ASRock Z690 Taichi review

Mainboards 327 Page 4 of 25 Published by

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Product Showcase - overall presentation

Product Showcase - overall presentation

 

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The board is based on a 19+1 power phase design and cooled by big aluminium heat sinks (each with two small VRM fans). The PCB is 8-layers. The motherboard has one 2.5 Gb Ethernet jack and wireless LAN module (Wi-Fi 6E) but without a card. The ASRock Z690 Taichi includes three full-length PCIe slots, with the top two slots operating at PCIe 5.0 x16 and x8/x8. The third slot is PCIe 4.0 x16 (working at x4). Four memory banks support up to 128 Gb of DDR5-6400. ASRock includes two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots and one PCIe 3.0 x2 M.2/SATA slots and seven SATA ports for storage. Located in the bottom right-hand corner is an onboard power and reset button pairing, while a two-digit LED debugger can be found at the side of them.

The motherboard supports:

  • 12th Generation Intel Core i9/ i7/ i5/ i3 processors and Intel Pentium processors/ Intel Celeron processors in the LGA1700 package
  • 2 x PCIe 5.0 x16 Slots (x16 or x8 mode) 1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 Slots (x4 mode)
 

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You can see the gears above the rear IO area - they move, while those on the PCH are static.

For storage, you get:

  • 6 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors
  • 1 x Independent SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connector
  • 1 x Hyper M.2 Socket (M2_1, Key M), supports type 2280 PCIe Gen4x4 (64 Gb/s) mode
  • 1 x Hyper M.2 Socket (M2_2, Key M), supports type 2242/2260/2280 PCIe Gen4x4 (64 Gb/s) mode
  • 1 x M.2 Socket (M2_3, Key M), supports type 2230/2242/2260/2280 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s & PCIe Gen3x2 (16 Gb/s) modes

 

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Internal connectors include:


  • 1 x SPI TPM Header
  • 1 x Power LED and Speaker Header
  • 1 x RGB LED Header
  • 3 x Addressable LED Headers
  • 1 x CPU Fan Connector (4-pin)
  • 2 x CPU/Water Pump Fan Connectors (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)
  • 4 x Chassis/Water Pump Fan Connectors (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)
  • 1 x VRM/Water Pump Fan Connector (4-pin)
  • 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 3 USB 2.0 ports) (Supports ESD Protection)
  • 1 x Independent USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A Connector
  • 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 3.2 Gen2 Type-A Ports (10 Gb/s) (ReDriver) (Supports ESD Protection)
  • 2 x USB 4.0 Thunderbolt™ 4 Type-C Ports (40 Gb/s for USB 4.0 protocol; 40Gb/s for Thunderbolt™ protocol) (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 with LED)
 

 

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There are six USB 3.2 Type-A and two USB 4.0 (Thunderbolt 4) Type-C ports on the rear panel. You can also find an HDMI video output for users utilizing Intel’s integrated graphics. One Ethernet controller provides networking; it’s a 2.5 Gbe Killer E3100G. There is a WiFi available, it’s a 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6E Module and supports IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ax.

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The onboard audio is based on the ALC1220 audio codec with ESS SABRE9218 DAC for Front Panel Audio (130dB SNR). The other features are:

  • Supports Surge Protection
  • WIMA Audio Capacitors (For Front Outputs)
  • 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

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You can see the metal reinforcement plate at the back of the motherboard.

As for memory support:
  • Dual-Channel DDR5 Memory Technology
  • 4 x DDR5 DIMM Slots
  • Supports DDR5 non-ECC, un-buffered memory up to 6400+(OC)
  • Max. capacity of system memory: 128GB
  • Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) 3.0
  • 15μ Gold Contact in DIMM Slots

You have four banks supporting up to 128 GB of system memory.

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