ASRock B550 Taichi Review: The $300 B550 Motherboard with Chutzpah
by Gavin Bonshor on August 21, 2020 3:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- ASRock
- Taichi
- AM4
- Ryzen 3000
- Ryzen 3700X
- Ryzen 4000
- B550
- B550 Taichi
System Performance
Not all motherboards are created equal. On the face of it, they should all perform the same and differ only in the functionality they provide - however, this is not the case. The obvious pointers are power consumption, but also the ability for the manufacturer to optimize USB speed, audio quality (based on audio codec), POST time and latency. This can come down to the manufacturing process and prowess, so these are tested.
For B550, we are running using Windows 10 64-bit with the 1909 update.
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system while in a single ASUS GTX 980 GPU configuration with a wall meter connected to the Thermaltake 1200W power supply. This power supply has ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real-world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our testbed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.
The ASRock B550 Taichi performs very well in our power consumption testing, with some of the lowest results of all the AM4 boards tested at full load. The Taichi also outputs some competitive long idle and idle power state performance.
Non-UEFI POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we look at the POST Boot Time using a stopwatch. This is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.)
The ASRock sits middle of the road in our POST time test with a respectable booting time of 20.6 seconds at default settings. We managed to shave off an additional 1.7 seconds by disabling nonessential components such as onboard audio and networking controllers.
DPC Latency
Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests such as audio will be further down the line. If the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled.
If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time. This can lead to an empty audio buffer and characteristic audible pauses, pops and clicks. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is taken processing DPCs from driver invocation. The lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds.
We test DPC latency out of the box with default settings, and the ASRock outputs another strong showing here with a low latency of 106.7 microseconds. This puts it as one of the better AM4 models for out of the box DPC latency we have tested so far.
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Gigaplex - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link
I just bought a B550 motherboard. It was 30% cheaper and had features that the X570 version didn't have (eg 2.5Gbit ethernet, better accoustics due to lack of a chipset fan).WaltC - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link
$360 x570 Aorus Master is a far better buy. BTW, I've never heard the chipset fan even once. Got a lot more features than this B550 mboard. Had my x570 AM over a year and its doing great--and I still haven't seen anything better on the market--other than the Xtreme--which for me would be overkill and cost 2x as much.kkilobyte - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link
Except when the Aorus Master suddenly refuses to boot, requiring you to remove the CMOS battery to revive it. Which is something that happens a bit too often - and Gigabyte still unable to solve the issue.Showtime - Monday, August 24, 2020 - link
When going AMD, they get you on the motherboards. You also need more expensive ram to maximize performance. I was interested in AMD this round, but the Intel non k chips give the same,or better gaming performance, and actually come out to the same or less depending on motherboard, and ram. $200+ b series mobo's are just bad investments IMO.yannigr2 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
Would you please check something about B550 X570 boards?Here the Taichi has the option to drive both top PCIe x16 slots from the CPU. IF I am not mistaken.
On the other hand the majority of B550 AND X570 boards seems to connect only the first PCIe x16 slot on the CPU and EVERYTHING ELSE on the chipset. Even if they have 2 or 3 PCIe x16 slots. That means that in many cases ports get disabled when other ports are populated.
hetzbh - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
No AM4 based can drive 2 PCIe X16 from the CPU (I wish..) since the Ryzen 2xxx/3xxx has 24 PCIe lanes out from the CPU. 4 goes to the chipset, 4 goes to NVME M.2, and the last 16 goes to the first PCIe slot and can be shared (X8/X8) between 2 slots, but no X16/X16.yannigr2 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
I wasn't talking about driving two PCIe x16 ports. I was talking about splitting those 16 lanes to a typical x8 / x8 configuration.While this was the obvious case in most AM3 motherboards for example, in many cases, even with x570 boards with two or three PCIe X16 slots, only the first slot is connected to the CPU. The second (and third is their is one) PCIe x16 together with the couple x1 ports are connected in the Chipset. So you read. If you connected something in the second M2, you lose that PCIe slot. If you connect something in that PCIe slot, you lose the other PCIe slot and etc.
yannigr2 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
One example of a 570 that does thisASUS PRIME-X570-P
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/PRIME-X570-P/spe...
1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 (x16 mode)
AMD X570 chipset
1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 (max at x4 mode)
3 x PCIe 4.0 x1
So, form the two PCIe x16, only the first is connected to the CPU. The second is connected on the chipset.
You have a microATX motherboard disguised as a full ATX.
Hyoyeon - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
In order to bifurcate the x16, boards need some logic to mux/demux the lanes. Switching up to nearly 32 GB/s of traffic is quite hard, and so the IC's are surprisingly expensive (especially when you get into the really fast things like PCIe 5/6).eddman - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link
That information can be gathered from the product's page on their website. The following is from this board's page:"single at Gen4x16 (PCIE1)
dual at Gen4x8 (PCIE1) / Gen4x8 (PCIE3)
triple at Gen4x8 (PCIE1) / Gen4x8 (PCIE3) / Gen3x4 (PCIE5)"
They don't specifically mention exactly which slot is connected to what, but from the above info it's apparent that the first two x16 slots are connected to the processor, because the lanes are split when two cards are inserted. The third slot is obviously connected to the chipset.
The Asus example you posted below clearly states the second slot is connected to the chipset.