Designing a motherboard that comes across as tough and stylish and capable is challenging, but ASRock proves it's up to this task-in-triplicate with the $239.99 Z390 Taichi.
With its cogs-and-gears theme and layered heatsinks, the Taichi line has, for several generations, presented a fresh, edgy design to high-end boards from this aggressive maker, and the Z390 Taichi exudes class and attitude.
Add in the Z390 version's overclocking-friendly power-management features, and you have a board that rates its tough looks.
It's a worthy pick for your 9th Generation Core build conceived around a K-class unlocked processor.
A Balanced Design
The Z390 Taichi's price tag puts it in the top tier of ASRock's current Z390 boards.
The flagship of the Taichi series is the $319 Z390 Taichi Ultimate, which sports AQuantia's 10-gigabit Ethernet LAN chip.
That's the kind of pricing that will put a big hole in a typical PC-build budget.
The non-Ultimate Z390 Taichi, while still rather pricey for a board on Intel's mainstream platform, as opposed to on its high-end desktop (HEDT) X299 Core X-Series, will look like a better mix of dollars-for-features for some gamers.
Still, it will be out of reach for many.
Thanks to the Z390 chipset, the board supports 8th and 9th Generation Intel Core CPUs.
With 9th Gen CPUs requiring the latest chipset, many gamers are likely to view this as a good time for a major upgrade.
Boards like Z390 Taichi will be the foundations of those new builds.
As I mentioned, ASRock went all-in on the heatsinks, giving the board some personality beyond your typical LED glow and space-themed plastic.
The heatsinks over the 12 power phases have multiple layers and two tones.
The two heatsinks almost completely hide a heatpipe that runs between them.
ASRock blends the left-side heatsink nicely into the I/O cover and sneaks in an RGB LED strip, to boot.
ASRock also works in an RGB LED over the audio hardware and underneath the heatsink for the Z390 chipset, giving the board some mood-lit bling.
Of course, anyone with a penchant for case lighting will be most interested in the Z390 Taichi's headers.
It has three, including addressable RGB, which I'll get to later in the review.
For now, let's take a quick tour of the critical hardware and connectors.
The LGA 1151 socket has plenty of room around it, as it's surrounded only by squat capacitors.
The board's memory slots are well to the side of the PCB.
Even the top PCI Express x16 slot sits far from the processor, beyond a PCI Express x1 slot and an M.2 connector.
Keep in mind that the motherboard supports only 8th and 9th Generation Intel Core CPUs; older CPUs aren't compatible.
ASRock added a Hyper BCLK chip to give overclockers more options when changing clock frequencies.
That's a nice touch on a gaming board like the Z390 Taichi.
The four memory slots support a total of 64GB of DDR4 memory.
As with the CPU socket, the memory slots have plenty of clearance in their neighborhood, with only capacitors and low-to-the-board connectors nearby.
ASRock took the opposite approach with the lower half of the Z390 Taichi, packing features tightly together.
The three steel-wrapped PCI Express x16 slots sit alongside three Ultra M.2 slots and two PCI Express x1 slots—all of which backs up against the large, cog-shaped heatsink for the Z390 chipset.
Throw in the internal headers, audio hardware, and SATA connectors, and you're looking at a busy layout.
Even so, I like that ASRock made room for long M.2 modules on the Z390 Taichi, despite the space constraints.
The lower two M.2 slots support drives and other M.2 wares ranging in size from Type-2230 (30mm long) to Type-22110 (110mm).
The Ultra M.2 slot below the PCI Express x16 slot is uncovered, but the lowest down of the three slots features a slick metal heatsink that will cover whatever size of M.2 module you choose...
You'll want to install your storage devices early in the build, as the upper two Ultra M.2 slots will be hard to reach once your video card goes in.
And if you're running two cards, all three slots will difficult to get to once the cards are installed.
Let's take a quick look at the back of the Z390 Taichi...
Motherboard makers sometimes slip an M.2 connector onto the back of a board, but ASRock isn't so pressed for space that it needs to use the board's back face for that.
Unless you need to remove heatsinks, you won't need access to the back of the Z390 Taichi.
Ports and Headers
ASRock packed the Z390 Taichi's I/O panel with connectors.
The 7.1-channel audio ports are backed by ASRock's Purity Sound 4 package, which includes (among other features) a Realtek ALC1220 codec.
The panel also sports two Gigabit LAN ports, one of which is backed by an Intel I211AT chip.
The other is powered by an Intel I219V.
The dual LAN ports mean you can connect two separate network cables to increase the overall bandwidth for your connection.
As for the USB ports, the Z390 Taichi has plenty.
It sports four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports (often referred to as USB 3.0), along with three USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports and a single USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port.
ASRock also throws in a DisplayPort and an HDMI port for use with on-chip graphics.
The two antenna connectors are powered by an 802.11ac wireless chip.
The I/O panel also sports a Clear CMOS button, which is handy.
Anyone can add more fan support with an add-on controller, but I like to see gaming boards with a reasonable number of fan headers onboard.
The Z390 Taichi is one of those boards, with a total of eight connectors scattered around the board.
The CPU and CPU2/Water Cooling headers are at the top, tucked behind a heatsink.
ASRock leaves plenty of room between the heatsink and memory for snaking fan cables, which is a nice touch.
You'll find another connector above the memory slots.
Three more fan connectors sit about halfway down the board, while the last two are hiding among the row of various component headers at the lower edge of the board.
Speaking of that row, that's also where you'll find the Z390 Taichi's two RGB LED connectors and the single ARGB LED connector.
The last, for light strips and other gear with addressable RGB LEDs, is a specialized header meant to be used with this kind of modder gear.
ARGB strips let you manipulate the individual RGB elements on them, singly or in clusters, versus regular RGB light strips, which are controlled as a single element.
The lower edge also features audio headers, a Thunderbolt header, two USB 2.0 headers, TPM headers, and front-panel-connector header pins.
ASRock also includes a debug LED and includes troubleshooting codes in its manual.
The right side of the Z390 Taichi features the usual suspects: two USB 3.1 Gen 1 headers, eight SATA ports, and a 24-pin power connector.
The only surprise here is the USB 3.1 Gen 2 connector for your case's front panel (shown below above and to the left of the chipset's heatsink gears).
That's a worthy addition to the board, though only the very latest chassis will have a compatible cable.
ASRock put two more power connectors at the top of the board.
One is a standard eight-pin ATX connector, while the other is a four-pin unit.
Modern power supplies support this configuration, so it shouldn't be an issue if you're working with new hardware.
The Accessories Package
The ASRock Z390 Taichi's accessories package is light on the frills, which is becoming more common, even among high-end boards.
I think there's something to be said for tossing in a couple of cable-management straps, but in the end, features like the ASRock SLI High-Bandwidth Bridge are far more important.
(You'll need this specialized hardware chunk if installing two late-model Nvidia GeForce RTX or GTX cards in an SLI configuration.)
The bridge comes accompanied by four SATA cables, two of which have L-shaped connectors.
The package also includes the two antenna poles for the I/O panel, as well as the I/O plate.
Once you attach the antennas, you can angle and rotate them to improve the signal.
I don't have any complaints about the two manuals.
One covers the Z390 Taichi board proper, while the other focuses on the BIOS.
Both have clear instructions and images.
Of the board's few frills, the ASRock sticker and the postcard stand out.
The sticker would make a decent case badge, if you're into that, and I can see a gamer mailing the Taichi postcard to a friend with an aging system to give him or her a hard time.
Remember the postal service? Geeks, use it or lose it.
A Taichi Test Build
To get a feel for how well the Z390 Taichi might fit into your build, I put the motherboard into a SilverStone Primera PM01-RGB case and assembled a system.
I opted for an Intel Core i7-8086K Limited Edition CPU and 32GB of memory.
I also added an MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X to the build as a representative middle-of-the-road video card.
The installation went without a hitch.
As I mentioned earlier, ASRock makes plenty of fan headers available.
I had no trouble discreetly running fan cables to nearby headers.
I added a Corsair Hydro Series H60 CPU cooler without any issues, either.
Nearly all of the Z390 Taichi's headers are perpendicular to the board, so you're not likely to run into a situation in which a header is blocked by the wall of your PC case.
In fact, the only header that faces off the edge of the board is one of the USB 3.1 Gen 1 headers, which faces to the right.
In most PC cases, that puts the header near a cable pass-through, making for even easier cable management.
The BIOS: A Brief Look
Fire up your new system, press the Delete key, and you're in the Z390 Taichi's BIOS.
ASRock starts you in EZ Mode, which makes sense.
The dashboard layout gives you a quick look at the status of your memory modules, CPU speed, voltages and temps, and your storage devices.
It also displays active fans and lets you cycle through speeds with a few mouse clicks.
Despite being geared toward new users, EZ Mode offers plenty of control over commonly managed features.
Want to change the boot priority? You can drag-and-drop drives into order without leaving the main screen.
Want to enable XMP profiles for the system memory? No need to dig into the Advanced Mode.
You can also access other control pages via a sliding Tools menu at the bottom of the EZ Mode screen, including BIOS flashing tools and FAN-Tastic Tuning.
The latter provides more control over fan settings than EZ Mode offers.
Experienced builders will feel more at home in Advanced Mode (F6), which sports the Taichi's gears imagery and has menu upon menu of controls...
Overclockers can dive right into the OC Tweaker, which provides access to CPU and memory settings in a series of lists.
A window to the side of each setting offers short descriptions, which is handy.
The section also has a Performance Mode that lets you give your CPU a nudge without getting technical.
In Sum, a Peak Z390 Board
Gaming motherboards in the Z390 Taichi's price range need to deliver on both performance and style, and this Taichi board is a winner on both fronts.
The board has the features that make for a solid gaming and performance-tweaking board, including multiple M.2 connectors, a bulked-up power-phase design, and hardcore extras like the BCLK tweaker.
ASRock makes a point of paying attention to audio performance on the Taichi, which is the sort of attention to detail that makes for a strong motherboard.
The four DIMM slots visible here are capable of taking up to 64GB of RAM in four 16GB DIMMs.
Asrock
When it comes to the Z390 Taichi's style, assessing that is much more subjective.
Still, I think many gamers will like the board: It's hard to go wrong when you're using Batman's color palette and an industrial-chic motif.
As mentioned earlier, the gear shapes that make up the Z390 Taichi's chipset heatsink (and are mirrored on the PCB) lend a unique bit of flair found from no other board maker.
And the integrated lighting is bright, but not over the top, with the option to go as RGB- or ARGB-crazy as you like.
Overall, the Z390 Taichi is a solid choice with little in the way of downside, aside from the price.
If your budget is tight, you'll be looking for ways to keep your top video-card and CPU picks intact in your build list, and components like the motherboard might get squeezed.
At its price, the Z390 Taichi is likely to find a home only in a robust budget, but we think it's worth stretching a bit to work into your build.
It will deliver an attitude all its own.
Whether that improves your gaming skills or frame rates...well, we can't help you there.
But at least your desktop will look and feel in balance.
Pros
Uncluttered layout.
Spiffy mechanical-gear motif.
Steel-wrapped PCI Express x16 slots.
Three M.2 connectors.
Slick LED glow and support for RGB and addressable-RGB LED strips.
View More
Cons
Priced more like a board for Intel's Core X-Series, rather than its mainstream platform.
LED fanatics may want more onboard lighting.
The Bottom Line
With a nifty gear motif and lots of connections for M.2 drives, RGB strips, and external devices, ASRock's Z390 Taichi is an attractive motherboard for tweak-minded PC builders and upgraders regrouping around unlocked 9th Gen Core i7 or i9 CPUs.
Designing a motherboard that comes across as tough and stylish and capable is challenging, but ASRock proves it's up to this task-in-triplicate with the $239.99 Z390 Taichi.
With its cogs-and-gears theme and layered heatsinks, the Taichi line has, for several generations, presented a fresh, edgy design to high-end boards from this aggressive maker, and the Z390 Taichi exudes class and attitude.
Add in the Z390 version's overclocking-friendly power-management features, and you have a board that rates its tough looks.
It's a worthy pick for your 9th Generation Core build conceived around a K-class unlocked processor.
A Balanced Design
The Z390 Taichi's price tag puts it in the top tier of ASRock's current Z390 boards.
The flagship of the Taichi series is the $319 Z390 Taichi Ultimate, which sports AQuantia's 10-gigabit Ethernet LAN chip.
That's the kind of pricing that will put a big hole in a typical PC-build budget.
The non-Ultimate Z390 Taichi, while still rather pricey for a board on Intel's mainstream platform, as opposed to on its high-end desktop (HEDT) X299 Core X-Series, will look like a better mix of dollars-for-features for some gamers.
Still, it will be out of reach for many.
Thanks to the Z390 chipset, the board supports 8th and 9th Generation Intel Core CPUs.
With 9th Gen CPUs requiring the latest chipset, many gamers are likely to view this as a good time for a major upgrade.
Boards like Z390 Taichi will be the foundations of those new builds.
As I mentioned, ASRock went all-in on the heatsinks, giving the board some personality beyond your typical LED glow and space-themed plastic.
The heatsinks over the 12 power phases have multiple layers and two tones.
The two heatsinks almost completely hide a heatpipe that runs between them.
ASRock blends the left-side heatsink nicely into the I/O cover and sneaks in an RGB LED strip, to boot.
ASRock also works in an RGB LED over the audio hardware and underneath the heatsink for the Z390 chipset, giving the board some mood-lit bling.
Of course, anyone with a penchant for case lighting will be most interested in the Z390 Taichi's headers.
It has three, including addressable RGB, which I'll get to later in the review.
For now, let's take a quick tour of the critical hardware and connectors.
The LGA 1151 socket has plenty of room around it, as it's surrounded only by squat capacitors.
The board's memory slots are well to the side of the PCB.
Even the top PCI Express x16 slot sits far from the processor, beyond a PCI Express x1 slot and an M.2 connector.
Keep in mind that the motherboard supports only 8th and 9th Generation Intel Core CPUs; older CPUs aren't compatible.
ASRock added a Hyper BCLK chip to give overclockers more options when changing clock frequencies.
That's a nice touch on a gaming board like the Z390 Taichi.
The four memory slots support a total of 64GB of DDR4 memory.
As with the CPU socket, the memory slots have plenty of clearance in their neighborhood, with only capacitors and low-to-the-board connectors nearby.
ASRock took the opposite approach with the lower half of the Z390 Taichi, packing features tightly together.
The three steel-wrapped PCI Express x16 slots sit alongside three Ultra M.2 slots and two PCI Express x1 slots—all of which backs up against the large, cog-shaped heatsink for the Z390 chipset.
Throw in the internal headers, audio hardware, and SATA connectors, and you're looking at a busy layout.
Even so, I like that ASRock made room for long M.2 modules on the Z390 Taichi, despite the space constraints.
The lower two M.2 slots support drives and other M.2 wares ranging in size from Type-2230 (30mm long) to Type-22110 (110mm).
The Ultra M.2 slot below the PCI Express x16 slot is uncovered, but the lowest down of the three slots features a slick metal heatsink that will cover whatever size of M.2 module you choose...
You'll want to install your storage devices early in the build, as the upper two Ultra M.2 slots will be hard to reach once your video card goes in.
And if you're running two cards, all three slots will difficult to get to once the cards are installed.
Let's take a quick look at the back of the Z390 Taichi...
Motherboard makers sometimes slip an M.2 connector onto the back of a board, but ASRock isn't so pressed for space that it needs to use the board's back face for that.
Unless you need to remove heatsinks, you won't need access to the back of the Z390 Taichi.
Ports and Headers
ASRock packed the Z390 Taichi's I/O panel with connectors.
The 7.1-channel audio ports are backed by ASRock's Purity Sound 4 package, which includes (among other features) a Realtek ALC1220 codec.
The panel also sports two Gigabit LAN ports, one of which is backed by an Intel I211AT chip.
The other is powered by an Intel I219V.
The dual LAN ports mean you can connect two separate network cables to increase the overall bandwidth for your connection.
As for the USB ports, the Z390 Taichi has plenty.
It sports four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports (often referred to as USB 3.0), along with three USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports and a single USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port.
ASRock also throws in a DisplayPort and an HDMI port for use with on-chip graphics.
The two antenna connectors are powered by an 802.11ac wireless chip.
The I/O panel also sports a Clear CMOS button, which is handy.
Anyone can add more fan support with an add-on controller, but I like to see gaming boards with a reasonable number of fan headers onboard.
The Z390 Taichi is one of those boards, with a total of eight connectors scattered around the board.
The CPU and CPU2/Water Cooling headers are at the top, tucked behind a heatsink.
ASRock leaves plenty of room between the heatsink and memory for snaking fan cables, which is a nice touch.
You'll find another connector above the memory slots.
Three more fan connectors sit about halfway down the board, while the last two are hiding among the row of various component headers at the lower edge of the board.
Speaking of that row, that's also where you'll find the Z390 Taichi's two RGB LED connectors and the single ARGB LED connector.
The last, for light strips and other gear with addressable RGB LEDs, is a specialized header meant to be used with this kind of modder gear.
ARGB strips let you manipulate the individual RGB elements on them, singly or in clusters, versus regular RGB light strips, which are controlled as a single element.
The lower edge also features audio headers, a Thunderbolt header, two USB 2.0 headers, TPM headers, and front-panel-connector header pins.
ASRock also includes a debug LED and includes troubleshooting codes in its manual.
The right side of the Z390 Taichi features the usual suspects: two USB 3.1 Gen 1 headers, eight SATA ports, and a 24-pin power connector.
The only surprise here is the USB 3.1 Gen 2 connector for your case's front panel (shown below above and to the left of the chipset's heatsink gears).
That's a worthy addition to the board, though only the very latest chassis will have a compatible cable.
ASRock put two more power connectors at the top of the board.
One is a standard eight-pin ATX connector, while the other is a four-pin unit.
Modern power supplies support this configuration, so it shouldn't be an issue if you're working with new hardware.
The Accessories Package
The ASRock Z390 Taichi's accessories package is light on the frills, which is becoming more common, even among high-end boards.
I think there's something to be said for tossing in a couple of cable-management straps, but in the end, features like the ASRock SLI High-Bandwidth Bridge are far more important.
(You'll need this specialized hardware chunk if installing two late-model Nvidia GeForce RTX or GTX cards in an SLI configuration.)
The bridge comes accompanied by four SATA cables, two of which have L-shaped connectors.
The package also includes the two antenna poles for the I/O panel, as well as the I/O plate.
Once you attach the antennas, you can angle and rotate them to improve the signal.
I don't have any complaints about the two manuals.
One covers the Z390 Taichi board proper, while the other focuses on the BIOS.
Both have clear instructions and images.
Of the board's few frills, the ASRock sticker and the postcard stand out.
The sticker would make a decent case badge, if you're into that, and I can see a gamer mailing the Taichi postcard to a friend with an aging system to give him or her a hard time.
Remember the postal service? Geeks, use it or lose it.
A Taichi Test Build
To get a feel for how well the Z390 Taichi might fit into your build, I put the motherboard into a SilverStone Primera PM01-RGB case and assembled a system.
I opted for an Intel Core i7-8086K Limited Edition CPU and 32GB of memory.
I also added an MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X to the build as a representative middle-of-the-road video card.
The installation went without a hitch.
As I mentioned earlier, ASRock makes plenty of fan headers available.
I had no trouble discreetly running fan cables to nearby headers.
I added a Corsair Hydro Series H60 CPU cooler without any issues, either.
Nearly all of the Z390 Taichi's headers are perpendicular to the board, so you're not likely to run into a situation in which a header is blocked by the wall of your PC case.
In fact, the only header that faces off the edge of the board is one of the USB 3.1 Gen 1 headers, which faces to the right.
In most PC cases, that puts the header near a cable pass-through, making for even easier cable management.
The BIOS: A Brief Look
Fire up your new system, press the Delete key, and you're in the Z390 Taichi's BIOS.
ASRock starts you in EZ Mode, which makes sense.
The dashboard layout gives you a quick look at the status of your memory modules, CPU speed, voltages and temps, and your storage devices.
It also displays active fans and lets you cycle through speeds with a few mouse clicks.
Despite being geared toward new users, EZ Mode offers plenty of control over commonly managed features.
Want to change the boot priority? You can drag-and-drop drives into order without leaving the main screen.
Want to enable XMP profiles for the system memory? No need to dig into the Advanced Mode.
You can also access other control pages via a sliding Tools menu at the bottom of the EZ Mode screen, including BIOS flashing tools and FAN-Tastic Tuning.
The latter provides more control over fan settings than EZ Mode offers.
Experienced builders will feel more at home in Advanced Mode (F6), which sports the Taichi's gears imagery and has menu upon menu of controls...
Overclockers can dive right into the OC Tweaker, which provides access to CPU and memory settings in a series of lists.
A window to the side of each setting offers short descriptions, which is handy.
The section also has a Performance Mode that lets you give your CPU a nudge without getting technical.
In Sum, a Peak Z390 Board
Gaming motherboards in the Z390 Taichi's price range need to deliver on both performance and style, and this Taichi board is a winner on both fronts.
The board has the features that make for a solid gaming and performance-tweaking board, including multiple M.2 connectors, a bulked-up power-phase design, and hardcore extras like the BCLK tweaker.
ASRock makes a point of paying attention to audio performance on the Taichi, which is the sort of attention to detail that makes for a strong motherboard.
The four DIMM slots visible here are capable of taking up to 64GB of RAM in four 16GB DIMMs.
Asrock
When it comes to the Z390 Taichi's style, assessing that is much more subjective.
Still, I think many gamers will like the board: It's hard to go wrong when you're using Batman's color palette and an industrial-chic motif.
As mentioned earlier, the gear shapes that make up the Z390 Taichi's chipset heatsink (and are mirrored on the PCB) lend a unique bit of flair found from no other board maker.
And the integrated lighting is bright, but not over the top, with the option to go as RGB- or ARGB-crazy as you like.
Overall, the Z390 Taichi is a solid choice with little in the way of downside, aside from the price.
If your budget is tight, you'll be looking for ways to keep your top video-card and CPU picks intact in your build list, and components like the motherboard might get squeezed.
At its price, the Z390 Taichi is likely to find a home only in a robust budget, but we think it's worth stretching a bit to work into your build.
It will deliver an attitude all its own.
Whether that improves your gaming skills or frame rates...well, we can't help you there.
But at least your desktop will look and feel in balance.
Pros
Uncluttered layout.
Spiffy mechanical-gear motif.
Steel-wrapped PCI Express x16 slots.
Three M.2 connectors.
Slick LED glow and support for RGB and addressable-RGB LED strips.
View More
Cons
Priced more like a board for Intel's Core X-Series, rather than its mainstream platform.
LED fanatics may want more onboard lighting.
The Bottom Line
With a nifty gear motif and lots of connections for M.2 drives, RGB strips, and external devices, ASRock's Z390 Taichi is an attractive motherboard for tweak-minded PC builders and upgraders regrouping around unlocked 9th Gen Core i7 or i9 CPUs.
