ASRock B550 Taichi Motherboard Review

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Conclusion

Today we have looked at our first AMD B550 chipset based motherboard, the ASRock B550 Taichi.  The ASRock B550 Taichi is a full-sized ATX motherboard loaded with features and options and a certain artistic flair, yet its price is not at an extreme level at $299 on Amazon.  You get a lot for your money in this package.

The ASRock B550 Taichi supports today’s latest AMD Ryzen 3000 series CPUs (Zen 2) and is forward compatible with AMD’s next-gen Ryzen 4000 series CPUs (Zen 3.)  This gives you some options for setting up a PC now, based on the latest Ryzen CPUs, and then also have an upgrade path to the next generation.  Or, you could even buy this now, and hold onto it until the next generation is released and have full support for it.

Features

ASRock has loaded this motherboard with features that can suit any type of user or workload.  It has very fast Intel 2.5G LAN support so you can pipe this motherboard up to a very fast network and not be held back.  It also supports Intel’s WiFi 6 802.11ax module up to 2.4Gbps dual-band and MU-MIMO.  The package also includes an antenna.  The module also supports Bluetooth 5.1 High-speed class II.  In terms of network connectivity, the ASRock B550 Taichi has you covered for every scenario using the latest and fastest protocol technologies.

The motherboard also has you covered on USB connectivity.  It has USB 2.0 for the simple devices, as well as USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports.  It also has USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C and Type-A.  There are 2x USB 2.0 headers on the motherboard and 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 headers on the motherboard.  There is also support for 1x front panel Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 header on the motherboard. 

The biggie is of course support for PCI-Express 4.0.  The primary PCI-Express slot can operate at PCIe 4.0 interface speeds.  In addition, the primary Hyper M.2 slot supports PCI-Express 4.0 NVMe SSDs.  This gives you PCIe Gen 4 SSD performance and GPU transfer performance.  The secondary M.2 slot supports PCIe 3 NVMe SSDs or SATA SSDs.

For overclockers this motherboard supports a BIOS flashback option incase you bork your settings. It can easily recover from overclocking errors and let you flash back the BIOS. You can also clear the CMOS right from the back panel I/O so you don’t need to take your case cover off. Just reach around, and reset your BIOS easily. There is also an LED diagnostic module on the motherboard to diagnose boot problems.

When it comes to the overclocking feature set, this B550 chipset motherboard does not let us down. It has all the options you need to get a good stable overclock, and even options that are very advanced.

Build Quality

Next is the build quality itself.  ASRock has done an excellent job engineering this motherboard.  It is both sturdy and robust in our hands.  It does not flex when held as half of the backside is covered with a backplate that makes direct contact via thermal pads to aid in cooling.  The I/O shield cover is affixed, and also securely fitted.  ASRock uses a 2oz Copper PCB and with its 60A Power Choke and 50A Dr.MOS backed by Nichicon 12K Black Caps and Premium Alloy Chokes on a High-Density Glass Fabric PCB this whole thing is built for enthusiasts.  It has plenty of stable power delivery through its two 8-pin 12V connectors.

Then we come to the actual visuals of the motherboard.  It is on a matte black PCB and has nice colors of silver and gold.  There are artistic graphics of gears on the backside and the front side.  In addition, it has a gear type of physical decoration over the chipset.  This is lit by RGB.  It also has RGB that follows the side of the motherboard and RGB that sits under the VRM heatsink and lights that up.  Overall the RGB layout is pleasing, and you can completely customize this in the BIOS or by downloading ASRock Polychrome software.

Final Points

There is one phrase to sum up the ASRock B550 Taichi:  “Enthusiast features and options, at a not-so enthusiast price.”  This means that the ASRock B550 Taichi is loaded with high-end to enthusiast features and options in the BIOS that will make any overclocker or hardware enthusiast happy.  It is loaded with features and options that expand its capability and make it useful in a myriad of user workloads and use cases.  It should suit the business user, the content creator, the streamer, the gamer, and the tinkerer who just can’t get enough.

We had no issues with the motherboard, our RAM worked without issue and we were able to manually select frequency and timings without issue.  It supports very high levels of RAM frequency for future CPUs.  CPU overclocking also worked well and we were easily able to hone in our overclock thanks to ASRock A-Tuning software on the fly.  Temperatures were great during testing, this motherboard stayed rather cool even while overclocked.  This motherboard passed all of our testing in function and performance.

We like the fact that you don’t have to spend $500-$600 on an X570 motherboard to get all the features, this $299 ASRock B550 Taichi is the perfect backdrop for your Ryzen CPU.  And have we mentioned how gorgeous it looks? It does stand out.

Discussion

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Brent Justicehttps://www.thefpsreview.com
Former managing editor of GPUs at HardOCP for 18 years, Brent Justice has been reviewing computer components since the late 90s, educated in the art and method of the computer hardware review, he brings experience, knowledge, and hands-on testing with a gamer-oriented and hardware enthusiast perspective. You can follow him on Twitter - @Brent_Justice You can sub to his YouTube channel - Justice Gaming https://www.youtube.com/c/JusticeGamingChannel You can check out his computer builds on KIT - @BrentJustice https://kit.co/BrentJustice

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