ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara Motherboard Review: ASRock Rocks With White Marble

Conclusion

When buying a motherboard to use with Intel's 13th or 12th Gen Core series of processors, there's a wide variety of choices. Being on Intel's LGA 1700 socket, multiple chipset options are available to users, with Intel's 600-series models, such as Z690, also supporting both platforms. The latest and most current is the Z790 chipset, which is very similar to Z690 in specifications, with the only differences coming in connectivity and memory support. The Z790 chipset can accommodate one extra USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C port and supports up to DDR5-5600B, and that's it. While hardly a reason to create a new chipset, it does allow motherboard vendors to release a wave of new motherboards, including ASRock with the Z790 Taichi Carrara edition.

In what is considered a direct sidestep to ASRock's Z790 Taichi, the Z790 Carrara Taichi shares the same specifications, including support for up to DDR5-7400 (OC) memory, dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, 2.5 GbE, and Wi-Fi 6E, the difference comes in aesthetic. The ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara features a striking white Carrara marbled-inspired design, a unique twist on the Taichi design but a very welcome one. Dropping all of the RGB-enabled cogwheels and multitudes of black and greys, the Carrara Taichi uses a white marbling across the entirety of the board, including the rear panel, the M.2 heatsinks, and the chipset heatsink. It looks elegant, but users may have problems finding hardware to match the aesthetic. Despite that, it's a stunning-looking motherboard.

Touching on the finer specifications, for storage, ASRock includes one PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slot for the latest and fast-running Gen 5 NVMe drives, as well as four PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots and eight SATA ports capable of supporting RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. Connectivity options are impressive, including two premium Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports on the rear panel, two additional USB 3.2 G2 Type-A ports, six USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports, and two USB 2.0 ports. That gives the Z790 Taichi Carrara twelve connectors on the rear panel alone, with one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and four USB 2.0 ports available through front panel headers.

That's a good level of connectivity, even for a motherboard filling the gap between the regular models such as their Z790 Steel Legend and Phantom Gaming models and the flagship halo level Z690 Aqua motherboard. Regarding networking, the Z790 Taichi Carrara is spearheaded by a Killer E3100G 2.5 GbE and Intel I219-V Gigabit NIC pairing. At the same time, ASRock also includes a Killer AX1690 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, which supports the latest BT 5.3 devices.

Focusing on performance, the ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara is competitive. Although we did experience slower-than-expected POST times into Windows, the flipside is that the DPC latency performance out of the box is the best we've tested on Z790. Other performance areas, including those all-important VRM thermals, were also competitive. Although ASRock includes an actively cooled VRM heatsink with two 40 mm fans assisting, it wasn't the coolest design we've tested. Using Intel's ISO 2.0 profile via the Extreme Tuning Utility (Intel XTU), we hit up to 70°C on the VRM, and with a sizeable 24+2-phase power delivery, we must admit that we were expecting cooler temperatures. The results still fit well within the rated specification of the components, so that's not overly negative.

Final Words: Carrara White Marbled Elegance, But Could Offer More

The ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara at $499 is a solid E-ATX motherboard with competitive performance, sizeable over-engineered power delivery, and stylish aesthetics. That being said, there are areas of improvement, most notably in the networking configuration. The only area where ASRock could have offered more is networking connectivity.

For a $499 motherboard, ASRock could have done more here, as even the GIGABYTE Z790 Aorus Master ($490) comes with a 10 GbE controller, and the ASUS ProArt Z790-Creator WIFI ($420) has 10 GbE, 2.5 GBe, and Wi-Fi 6E too. At the price point, ASRock has seemingly traded uprated networking for dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, which comes down to what users want most from a motherboard. Other models of a similar ilk include the MSI MPG Z790 Carbon WiFi ($480) and the ASUS ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming WIFI 6E ($500), which all have similar specifications. The only pitfall to the Z790 Taichi Carrara is the availability, which given its a special edition model, maybe a little more challenging to get hold of. There are retailers with stock every so often, including in the US and UK, most notably Scan Computers for £550.

There's no board like the ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara from a design point of view. For users who like the white Carrara marbled aesthetic, the Z790 Taichi Carrara is a decent example of a premium Intel LGA 1700 motherboard with all the main boxes being ticked. With better networking capabilities, it would have probably been one of the best sub $500 motherboards on the market. Despite that, the ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara is a unique Z790 motherboard that offers a more stylish (in our opinion) alternative to the slightly cheaper Z790 Taichi ($480).

With BIOS's already being rolled out to support the upcoming 14th Gen Core series, it makes models such as the ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara even more desirable, unless, of course, ASRock releases a new and 'better' variant in the coming months, as most motherboard vendors typically do for an Intel processor launch.