ASRock Z590 Taichi review - Product Showcase - overall presentation

Product Showcase - overall presentation

The board is based on a 12+2 power phase design and cooled by big aluminium heat sinks (with a small VRM fan hidden inside the one on the left side). The PCB is 8-layers. The motherboard has one 2.5 Gb and one 1 Gb Ethernet jack and wireless LAN function courtesy of Killer AX1675x 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6E Module. The ASRock Z590 Taichi includes three full-length PCIe slots with ASRock Steel Armor protection, with the top two slots operating at PCIe 4.0 x16 and x8/x8. The third slot is PCIe 3.0 x4, and there’s also a single PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. There are four memory banks with support for up to 128 Gb of DDR4-4800. For storage, ASRock includes one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, two PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2/SATA slots, and six SATA ports. Located in the top-right hand corner is an onboard power and reset button pairing, while a two-digit LED debugger can be found at the bottom right. You can see the moving gears above the IO area.

The motherboard supports:

11th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors
- 3 x PCI Express x16 Slots (PCIE1/PCIE2/PCIE4: single at Gen4x16 (PCIE1); dual at Gen4x8 (PCIE1) / Gen4x8 (PCIE2); triple at Gen4x8 (PCIE1) / Gen4x8 (PCIE2) / Gen3x4 (PCIE4))
10th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors
- 3 x PCI Express x16 Slots (PCIE1/PCIE2/PCIE4: single at Gen3x16 (PCIE1); dual at Gen3x8 (PCIE1) / Gen3x8 (PCIE2); triple at Gen3x8 (PCIE1) / Gen3x8 (PCIE2) / Gen3x4 (PCIE4))

- 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x1 Slot
- Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™, 3-Way CrossFireX™, and CrossFireX™
- 1 x Vertical M.2 Socket (Key E) with the bundled WiFi-802.11ax module (on the rear I/O)
- 15μ Gold Contact in VGA PCIe Slot (PCIE1)

For storage, you get:

- 6 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors
- 2 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors by ASMedia ASM1061
- 1 x Hyper M.2 Socket (M2_1), supports M Key type 2280 M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen4x4 (64 Gb/s) (with 11th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors) or Gen3x4 (32 Gb/s) (with 10th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors)
- 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket (M2_2), supports M Key type 2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s)
- 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket (M2_3), supports M Key type 2230/2242/2260/2280/22110 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s)

Internal connectors include: 

- 1 x SPI TPM Header
- 1 x Power LED and Speaker Header
- 2 x RGB LED Headers*
- 2 x Addressable LED Headers**
- 1 x CPU Fan Connector (4-pin)***
- 1 x CPU/Water Pump Fan Connector (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)****
- 6 x Chassis/Water Pump Fan Connectors (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)*****
- 1 x 24 pin ATX Power Connector (Hi-Density Power Connector)
- 2 x 8 pin 12V Power Connectors (Hi-Density Power Connector)
- 1 x Front Panel Audio Connector (15μ Gold Audio Connector)
- 2 x USB 2.0 Headers (Support 4 USB 2.0 ports) (Supports ESD Protection)
- 2 x USB 3.2 Gen1 Headers (Support 4 USB 3.2 Gen1 ports) (ASMedia ASM1074 hub) (Supports ESD Protection)
- 1 x Front Panel Type C USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Header (20 Gb/s) (Supports ESD Protection)
- 1 x Clear CMOS Button
- 1 x Dr. Debug with LED
- 1 x Power Button with LED
- 1 x Reset Button with LED

On the rear IO you'll spot:

- 2 x Antenna Ports
- 1 x HDMI Port
- 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
- 2 x USB 4.0 Thunderbolt™ 4 Type-C Port (40 Gb/s for USB 4.0 protocol; 40Gb/s for Thunderbolt™ protocol) (Supports ESD Protection)
- 2 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A Ports (10 Gb/s) (ReDriver) (Supports ESD Protection)
- 4 x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A Ports (Supports ESD Protection)
- 2 x RJ-45 LAN Ports with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
- 1 x BIOS Flashback Button
- HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone (Gold Audio Jacks) –located in the middle, not on the right like typically.

On the rear panel, there are two USB 4.0 Type-C (Thunderbolt 4), two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports (two of them are labeled Lightning. They are designed to reduce the latency of the connected mouse and keyboard, which players should appreciate). You can also find an HDMI video (no Display Port) output for users looking to take advantage of Intel’s integrated graphics. Networking is provided by two Ethernet controllers, including a Killer E3100 2.5 GbE and Intel Gigabit. Wireless is serviced by a new Killer AX1675 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi with support for BT 5.2 devices. The onboard audio is based on the ALC1220 audio codec. Some of the features:

- 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC1220 Audio Codec)
- Premium Blu-ray Audio support
- Supports Surge Protection
- WIMA Audio Capacitors (For Front Outputs)
- ESS SABRE9218 DAC for Front Panel Audio (130dB SNR)
- Pure Power-In
- Direct Drive Technology
- PCB Isolate Shielding
- Impedance Sensing on Rear Out Port
- Individual PCB Layers for R/L Audio Channel
- Gold Audio Jacks
- 15μ Gold Audio Connector
- Nahimic Audio

As for memory support:

- Dual-Channel DDR4 Memory Technology
- 4 x DDR4 DIMM Slots
- 11th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors support DDR4 non-ECC, un-buffered memory up to 5000+(OC)
- 10th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors support DDR4 non-ECC, un-buffered memory up to 4800+(OC)
- Supports ECC UDIMM memory modules (operate in non-ECC mode)
- Max. the capacity of system memory: 128GB
- Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) 2.0
- 15μ Gold Contact in DIMM Slots