ASRock B550 Taichi Review: The $300 B550 Motherboard with Chutzpah

Board Features

The ASRock B550 Taichi is an ATX motherboard that is based on AMD's AM4 socket and positions itself as one of the most premium B550 models on the market. It uses a Ryzen 3000 processor to provide its PCIe 4.0 capabilities via the top full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, a PCIe 4.0 x8 slot, and the top PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot. The Taichi's other slots include a full-length PCIe 3.0 x4 and two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. Located at the bottom of the board is a single PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot, with plenty of SATA ports with a combined total of eight. Four of the SATA ports are driven by the chipset and support RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays, while the other four SATA ports are controlled by an ASMedia ASM1061 SATA controller. The Taichi also has solid memory capability with support for up to DDR4-5000 memory, with a maximum capacity of up to 128 GB across four memory slots.

The ASRock B550 Taichi has a premium networking selection that consists of an Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE Ethernet controller and an Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 interface which also supports BT 5.1 devices. Also located on the rear panel is one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. Users looking for more USB connectivity can make use of the front panel headers with a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports which allow for four ports, and two USB 2.0 headers which adds a further four USB 2.0 ports.

Test Bed

As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

While we have been able to measure audio performance from previous Z370 motherboards, the task has been made even harder with the roll-out of the Z390 chipset and none of the boards tested so far has played ball. It seems all USB support for Windows 7 is now extinct so until we can find a reliable way of measuring audio performance on Windows 10 or until a workaround can be found, audio testing will have to be done at a later date.

Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.

Hardware Providers for CPU and Motherboard Reviews
Sapphire RX 460 Nitro	MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC	Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs	Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs
G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX	Crucial Ballistix DDR4	Silverstone Coolers	Silverstone Fans