMe storage support RAID0/1/5/10 modes.

Across the bottom of the board are several exposed headers. You’ll find the usual, including additional USB ports, RGB headers, and more. Below is a complete list from left to right.

• Front panel audio
• 4-pin RGB header
• 3-pin ARGB header
• Thunderbolt 5 header
• (2) USB 2.0 headers
• TPM header
• (3) 2-pin temperature headers
• (4) System fan/water pump headers
• Front panel

On the integrated backplate, we see an area packed with several USB ports and a perforated space to help with VRM cooling. Sporting a black background and grey text, it’s relatively easy to read, and the labels are descriptive, so we can’t ask for much more.

In the middle are a whopping 12 total USB ports, including 2x Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps Type-C, also supports video via DisplayPort), 4x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) and 2x USB 2.0). The standard Wi-Fi 7 antenna connection and HDMI output are on the left. In the middle are the BIOS Flashback and Clear CMOS buttons, the two Ethernet ports, and the audio stack consisting of two 3.5mm jacks (microphone and output) and a SPDIF optical port.

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