This, the money they put into the gimmick useless juno should have gone to networking instead. Though I suppose in fairness unlike AMD they have to work with severe bandwidth limitations so they can't just do every single useful feature. But that one should have been a priority.
There's the same bandwidth on the Z590 platform as the X570. 20 PCI-E 4.0 lanes from the CPU, and ~4 GB/s between CPU and chipset (through 4 PCI-E 4.0 lanes on X570, and 8 DMI/PCI-E 3.0 lanes on Z590). And 10 Gb/s networking just needs 1.25 GB/s, so no severe bandwidth limitations from connecting it to a PCI-E 3.0 x1 link to the chipset.
This is about the level of gimmick I expected from ASRock, after all the brand is a second-rate Asus so they need to do these cheesy things to get attention.
I'd be embarrassed if anyone found out I'd bought a motherboard with this pointless feature ;-) I might buy it anyway. Maybe the feature can be disabled or I could cover it up with tape! Adding any feature to the motherboard probably puts several dollars on the factory gate price and several times that for the consumer. 10Gbps ethernet option would have been far better.
"It has a subtle and clean design..." Amazing that we're at a point where a motherboard with a completely cosmetic moving gear tacked on to its face can be considered "subtle and clean design".
Aside from that it is a pretty clean design. The thing with design though is that its defined by its most prominent feature. In this case a superfluous, non functional visual embellishment. So yeah not clean, and not subtle.
ASrock: superfluous, nonfunctional, embellishments look stupid and are bad design, stop doing it.
Just like MSI's dragons and Gigabyte's AORUS 'team up. fight on" nonsense. Asian companies still have a design culture that lacks the purity and subtlety that westerners look for.
"Asian companies still have a design culture that lacks the purity and subtlety that westerners look for."
QFT. That's partly to do with a particularly prevalent culture of one-upness amongst Asians - which applies to the target market. So you have features that are blingy, weird, gimmicky etc. because a significant portion of their clientele want them so they get bragging rights in the pissing competition of who's got the latest, coolest/flashiest kit. As an Asian meself the mindset sometimes drives me nuts. Form over function 'cause, hey, how many people can/want to assess (or show off) the quality of the engineering that goes into the board using oscilloscopes and eye diagrams?
Oh lord, that's unbelievable tech, truly I feel the future is now. Clearly I will need to upgrade from my mITX case to a file-cabinet case to fit that RTX 4090 in.
I don’t understand why some mobo vendors implement thunderbolt4 but fail to include DisplayPort inputs for pass thru of the gpu output via thunderbolt. Major fail in my opinion of asus 13 hero, aorus extreme, and the ASRock Taichi. Give the user control over which video signal they tunnel via thunderbolt: either the igpu or a discrete gpu. At least the gigabyte vision d and the msi ace have DisplayPort input.
I came to the comments for your exact comment. I assume you can tunnel your PCIe GPU through the CPU's GPU just like you can on previous Intel boards, but what is the performance penalty for that? Seems like having a dedicated DP input to incorporate it into TB4 would make sense if there is a performance hit.
They did have it on the x570 AQUA, but thats kinda different segment of mobo, i guess its just kinda a rare feature to want to do, since you're really just swapping one port for another that has built in usb and other junk.
> The second cogwheel, on the rear IO cover, is a mechanical moving part, and the first time I've personally seen a mechanical moving part integrated into a motherboard.
To be fair, we have seen a LOT of fans on motherboards in the past and present.
Yeah. When I read the headline I was surprised because I expected it to refer to a fan — the only moving part that has any business being part of a board.
I was replying to the comment comparing a mechanical visual embellishment to fan that serves a function. If you bring up one thing in relation to another that typically means drawing a comparison or in this case a likeness between them. However in the case one of them is functional and does something while the other is pointless and stupid, thus making it an unfair comparison.
‘Although PCIe 4.0 has been seen on AMD platforms for over a year, it's a solid statement from Intel as they look to regain its position as the king in the processor market.’
I find 2.5Gbit Ethernet at these price levels more than a bit disappointing. I think the RealTek 2.5Gbit would sell at rather similar cost to their Gbit offerings as BOM, so "premium" isn't what comes to mind at this speed.
Currently you have to either sacrifice an entire PCIe 4x (or greater) slot or a Thunderbolt port to get 10Gbit via Aquantia/Marvell, 8x for Intel 10Gbit (which might not be NBase-T but 1/10GBaseT, only), when a single PCIe 4.0 lane should suffice.
Surely 3 Watts for a 10GBase-T PHY aren't too much to ask when the CPU gobles 400 and the GPU not much less!
So you'll pay more for something that functions identically? Arguably doublers have the benefit of being easier to sync since they only use 6-8 controllers instead of 12-16, which allows for better voltage control.
Not all doubler implementations are as good as implementations without them. Some are particularly poor. It comes down to the implementation but, in the simplest example a doubler is not as good as having separate phases. There are a lot of variables involved, though. Separate low-quality phases are going to be worse than high-quality phases using a doubler.
Buildzoid explained all of the details in his videos. I don't remember all of the specifics but some VRM implementations are full of fakery, like adding lots of chokes or something to fool people into thinking they're getting something more powerful.
I can't decide if the basic idea itself is the most absurdly pitiful bit, or it's that they superimposed a non-moving gear on top of the one that does move.
Taichi ultimates used to cost under $400, and came with two ethernet ports AND a 10G ethernet port. They came with plenty of PCIe lanes as well. This taichi at $429 is a ripoff.
Purely aesthetic cogwheel isn't any more ridiculous than purely aesthetic RGB lighting, but I don't see anyone getting their knickers in a twist about that.
The 2.5G port is a complete gimmick. I have a 2009 Mac Pro with a 10g card a 2017 pc with a 10g fiber card a 2019 Mac Pro with 2 10g ports but a should get excited with 2021 motherboard that has a 2.5G port that would not even work as a 2.5G port with my 10g Netgear equipment (m430024x24f) because it does not recognize 2.5G and knocks it down to 1g. Do you even know how networks work? Do you know that I would have to get a $500 multi speed switch (ms510txm) just for a 2.5G port to work on my network but you are all excited by a 2.5G port...give me a break!
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Cullinaire - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
What a gimmick. Instead of a stepper motor why not have a steam engine powered by the CPU heat.Molor1880 - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
Should have gone with a tiny sterling engine. That would make this joke a bit better.kachan64 - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
Agree. Should have gone with that!YB1064 - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
No 10GbE on a FOUR HUNDRED dollar motherboard?? No thanks.zanon - Saturday, April 3, 2021 - link
This, the money they put into the gimmick useless juno should have gone to networking instead. Though I suppose in fairness unlike AMD they have to work with severe bandwidth limitations so they can't just do every single useful feature. But that one should have been a priority.ZoZo - Saturday, April 3, 2021 - link
There's the same bandwidth on the Z590 platform as the X570.20 PCI-E 4.0 lanes from the CPU, and ~4 GB/s between CPU and chipset (through 4 PCI-E 4.0 lanes on X570, and 8 DMI/PCI-E 3.0 lanes on Z590).
And 10 Gb/s networking just needs 1.25 GB/s, so no severe bandwidth limitations from connecting it to a PCI-E 3.0 x1 link to the chipset.
TheinsanegamerN - Sunday, April 4, 2021 - link
The raichu line had 10gb as a selling point with the z200 and x400 vhipsets. For some reason asrock abandoned this idea and raised the price.TheinsanegamerN - Sunday, April 4, 2021 - link
Agreed. The whole reason to get a taichi was the 10gb ethernet onboard.Samus - Saturday, April 3, 2021 - link
This is about the level of gimmick I expected from ASRock, after all the brand is a second-rate Asus so they need to do these cheesy things to get attention.zotric - Sunday, October 10, 2021 - link
I must say I have had excellent support for my older ASRock Taichi board so don't write it off!Linustechtips12#6900xt - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
Lmao, that would be so cool dude lolzotric - Sunday, October 10, 2021 - link
I'd be embarrassed if anyone found out I'd bought a motherboard with this pointless feature ;-)I might buy it anyway. Maybe the feature can be disabled or I could cover it up with tape!
Adding any feature to the motherboard probably puts several dollars on the factory gate price and several times that for the consumer. 10Gbps ethernet option would have been far better.
omf - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
"It has a subtle and clean design..." Amazing that we're at a point where a motherboard with a completely cosmetic moving gear tacked on to its face can be considered "subtle and clean design".Operandi - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
Aside from that it is a pretty clean design. The thing with design though is that its defined by its most prominent feature. In this case a superfluous, non functional visual embellishment. So yeah not clean, and not subtle.ASrock: superfluous, nonfunctional, embellishments look stupid and are bad design, stop doing it.
ZoZo - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
Just like MSI's dragons and Gigabyte's AORUS 'team up. fight on" nonsense. Asian companies still have a design culture that lacks the purity and subtlety that westerners look for.Stele - Sunday, April 4, 2021 - link
"Asian companies still have a design culture that lacks the purity and subtlety that westerners look for."QFT. That's partly to do with a particularly prevalent culture of one-upness amongst Asians - which applies to the target market. So you have features that are blingy, weird, gimmicky etc. because a significant portion of their clientele want them so they get bragging rights in the pissing competition of who's got the latest, coolest/flashiest kit. As an Asian meself the mindset sometimes drives me nuts. Form over function 'cause, hey, how many people can/want to assess (or show off) the quality of the engineering that goes into the board using oscilloscopes and eye diagrams?
Hifihedgehog - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
Are you guys going to review the RTX 4090 that was revealed today?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0frNP0qzxQc
Cullinaire - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
Is this the Rick Astley edition?Tomatotech - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
Oh lord, that's unbelievable tech, truly I feel the future is now. Clearly I will need to upgrade from my mITX case to a file-cabinet case to fit that RTX 4090 in.powerarmour - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
GPU reviews?, Hahaha...powerarmour - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
That gimmicky cogwheel is quite frankly ridiculous, ASRock have really gone all-in for their own personal shark jumping contest.abufrejoval - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
One would think it a product for this special day!Exotica - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
I don’t understand why some mobo vendors implement thunderbolt4 but fail to include DisplayPort inputs for pass thru of the gpu output via thunderbolt. Major fail in my opinion of asus 13 hero, aorus extreme, and the ASRock Taichi. Give the user control over which video signal they tunnel via thunderbolt: either the igpu or a discrete gpu. At least the gigabyte vision d and the msi ace have DisplayPort input.dotes12 - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
I came to the comments for your exact comment. I assume you can tunnel your PCIe GPU through the CPU's GPU just like you can on previous Intel boards, but what is the performance penalty for that? Seems like having a dedicated DP input to incorporate it into TB4 would make sense if there is a performance hit.Linustechtips12#6900xt - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
They did have it on the x570 AQUA, but thats kinda different segment of mobo, i guess its just kinda a rare feature to want to do, since you're really just swapping one port for another that has built in usb and other junk.vanish1 - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
I think it looks greatjeremyshaw - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
> The second cogwheel, on the rear IO cover, is a mechanical moving part, and the first time I've personally seen a mechanical moving part integrated into a motherboard.To be fair, we have seen a LOT of fans on motherboards in the past and present.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
Yeah. When I read the headline I was surprised because I expected it to refer to a fan — the only moving part that has any business being part of a board.Operandi - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
Nothing fair about that comparison at all; one of them performs a function while the other is superfluous bullshit.Oxford Guy - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
Um... they’re both moving parts. Fairness has nothing to do with it.Operandi - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
What?I was replying to the comment comparing a mechanical visual embellishment to fan that serves a function. If you bring up one thing in relation to another that typically means drawing a comparison or in this case a likeness between them. However in the case one of them is functional and does something while the other is pointless and stupid, thus making it an unfair comparison.
idimitro - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
Taichi - from "we give you only the necessary and meaningful features..." to "have a turning cog just because".tizio - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
This is the beginning of the end for sensible looking hardware. By 2023 motherboards will be 50% greebles by weight.Oxford Guy - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
‘Although PCIe 4.0 has been seen on AMD platforms for over a year, it's a solid statement from Intel as they look to regain its position as the king in the processor market.’The king of 14nm.
abufrejoval - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
I find 2.5Gbit Ethernet at these price levels more than a bit disappointing. I think the RealTek 2.5Gbit would sell at rather similar cost to their Gbit offerings as BOM, so "premium" isn't what comes to mind at this speed.Currently you have to either sacrifice an entire PCIe 4x (or greater) slot or a Thunderbolt port to get 10Gbit via Aquantia/Marvell, 8x for Intel 10Gbit (which might not be NBase-T but 1/10GBaseT, only), when a single PCIe 4.0 lane should suffice.
Surely 3 Watts for a 10GBase-T PHY aren't too much to ask when the CPU gobles 400 and the GPU not much less!
rolfaalto - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
As of 30th March they've posted a new BIOS/Firmware that fixes a bunch of CPU issues. What version were you testing?sonny73n - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
If I pay more than $400 for a motherboard, I will definitely get one with 12 or more REAL power phase, not ones that using doublers.Oxford Guy - Saturday, April 3, 2021 - link
I don’t think doublers are necessarily bad. It’s in the implementation.In the bigger picture, just get Zen 3 and don’t worry about overclocking and VRMs.
TheinsanegamerN - Sunday, April 4, 2021 - link
So you'll pay more for something that functions identically? Arguably doublers have the benefit of being easier to sync since they only use 6-8 controllers instead of 12-16, which allows for better voltage control.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link
Not all doubler implementations are as good as implementations without them. Some are particularly poor. It comes down to the implementation but, in the simplest example a doubler is not as good as having separate phases. There are a lot of variables involved, though. Separate low-quality phases are going to be worse than high-quality phases using a doubler.Buildzoid explained all of the details in his videos. I don't remember all of the specifics but some VRM implementations are full of fakery, like adding lots of chokes or something to fool people into thinking they're getting something more powerful.
DanNeely - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
I can't decide if the basic idea itself is the most absurdly pitiful bit, or it's that they superimposed a non-moving gear on top of the one that does move.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
$429 is a rediculous price.Taichi ultimates used to cost under $400, and came with two ethernet ports AND a 10G ethernet port. They came with plenty of PCIe lanes as well. This taichi at $429 is a ripoff.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link
Inflation is very high right now. Products are going up 30%, 50%, 100%, etc.It was high even before COVID and the trillions in dollars that were printed in response.
edwpang - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
Motherboard used to have a fan to cool down the northbridge chip. That's more useful than this one!ltkAlpha - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
The moving cogwheel... The fact that whoever decided this was a good idea was in a position to make that decision makes me depresses me.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link
It's less offensive than Intel putting skulls on its SSDs. That has to be the #1 stupidest.Mikuni - Saturday, April 10, 2021 - link
April's fools80-wattHamster - Monday, April 12, 2021 - link
Purely aesthetic cogwheel isn't any more ridiculous than purely aesthetic RGB lighting, but I don't see anyone getting their knickers in a twist about that.kkromm - Saturday, April 17, 2021 - link
The 2.5G port is a complete gimmick. I have a 2009 Mac Pro with a 10g card a 2017 pc with a 10g fiber card a 2019 Mac Pro with 2 10g ports but a should get excited with 2021 motherboard that has a 2.5G port that would not even work as a 2.5G port with my 10g Netgear equipment (m430024x24f) because it does not recognize 2.5G and knocks it down to 1g. Do you even know how networks work? Do you know that I would have to get a $500 multi speed switch (ms510txm) just for a 2.5G port to work on my network but you are all excited by a 2.5G port...give me a break!kims123 - Sunday, April 18, 2021 - link
really it was to be unique...great thought what u have done like that...i would be look great..