ASRock X870E Taichi Lite review: trimming the fat

In a surprise switch up of strategy for AMD’s latest X870-class motherboards, ASRock is launching both its flagship Taichi motherboard and stepdown Taichi Lite simultaneously. More surprisingly still, both models rock X870E. This results in sparingly few differences between the two, much to the benefit of the cheaper option. However, opting for AMD’s top-tier chipset has undoubtedly impacted affordability.

While the £395 price of X870E Taichi Lite is much higher than the prior generation, it has plenty to offer the budget-conscious enthusiasts it hopes to. Faster RAM speeds, greater expandability, a larger emphasis on modern connection standards, all with the same overclocking chops that the series is known for. Like its predecessor, it’s the smarter buy for most over its more expensive sibling.

Specifications

Unlike many other motherboards returning with a fresh lick of X870 paint, USB 4.0 isn’t new to Taichi Lite. However, ASRock has diligently bumped up the single port found on the prior B650E board to a double act. Both support DP Alt. Mode but HDMI 2.1 remains the smarter choice for most display expansion, in lieu of a dedicated graphics card, to free up space for peripherals with 40Gbps appetites.

ASRock similarly boosts the number of USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports on the back, from three to five. However, prioritising such lofty speeds naturally impacts the amount of room left for slower ports. In place of the eight USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports found on B650E Taichi Lite, I now spy three in their place backed by two USB 2.0 Type-A inputs. While some will bemoan this change, there are still 12 ports total to play with a net gain to bandwidth.

‘Lightning Gaming Ports’ make a return, as well, with each of the two inputs boasting separate controller interfaces to reduce jitter and improve latency for mice and keyboards. Truthfully, I can’t say I notice any major difference between them and other ports but this could be my aging reflexes showing.

More tantalising to my ears are the new ‘Ultra USB Power’ ports, which provide 5V power transformed from a +12V power rail to reduce signal noise. They’re a prime choice for high-end headsets and interfaces, like SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless.

X870E Taichi Lite features faster wireless connectivity, supporting Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. Ethernet speeds also jump up to 5Gbps, from the prior generation’s 2.5Gbps. Their usefulness will depend on your network infrastructure, but the board is of course backwards compatible with older interfaces. I have no issues using my WiFi 5 home setup or my Bluetooth 5.1 DualSense controller.

Rounding off rear I/O, I’m happy to see Clear CMOS and BIOS Flashback buttons. They’re welcome additions on any motherboard but are practically a necessity for those built with overclocking in mind.

Featuring a 24+2+1-phase VRM design, complete with 110A Smart Power Stage (SPS), X870E Taichi Lite is a match for X870E Taichi. However, it’s here that several of the few differences between the two motherboards emerges. Heatsinks are slightly smaller on the more affordable model and it forgoes a fan as well as a heat pipe to further assist with heat dissipation.

While these additions naturally make the full-fat X870E Taichi more capable of more strenuous overclocks, I wouldn’t expect a huge difference between the two boards. Much as active cooling has its benefits, it’s easy to forgo given the difference in price and added peace of mind that my motherboard has one fewer point of failure.

As part of the X870E chipset specification, this new iteration of Taichi Lite supports RAM speeds of up to 8,400MT/s. Given the credentials outlined above, this board should make an excellent pairing for high-end memory with plenty of headroom to tinker with timings.

Lastly, X870E Taichi Lite also includes three headers for its included thermistor cables. You can ply these probes anywhere on the board to obtain temperature information to assist you with your overclocking endeavours. They’re certainly not a necessity but a welcome nice to have.

Features

With so few specifications separating X870E Taichi Lite from its bigger brother it’s logical to assume that ASRock has opted to focus on trimming features instead. This is true but, to my surprise, there’s just one major difference between the two boards and a handful of minor ones.

While an ‘EZ Release’ mechanism for graphics cards is present on X870E Taichi, it’s sadly missing from Lite. This may not seem like a massive difference on paper, of course, but you keenly feel its absence when reaching for that retention clip under a hefty GPU. Even my Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 7800 XT makes the usefulness of this feature readily apparent.

Thankfully, the heatsink atop the single PCIe 5.0 x4 expansion slot is toolless. The other three (up from B650E’s two) are PCIe 4.0 x4 and require a screwdriver to access. ASRock has conscientiously populated these heatsinks with anti-drop screws, though, so you needn’t worry about any falling away from you during any installations.

Sitting at the top-right of the board there’s a debug code display alongside power and reset buttons. Each make for useful additions to Taichi Lite’s feature set, but I prefer the original bottom placement on the previous B650E board. It’s a minor difference of opinion, but a lower placement makes them more accessible to eyes and fingers in the majority of PC cases.

Running adjacent to these buttons, surrounding the board’s CPU socket, are more 20K capacitors than you could hope for. ASRock claims that this rating increases the caps’ individual lifespans to 20,000 hours (833 days). Furthermore, they boast a 1000uF capacitance to better support your system under high power consumption.

While this setup seems a touch overkill, even for the likes of Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 9 9950X, one can’t argue that more headroom is always welcome. As you’ll observe in our performance benchmarks, this is certainly the case.

Of course, no modern motherboard would be complete without a reinforced PCIe expansion slot. ASRock obliges X870E Taichi Lite with two, both running at PCIe 5.0 x16 speeds. Speedy and strong. Nice.

Less feature and more accessory, X870E Taichi Lite also includes a keycap that prominently features its logo and some cog stylings for good measure. I’m something of a sucker for custom keycaps, and I appreciate the attempt here to extend the board’s presence beyond the cage of its chassis.

By opting for X870E Taichi Lite and saving $50 / £55 in the process, you miss out the flashy RGB of X870E Taichi. Given the number of LEDs you can populate a build with through any manner of components, it’s easy to live without these few lights. Finally, only the latter board features a rear backplate that further assists with thermals. Once again, though, the base performance offered by Lite is already so strong that only the most hard-pressed enthusiasts will miss it.

Firmware

Unlike like MSI with its MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi, ASRock uses the same BIOS across X870E and B650E Taichi Lite. It remains a straightforward if plain interface that at the very least presents sharply at 1080p.

While it’s easy enough to find whatever setting you’re after via the clearly labelled sections or search function, an option to make ‘Easy Mode’ the default on boot wouldn’t go amiss. The ‘Main’ tab in ‘Advanced Mode’ is generally less useful and is spare on function.

Switching over to ‘Easy Mode’, though, I’m able to enable EXPO/XMP profiles, PBO, and configure my Thermal Throttle Limit all within a few clicks. Although, some variables such as memory timings and speeds aren’t immediately obvious and require switching over to ‘Advanced Mode’.

To ASRock’s credit, I’ve got all the detail I’d need to get my RAM working just how I’d like it, with a full breakdown of each profile’s sub-timings and more.

There’s no one-click overclock function to speak of in this BIOS. Although, this is the first X870-class motherboard I’ve encountered to sport a 105W TDP toggle for Ryzen 5 9600X & Ryzen 7 9700X processors.

Getting a quick-and-dirty overclock for each CCD is simple enough, with controls for power limits and clock speeds. For those that wish to be more precise with their tinkering, though, there are a multitude of performance presets with thermal and power targets.

Performance

For my test system, I have a Ryzen 9 9900X, Radeon RX 7800 XT, Crucial T700, Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black, be quiet! Dark Power 13 1,000W and 32GB of Kingston Fury Renegade DDR5-6,400 RAM.

Out of the box, X870E Taichi Lite is as reliable as any other high-quality X870 motherboard. Put up against MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi, the two turn in almost identical levels of performance in synthetic and real-world benchmarks.

What happens base clock speeds are raised to 5,200MHz? Well, the Cinebench 2024 multi-core rises to a whopping 1,837 (+2%) and our single-core result falls to 127 (-7%). Suffice to say, X870E Taichi Lite won’t make a neophyte overclocker a master of the craft in a few clicks.

More importantly, though, the VRMs remained cool under added pressure at stock and with overclocked frequencies. You’d really need to push a Ryzen 9 9950X hard to get this motherboard sweating.

Conclusion

For enthusiasts that long to squeeze every drop of performance from their system but couldn’t care less about fanciful features like RGB, X870E Taichi Lite is the way to go. Don’t let its name fool you, as it’s got all the controls and specifications you could want for overclocking AM5 processors and DDR5 RAM.

At £394.99, it’s much more expensive than the £259.99 price point set by its now hard-to-find B650E predecessor. However, it’s a more palatable purchase relative to the £449.99 X870E Taichi. I do hope to see an even more affordable B850E option materialise in the coming months all the same.

In the meantime, ASRock has once again made smart cuts to its flagship motherboard that make X870E Taichi Lite the model most overclockers should go for. It’s a bulletproof partner to any Ryzen 7000 or 9000 CPU, and it’s difficult to think of sturdier bedrock to build a system on.

ASRock X870E Taichi Lite

Verdict: Focussing on performance above all, there’s no better value X870E board for overclocking.

Pros

Solid connectivity
Bulletproof VRM
Extensive OC tools
USB 4 & Wi-Fi 7

Cons

Small uplifts from B650E
No GPU EZ release

Buy