ASRock Z890 Taichi

The Z890 Taichi is ASRock's flagship Intel board for Core Ultra Series 2 processors, matching its AM5 X870E Taichi sibling with a gear-themed design, six M.2 slots, and dual LAN, aimed at enthusiasts who want the strongest Intel board ASRock offers.

Power delivery uses a 20+1+2+1+1 phase design with 110A SPS stages for VCore, giving it comparable headroom to the ASUS Maximus Z890 Hero for overclocked Core Ultra 9 chips. Four DDR5 DIMM slots run at a native 5600MHz with overclocking supported up to 9600+ MT/s via Intel XMP 3.0, among the highest rated speeds in this catalog, and a maximum total capacity of 256GB. Expansion includes a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot from the CPU and a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot at x4 from the chipset. Storage is generous at six M.2 slots: one PCIe 5.0 x4, four PCIe 4.0 x4, and one PCIe 4.0 x4/SATA hybrid slot, alongside four SATA3 connectors. Dual LAN combines 5 Gigabit and 2.5 Gigabit controllers, alongside 802.11be Wi-Fi 7 2x2 and Bluetooth 5.4. Audio runs through a Realtek ALC4082 codec with an ESS SABRE9219 DAC. Against the ASUS ROG Maximus Z890 Hero in this batch, the Z890 Taichi offers a slightly higher rated memory OC ceiling (9600+ MT/s versus 9200+ MT/s) and matches it on six total M.2 slots, making the two boards close competitors at similar price points.