ASRock Z590 Taichi Review: Cogs Aplenty

Firmware 

The Z590 Taichi BIOS has the same theme as the last generation, different from the Steel Legend and PG Velocita. With this board, the gears and cogwheels make their way into the black background. The primary text is yellow, with white text for any editable fields. Like most boards, the Taichi includes an EZ Mode for high-level monitoring and adjustments and a comprehensive Advanced section. The BIOS is organized well, with many of the more commonly-used functions accessible without drilling down multiple levels to find them. In the end, the BIOS worked well and was easy to navigate and read.

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Software

On the software side, ASRock includes a few utilities that cover overclocking and monitoring (A-Tune), audio (Nahimic 3), software for updating drivers and downloading applications (App Shop), and of course, RGB control (Polychrome RGB). We did not run into any issues in our limited use of the applications.

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Test System

As of March 2021, we’ve updated our test system to Windows 10 64-bit OS (20H2) with all threat mitigations applied. On the hardware front, we’ve switched to all PCIe 4.0 components. We upgraded our video card to an Asus RTX 3070 TUF Gaming and the storage device to a 2TB Phison PS5-18-E18 M.2. Along with the hardware changes, we’ve also updated the games to F1 2020 and Far Cry: New Dawn. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted (typically during new platform launches). The hardware used is as follows: 

Benchmark Settings 

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