We all want the blazing fast speeds of PCIe Gen 5 SSDs, but nobody wants garish active coolers and yet another fan whining away. This is where ASRock comes in, debuting its Z890 Taichi Aqua alongside several other motherboards primed and ready for Intel Arrow Lake CPUs.
ASRock Z870 Taichi Aqua
As we all know, the best CPU coolers tend to come in the form of an AIO (all-in-one). Water convects heat far better than air, so it’s primed to help your chips keep a cool head. Well, the same hypothetically applies to M.2 slots.
In a world’s first, Z890 Taichi Aqua features a unique heatsink module with integrated watercooling to carry those nasty degrees Celcius somewhere else. The brand didn’t go into detail on how it all works, as that’s a trade secret, but it should keep you in the game without overheating. It’ll need to do a lot of heavy lifting, though, as two of the six M.2 ports are Gen5, while the rest are Gen4. If that alone doesn’t convince you that the motherboard is special, the rear side is chock-full of eight Type-C ports, a 10GbE+5GbE LAN, Killer WiFi 7, and there are two PCIe 5.0 x15 slots.
ASRock X870E Taichi and Taichi Lite
The flagship Taichi series isn’t quite as flashy as everything else on this list, but it does everything you need it to. Nothing more, nothing less. It has 25 power phases with 110A SPS, a single PCIe 5.0 x16 for your graphics card, four DDR5 DIMM slots, and can handle six M.2 SSDs (one Gen5 x4 and the rest Gen4 x4). You shouldn’t be short on connectivity with dual Type-C ports, 5GbE and 2.5GbE LAN, and onboard WiFi 7.
It’s like playing spot the difference on the specs page because both the Taichi and Taichi Lite are identical in feature sets. They simply differ aesthetically. X870E Taichi is more premium with a black and gold studded design, featuring RGB on the I/O shield. X870E Taichi Lite, on the other hand, goes more industrial with a silver look and painted cogs in lieu of lighting.
ASRock Taichi OCF and CAMM2 model
Perhaps the most visually busy of ASRock’s latest motherboards, Taichi OCF, or OC Formula, features a yellow and black paint job, accented with its signature RGB cog. As you can tell by the name, this model is all about overclocking, granting you the ability to fine-tune everything to make the most of its 27 power phases (110A SPS), two PCIe 5.0 slots, and dual DDR5 DIMMs. Storage-wise, you’ll have access to a single Gen5 x4 M.2 port and five Gen4 alternatives.
Hopping on the CAMM2 bandwagon, there’s a second model featuring 32GB between a duo of Kingston Fury Impact modules. It’s largely identical to the standard OCF aside from the memory type and the switch to Thunderbolt 4-compatible Type-C ports.
These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to preparing for Intel Arrow Lake. ASRock also has updates to its graffiti-laden LiveMixer WiFi series, Phantom Gaming family with Nova WiFi, Riptide WiFi, and Lightning WiFi, and its Steel Legend WiFi line-up. We don’t know the prices of any of them just yet, but all are scheduled to release in the second half of 2024, except for Taichi OCF CAMM2, which remains a mystery.
