Quickly to the right hardware equipment …
Layout, design and features
ASRock B650E Taichi Chipset
ASRock B650E Taichi Voltage Regulator and Heat Sink
ASRock B650E Taichi Expansion cards
ASRock B650E Taichi Memory
ASRock B650E Taichi SATA connectors
ASRock B650E Taichi USB
ASRock B650E Taichi Network
ASRock B650E Taichi Sound
ASRock B650E Taichi RGB lighting
ASRock B650E Taichi ATX equipment and other features
ASRock B650E Taichi PC System
Layout, design and features …
The ASRock B650E Taichi is based on a high density fiber optic 8-layer PCB board and hosts the AMD AM5 LGA 1718 socket.
Currently, it supports all AMD Ryzen Zen4 CPUs of the 7000 series, including the high-performance Ryzen 7000X CPUs and the Ryzen 7000 CPUs without X in the name, which have the same number of cores as the high-performance CPUs, but are powered with less performance by default. The new AMD Ryzen CPUs with additional 3D cache are of course also compatible. AMD promised to support CPUs that will be released until 2025 with the introduction of the AM5 socket. The predecessor AM4 was compatible with 4 CPU generations (Zen, Zen+, Zen2 and Zen3). Here you can see a close-up of the new CPU socket with its 1718 contact springs.
The ASRock B650 Taichi features the same 24+2+1 premium 105A Smart Power Stages (SPS) and Nichicon 12K Black Caps capacitors as the X670E Taichi. That’s over 2.5kW of power that the MOSFETs could provide for the CPU and RAM. Since this is not needed in reality, the power amps stay extremely cool even under heavy CPU load. For the ears, there is 5.1 HD audio via the Realtek ALC4082 codec and ESS SABRE9218 DAC with Nahimic audio support as well as WIMA audio caps. It also has a Blazing M.2 slot for PCIe Gen5 x4 modules with up to 128 Gb/s connectivity, which is located to the right of the four DDR5 slots. Meanwhile, the Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 10000 is even the first PCIe Gen5 SSD available in stores. Two additional Hyper M.2 slots for PCIe Gen4 x4 modules with up to 64 Gb/s are located between the two PCIe x16 slots. Passive heat sinks are already pre-mounted for all M.2 slots, and the mounting screws are captive. This saves a lot of trouble when mounting the cooler. Practical quick-release fasteners for mounting the M.2 SSD are unfortunately not available. The Gen5 slot is compatible with module sizes from 2230 to 22110, while the two Gen4 slots accept 2280 modules, which are common for M.2 SSDs.
Here you can see a Crucial P5 Plus PCIe Gen4x4 2280 SSD in the M.2 Gen5 slot.
The two M.2 Gen4 slots are covered by a large passive heatsink. Unfortunately, access is covered when running a graphics card in the upper PCIex16 slot.
Chipset …
At the heart of the ASRock B650E Taichi motherboard is AMD’s B650 Extreme chipset. Four new chipset variants were introduced with AM5 and Ryzen 7000. The X670, the B650 and an Extreme version of each. All chipsets support overclocking, USB 4 and DDR5. DDR4 is no longer supported. X670 and B650 chipsets differ less than one might expect. B650 boards use a single Promontory-21 chip, whereas X670 boards have two Promontory-21 chips. As a result, B650 and X670 boards offer basically the same features, but the second Promontory-21 chip enables more high-speed connections to the CPU for additional M.2 slots, PCIe slots or USB sockets on X670 boards. In the following, we show an overview of how AMD has planned the connection of the interfaces. A different design by the board manufacturer is possible.
| AMD AM5 chipset comparison | |||||
| Chipset | PCIe total | PCIe Gen5 | USB 3.2 Gen1 | USB 3.2 Gen2 | SATA |
| X670E | 44 | 24 | 12 | 2 | 8 |
| X670 | 44 | 8 | 12 | 2 | 8 |
| B650E | 36 | 24 | 6 | 1 | 4 |
| B650 | 36 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 4 |
Thus, the B650 is by no means a cheap chipset. It is completely sufficient to run the currently fastest graphics card, the NVidia RTX 4090, as well as M.2 SSDs with transfer rates of 10000 MB/s and more without restrictions. Likewise, the fastest Ryzen 7000 CPUs can be fully utilized and overclocked with it. A significantly weaker chipset, like the A320 under AM4, has not yet been officially announced by AMD, but first rumors about a cheaper entry-level chipset are already circulating. Since a new CPU and RAM are required with AM5 compared to AM4, the AM5 platform is currently still mainly aimed at enthusiasts who want to assemble new, high-performance PCs.
Voltage Regulator and Heat Sink …
There are two decent aluminum heatsinks on the total of 27 Smart Power Stages, which are connected with a heat pipe. One of them is equipped with a small fan that sits invisibly under a cover. In addition, the motherboard’s backplate is also made of aluminum and connected to the board via heat conduction pads in the VRM area. There’s hardly a better way to dissipate the heat from the high-performance MOSFETs. Thus, the B650E Taichi is ideally suited to run even the strongest CPUs with heavy overclocking.
Expansion cards …
The upper of the two steel-reinforced PCIe X16 slots is a Gen 5 slot. The lower one has a Gen4 connection, which is not a limitation even for the currently fastest graphics cards, the NVidia RTX4090 and the AMD RX7900XTX. Both PCIe slots are shielded for optimal stability and signal quality and have an SMT design.
Memory …
AM5 heralds a new RAM era at AMD. DDR4 is history, because AM5 and Ryzen 7000 processors only support DDR5 RAM, which is not compatible with DDR4. The B650E Taichi offers four DDR5 memory slots with dual-channel support for memory modules with a total capacity of up to 128GB without external ECC (error correction). On-Die ECC naturally takes place on each DDR5 module itself, regardless of whether the board supports ECC or not.
Ryzen 7000 CPUs are specified up to a speed of DDR5-5200. However, the B650E Taichi already officially supports speeds up to DDR5-6600. With further BIOS updates, even higher transfer rates might be supported later when correspondingly fast memory modules are available. Like the PCIe slots, the DDR5 slots are also protected from foreign influences with stainless steel sheets. Here you can see Crucial DDR5-5600 modules in slots A2 and B2 for optimal dual-channel support.
SATA connectors …
The ASRock B650E Taichi offers a total of four angled SATA3 ports with 6 Gb/s, which are connected to the CPU via an ASMedia AS1061 chip. The Raid modes 0, 1 and 10 are supported on the SATA ports as well as on the M.2 ports. The necessary programs for the RAID configuration and installation are available for download on the ASRock website.
USB …
The ASRock B650E Taichi does not lack USB ports in the slightest. Quite the opposite, because the rear I/O panel offers a total of 11 Type-A sockets and one USB-C socket. The USB-C socket delivers highest transfer rates of up to 40 Gb/s and a charging power of up to 27W (9V/3A) according to PD 3.0 Quick Charge standard for mobile devices or battery packs. Furthermore, there are three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 sockets with 10 Gb/s, 2 of which run via their own controller and have lowest latencies for mouse and keyboard for eSports professionals and ambitious hobby gamers. They have yellow inlays and are labeled “Lightning Gaming”. There are also eight USB 3.2 Gen1 sockets with 5 Gb/s.
The number of usable USB ports can be significantly expanded via internal headers. There are two headers for a total of four USB 2 ports (480 Mb/s), one header for two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports (5 Gb/s) and one header for a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 header for front USB-C with 20 Gb/s. The motherboard also comes with a slot bracket with 2 USB-A sockets, which ASRock says is best used for WLAN or Bluetooth dongles.
Here you can see the possible USB transfer rates as a comparison in a table.
| USB interfaces comparison | ||
| Transfer rates | ||
| Interface | theoretical | practical |
| USB 2.0 | 480 MBit/s | 30 MByte/s |
| USB 3.0 | 5 GBit/s | 450 MByte/s |
| USB 3.1 Gen1 | 5 GBit/s | 450 MByte/s |
| USB 3.1 Gen2 | 10 GBit/s | 800 MByte/s |
| USB 3.2 Gen1 | 5 GBit/s | 450 MByte/s |
| USB 3.2 Gen2 | 10 GBit/s | 800 MByte/s |
| USB 3.2 Gen2x2 | 2×10 GBit/s | 1600 MByte/s |
| USB 4.0 | 40 GBit/s | 4000 MByte/s |
Network …
In terms of network connectivity, the ASRock B650E Taichi offers an RJ45 LAN port that supports 10, 100, 1000, 2500Mb/s operating modes and is connected via the Killer E3100G chip. In addition, the motherboard has a Killer AX1675 chip integrated. This allows connections to WiFi 6E (6GHz, 160MHz, dual band 2×2) and Bluetooth 5.2 standard via the included antenna. Of course, older connection modes according to IEEE 802.a/b/g/n/ac are also supported. Network traffic can be optimized with the Killer LAN software and Killer DoubleShot Pro, which results in a theoretical maximum total bandwidth of up to 4.9 Gb/s when using LAN and WLAN simultaneously.
Sound …
Of course, the sound is not neglected in the B650E Taichi. The motherboard is equipped with a Realtek ALC4082 5.1 HD audio codec and ESS Sabre9218 DAC. Thanks to WIMA audio caps, separate channel shielding on the PCB and Nahimic audio support, the signal-to-noise ratio is a considerable 130dB. In addition, the audio section features impedance detection, making the use of low impedance as well as high impedance headphones up to 600 ohms no problem. For 5.1 sound via jack, an additional jack socket on the case has to be connected via the internal audio header. An optical S/PDIF output is also available on the rear I/O panel.
RGB lighting …
With its basic color anthracite and the red-gold accents, the B650 Taichi is already a real eye-catcher without additional lighting, but of course a bit of RGB should not be missing. On the right side there is an approx. 8cm long addressable RGB LED bar and also the Taichi logo on the passive chipset cooler flashes or lights up depending on personal taste.
To extend the RGB lighting, three pin headers are available on the motherboard for connecting 5V aRGB elements. These provide up to 3A (15W) each for lighting fans, LED strips or similar. Two of them are located on the right above the 24-pin ATX connector.
The third aRGB connector is located at the bottom center of the motherboard and right next to it sits the 12V RGB header with 4 pins, which can also supply up to 3A (36W).
All RGB LEDs connected to the motherboard can be controlled via the UEFI BIOS or the Polychrome Sync RGB software provided by ASRock. For optimal control of the addressable LEDs, the number of connected LEDs for each port can be specified in the program.
In the ASRock Polychrome RGB Software Video we explain the included ASRock RGB software.
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In the following ASRock B650E Taichi video on our OCinside YouTube channel, we show off some RGB effects that the ASRock Polychrome Sync software has to offer.
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Here is a short excerpt from it again.
ATX equipment and other features …
The ASRock B650E Taichi has numerous useful features, such as the ASRock A-Tuning Tool, ASRock Instant Flash, BIOS Flashback, NVMe Sanitization Tool, SSD Secure Erase Tool, Digi Power, ASRock RGB LED, ASRock Polychrome RGB and ASRock FAN-Tastic Tuning, Blazing OC Tuner, Killer Doubleshot Pro, PD 3.0 Quickcharge, Lightning Gaming USB Ports, Auto Driver Installer.
The BIOS Flashback function is particularly worth mentioning here, as the AM5 platform is also designed for future CPU generations, but their specifications cannot yet be stored in the BIOS and will only be added later when the new CPUs are released. The necessary BIOS update can then be performed via USB stick without the presence of a CPU.
Test System …
For our review of the ASRock B650E Taichi, we put an AMD Ryzen 5 7600X CPU in the AM5 LG1718 socket, which now handles identically to an Intel CPU socket for many years. Thus, the danger of bending pins on the CPU has disappeared. On the other hand, the filigree springs in the LGA socket must now be well protected. Therefore, the plastic cover should always be inserted when there is no CPU in the socket.
The CPU has notches on two sides and one corner is marked with a golden triangle. If you pay attention to these details, you cannot insert the CPU into the socket incorrectly.
Once the CPU is properly seated, the next step is to clamp it in place with the bracket mechanism, with the protective cover of the socket popping off by itself in the process (see LGA CPU installation guide).
We put a 16 GB RAM module into two of the four DDR5 slots, which Crucial kindly provided us with for the test. We put the two Crucial RAM modules into the slots marked with A2 and B2 on the motherboard to get the best performance. On boards with daisy chain topology, the slots at the end of each channel should always be populated first to keep interference from external sources to a minimum. By the described assembly we get a Dual Channel Single Ranked Setup, which should run particularly stable. Single-sided RAM modules, like those of our Crucial CT2K16G48C40U5 dual channel kit, are practically always single-ranked.
This is how the correct configuration with the two Crucial DDR5-4800 RAM modules looks on the ASRock B650E Taichi.
For cooling, we rely on Arctic’s tried and true All In One water cooling system, namely the Liquid Freezer II 280 A-RGB, which can be used with the previous AM4 bracket on the ASRock B650E Taichi without any adjustments. For the thermal paste, we also rely on a product from Arctic, namely the good old MX-4 thermal paste. Its thermal conductivity is excellent (see Thermal compound Comparison test), it doesn’t dry out even after long periods of use, and it’s electrically non-conductive, which is an advantage with the new AM5 CPUs because it has exposed SMD components on the top. For data storage, we use the speedy Crucial P5 Plus PCIe Gen4 M.2 SSD.
The necessary power is provided by the Lian Li SP850 80+ Gold SFX power supply, which provides more than enough power reserves for the 105W CPU with integrated graphics unit.
ASRock B650E Taichi UEFI and Overclocking …