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

The ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara is a mid-range to high-end E-ATX motherboard, which bridges the gap between ASRock’s Steel Legend and Phantom Gaming series with the halo ASRock Z690 Aqua. The Taichi series in itself is a premium range of motherboards, whereas the Z790 Taichi Carrara has the same feature set as the regular Taichi; it is different with its white Carrara marbled styled aesthetics.

As a premium LGA1700 motherboard designed for Intel’s 13th Gen and 12th Gen Core series processors, it does support PCIe 5.0, with two full-length PCIe 5.0 slots that can operate at x16/x0 or x8/x8, while ASRock includes a single full-length PCIe 4.0 x4 slot which is driven by the Z790 chipset. There are four memory slots with support for up to and including DDR5-7400 memory, and they can accommodate a maximum of 192 GB.

Regarding cooling support, there are 8 x 4-pin fan headers, with one specifically for a CPU fan, one acting as an optional CPU fan and water pump, and six 4-pin headers for chassis fans, although all the headers can support water cooling pumps.

In terms of storage, the ASRock Z790 Taichi has one PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slot, with four PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, and eight SATA ports; all of the SATA ports can support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. On the rear panel, ASRock includes plenty of connectivity, including dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, which can double up as video outputs for additional and compatible monitors. For conventional monitors, there is one HDMI 2.1 video output. ASRock also includes six USB 3.2 G2 Type-A ports and two USB 2.0 ports, while a USB 3.2 G2x2 10 Gbps header is available to use for chassis with a compatible front panel.

The ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara has a decent networking array, including two Ethernet ports, one controlled by a Killer E3100 2.5 GbE controller and the other by an Intel I219-V Gigabit controller. For wireless, ASRock includes a Killer AX1690 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi with support for wireless and BT 5.3 connectivity. 

In keeping in line with other mid-range to premium Z790 motherboards, ASRock has a decent on-board audio configuration with a Realtek ALC4082 HD audio codec doing much of the audio processing, with an assisting ESS Sabre 9218 DAC providing an uprated experience for users with good quality headphones. As such, ASRock offers just two 3.5 mm audio jacks and a single S/PDIF optical output.

Test Bed

With some of the nuances with Intel’s Raptor Lake processors, including the use of P and E-cores, our policy is to see if the system gives an automatic option to increase the power limits of the processor. If it does, we select the liquid cooling option. If it does not, we do not change the defaults.

We must also thank the following:

Hardware Providers for CPU and Motherboard Reviews
Sapphire RX 460 Nitro	MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC	Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs	Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs
G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX	Crucial Ballistix DDR4	Silverstone Coolers	Noctua Coolers

Not all motherboards are created equal. On the face of it, they should all perform the same and differ only in the functionality they provide – however, this is not the case. The obvious pointers are power consumption, POST time and latency. This can come down to the manufacturing process and prowess, so these are tested.

For Z790 we are running using Windows 11 64-bit with the 22H2 update.

Power Consumption

In previous motherboard reviews, we focused on the overall system power, and while sometimes useful, it doesn’t paint the full picture. Motherboards can vary in power, but users with more M.2 SSDs, more devices plugged into the motherboard, and additional PCIe devices such as capture cards or sound cards will experience variances in power consumption.

For our motherboard reviews going forward, we’re going to be focusing on power draw explicitly from the CPU, as in real-world situations, the processor is the de-facto part of the system that will display variance in power; the graphics card will also draw power, but with so many different models of the graphics card, these values will vary massively. To capture CPU power draw from each motherboard tested, we will be using ElmorLabs PMD-USB power measurement device, which directly plugs into the 8-pin ATX EPS 12 V CPU power connectors, and lets us directly measure the power being fed into the CPU via the power delivery from the power supply.

Ideally, lower values are better, especially with Intel’s 13th and 12th Gen Core processors. The other factor is, of course, performance, which goes hand in hand with power consumption depending on the workload and the amount of CPU processing being utilized on the cores. At idle, the lower value is best, but some motherboard vendors are more aggressive on voltages, and more voltage = more heat and higher power consumption.

At idle values, we are measuring the value while the system has settled down, and for load power, we’re measuring the average peak value over the course of the 10-minute CB23 MT run. This is because while power-hungry at full-load, processors can sometimes spike for a second or two and as such, can skew peak results, hence why we take the average value.

Looking at CPU package power when used with our Intel Core i9-13900K, we can see at both idle and full-load, the ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara pulls more watts than other LGA 1700 motherboards we’ve tested so far. At idle, we measured 5.5 W, which was just over a watt higher than other boards.

Looking at the full-load average, the Z790 Taichi Carrara was over 10 W higher on average than the next board on the list, the MSI Z790 Carbon WIFI. While not a massive different at full load, it looks as though ASRock is being more aggressive with CPU voltage and power at full-load.

Non-UEFI POST Time

Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this depends on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). We look at the POST Boot Time using a stopwatch as part of our testing. This is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows-specific features.)

Using our regular method to measure POST time, the Z790 Taichi Carrara took noticeably longer than other boards on test, which all bar the Taichi managed to boot in under 23 seconds. The Z790 Taichi Carrara, on the other hand, was over 8 seconds slower than the next slowest board, the GIGABYTE Z790 Aorus Xtreme.

DPC Latency

Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests such as audio will be further down the line. If the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled.

If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time. This can lead to an empty audio buffer and characteristic audible pauses, pops, and clicks. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is taken processing DPCs from driver invocation. The lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds.

We measure DPC latency out of the box with no tweaks or refinement within Windows, and as we can see, the Z790 Taichi Carrara did best out of the LGA 1700 models we’ve tested with the Core i9-13900K so far.

For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We put the memory settings at the CPU manufacturers suggested frequency, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.

For Z790 we are running using Windows 11 64-bit with the 22H2 update.

Rendering – Blender 3.5

Rendering – Crysis CPU Render

Rendering – Cinebench R23

Synthetic – GeekBench 5

Compression – WinRAR 5.90

3D Movement Algorithm Test – 3DPMv2.1

There wasn’t too much difference between the boards in our compute performance section. The anomaly, the ASRock B760M Steel Legend is limited to fit within Intel’s Power Limit by default and, as such, doesn’t have as much power budget available as the Z790 boards do.

The Taichi Carrara was only around 4% slower on average in Blender 3.5. Still, a lot of the results showed competitive and negligible results, with the only questionable area in performance coming in WinRar 5.90, which was around 7% slower than the rest of the boards.

When it comes to testing motherboards, much of the performance between most of the boards tested with the same processor such as the Intel Core i9-13900K, is fairly similar. The main reason we’re testing gaming performance in our motherboard reviews is to see if there are any anomalies. There are also occasions on platforms where some vendors will ‘overcharge’ performance by implementing Multi-Core Enhancement (MCE). This can alter performance far beyond what processor vendors such as AMD and Intel set as their default values.

For Z790 we are running using Windows 11 64-bit with the 22H2 update.

F1 2022: 1080p Ultra Settings

F1 2022: 4K High Settings

Total War: Warhammer 3: 1080p Ultra Settings

Total War: Warhammer 3: 4K High Settings

Looking at the gaming performance of the ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara, its performance is similar to the rest of the LGA 1700 motherboards we’ve tested. The only anomaly we could see was in Total War: Warhammer 3 at 4K, where we saw lower than ideal 95th percentile frame rates, which in comparison, was around 13% slower than the GIGABYTE Z790 Aorus Xtreme.

One of the most requested elements of our motherboard reviews revolves around the power delivery and its componentry. Aside from the quality of the components and its capability for overclocking to push out higher clock speeds which in turn improves performance, is the thermal capability of the cooling solutions implemented by manufacturers. While almost always fine for users running processors at default settings, the cooling capability of the VRMs isn’t something that users should worry too much about, but for those looking to squeeze out extra performance from the CPU via overclocking, this puts extra pressure on the power delivery and in turn, generates extra heat.

Given how fast Intel and AMD’s processors are at default turbo clock speeds, overclocking is becoming less and less relevant. Of course, a sub-section of the audience still likes to overclock, with some competition on the fabled HWBot competition platform. There are more models of motherboards than ever before, which often include fancy heatsinks on premium models with better cooling designs, heftier chunks of metal, and in some cases, even water blocks.

The 27-phase (24+1+2) power delivery on the ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara

Testing Methodology

Our testing method is to determine whether the power delivery and heatsink effectively dissipate heat. We do this by running a realistic yet still heavy CPU workload for a prolonged period of time. While we previously applied a set overclock deemed safe. For Intel’s Raptor Lake (13th Gen Core series), we’re using Intel’s Speed Optimizer (ISO 2.0) to determine the maximum clocks and voltages. We then run Cinebench R23 MT on a loop for an hour, putting a realistic and pressured load on the processor. We collect our data via three different methods, which include the following:

• Taking a thermal image from a birds-eye view after an hour with a Flir Pro thermal imaging camera
• Securing two probes onto the rear of the PCB, right underneath CPU VCore section of the power delivery for better parity in case a probe reports a faulty reading
• Taking a reading of the VRM temperature from the sensor reading within the HWInfo monitoring application

The reason for using three different methods is that some sensors can read inaccurate temperatures, which can give very erratic results for users looking to gauge whether an overclock is too much pressure for the power delivery handle. With using a probe on the rear, it can also show the efficiency of the power stages and heatsinks as a wide margin between the probe and sensor temperature can show that the heatsink is dissipating heat and that the design is working or that the internal sensor is massively wrong. To ensure our probe was accurate before testing, I binned 10 and selected the most accurate (within 1c of the actual temperature) for better parity in our testing.

For thermal imaging, we use a Flir One camera to indicate where the heat is generated around the socket area, as some designs use different configurations, and an evenly spread power delivery with good components will usually generate less heat. Manufacturers who use inefficient heatsinks and cheap out on power delivery components should run hotter than those who have invested. Of course, a $700 flagship motherboard will likely outperform a cheaper $100 model under the same testing conditions, but it is still worth testing to see which vendors are doing things correctly. 

Thermal Analysis Results

We measured 74.2ºC on the hottest part of the CPU socket during our testing (ISO 2.0)

The Z790 Taichi Carrara has a very large power delivery, which ASRock advertises as a 24+1+2 design. While that is true when factoring in all of the power phases, including those for memory, the bulk of what’s actually useful to the CPU is technically a 24+2 phase design. For the CPU section of the ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara’s power delivery are 24 x Renesas RAA2201540 105 A smart power states, with a Renesas RAA229131 PWM controller and an additional RAA2201054 105 A power stage doing all of the phase switching duties.

The ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara and the regular Taichi are two examples of an active cooled VRM on the Z790 chipset. There is a large two-section heatsink interconnected with a single heatpipe, which actually has two small 40 mm cooling fans housed within the main body of the heatsink, which is designed to direct airflow over the fins and aid in dissipating heat. 

Looking at our thermal VRM testing results, the Z790 Taichi Carrara is one of the cooler designs we’ve tested, with a maximum recorded temperature when applying Intel’s Speed Optimizer settings of 70°C. It also has one of the lowest CPU V-Core when tested with the ISO 2.0 applied via Intel’s overclocking software, called the Extreme Tuning Utility, or XTU for short.

This also segues us into our overclocking results, as given how fast Intel’s Core i9-13900K is at default settings and how hot it operates, there’s not much overclocking headroom available at all, even when using a premium 360 mm such as we are.

Overclocking Results

Focusing on the overclocking performance when using Intel’s Speed Optimizer settings through XTU, we can see how each board performs in CineBench R23 MT and at what average CPU V-Core, peak package power, and the peak CPU package temp.

The ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara at default settings in a 1-hour continuous run of CineBench R23 MT, we can see it has a peak average CPU V-Core of 1.376 V, with 22.1% more performance in CB23 MT than running at Intel’s default PL1 and PL2 of 253 W. Using Intel’s ISO 2.0 profile, the board only managed to pull an additional 1.4% of performance in CB23 MT, but with 5°C higher on average on the CPU temperature, with around 18 W more watts on average.

Not only has Intel squeezed a lot of performance from the silicon with their high default turbo clock speeds, but the ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara allows the chip to maintain this performance over a prolonged period of time. It is worth noting that the Core i9-13900K is a very hot running chip, especially at full load, and premium cooling is a requirement in working alongside Intel’s Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) technology; lesser cooling means lower performance due to the chip being clipped back in frequency once it hits 80c.

The ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara also has a very good power delivery. As such, if users did want to overclock further and intended to use premium cooling such as custom water cooling, then depending on the quality of the silicon itself, users shouldn’t have any problems in pushing the chip even further. It’s worth noting that on Raptor Lake (Intel’s 13th Gen Core), temperatures are the biggest issue in limiting overclocking potential.

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.