ASRock Z390 Taichi and Taichi Ultimate Boards Now Available
Ron Perillo / 6 years ago
Connectivity Galore
ASRock has updated their Taichi series with the latest Z390 chipset from Intel. The line still includes the regular Taichi as well as the Taichi Ultimate motherboard. The latter having the ultra fast 10GbE Ethernet via an Aquantia AQC107 controller. This offers blazingly fast 10-gigabit/sec transfer speed over Cat6 cable. Obviously, not eveyrone is going to have a 10GbE switch at home. Although the 10Gb/s Ethernet is also fully backwards compatible with 5Gb/s, 2.5Gb/s and Gigabit LAN. So this leaves some room for upgrades and makes the system more future-proof.
That is of course, on top of already having dual Intel Gigabit Ethernet LAN (i219V and i211AT) as well as an Intel 802.11ac WiFi Module supporting up to 1.73Gbps wireless.
In terms of storage, the boards also have 8x SATA 6G ports, 3x Ultra M.2, 5x USB 3.1 Gen2 (1 Front Type-C, 1 Rear Type-C, 3 Rear Type-A), and 8x USB 3.1 Gen1 (4 Front, 4 Rear) ports.
Since it is a high-end Z390 motherboard, ASRock also packs the Taichi series with an International Rectifier 8+4 phase VRM dual-stack MOSFETs as well as 60A inductors. Along with Japanese Nichicon 12K black chokes and Nichicon audio capacitors. All on a a high-density glass-fabric PCB. To further aid in refined overclocking, ASRock also adds an external base clock generator.
As for RGB LEDs, of course both boards have them. In fact, they even have both addressable digital RGB LED headers and analog RGB LED headers.
How Much are the ASRock Z390 Taichi and Z390 Taichi Ultimate Boards?
Both motherboards are now available worldwide, with the standard Z390 Taichi available for $239 USD. Meanwhile, the Z390 Taichi Ultimate Aquantia AQC107 10GbE controller costs $60 more at $299 USD.