ASROCK X299 TAICHI CLX
Maintaining Asrock’s balancing act of value and performance.
When we look at a platform like Intel’s X299, and AMD’s Threadripper too, for that matter, we often wonder why motherboard manufacturers excessively focus on gaming when the mainstream platforms are better options. Asrock’s Taichi brand doesn’t resort to this tactic, usually delivering an excellent combination of useful features and affordable price. X299 refresh motherboards have undoubtedly taken a step up in price though, and at $799 the X299 Taichi CLX can’t be considered an affordable board any longer. With this in mind, can the latest Taichi land in the sweet spot as we’ve come to expect from Asrock?
The X299 Taichi CLX looks every bit a high end board and you’d expect it to have a long list of features. While it’s not a barebones motherboard by any measure, it doesn’t come with all the bells and whistles that are found on the disappointingly high number of X299 boards that approach and exceed the $1,000 mark. The overall design with its artistic gears and cogs is a nice touch. Of course you still get a touch of RGB around the board, but it’s not blinding by any means. The VRM system of the board is strong with 13 phases and twin eight-pin EPS power connectors. We’d like to see the heatsink have some more surface area, but that’s nit-picking really.
Other key features include an impressive ten SATA ports, triple M.2 slots and 2.5 Gigabit LAN. The Realtek RTL8125AG 2.5G controller is a very welcome addition to the market. On the topic of networking, the Taichi CLX includes Intel’s latest Wi-Fi 6 controller along with Bluetooth 5.0.
The rear I/O is fairly standard with 6x USB ports plus an additional Type-C. There’s no Thunderbolt 3 or unique gadgets present, though it seems those are the things that differentiate an $800 board from one that costs 50% more.
When it comes to performance, the Asrock tended to trail the more expensive Asus Prime Edition 30 more often than not. While in the grand scheme of things, 1 or 2% here or there won’t be noticed, it’s better to be in front than not. It’s still amazing to see just how the high-core-count processors from Intel and AMD simply destroy benchmarks that can make use of all those cores, even though game engines and Windows thread allocations can still present issues.
Asrock’s Taichi brand continues to offer a sweet spot combination of features, refinement and to a lesser extent this time around, pricing. The X299 Taichi CLX looks great, it has an easy to navigate BIOS and makes a big generational step up in terms of networking. You won’t be lacking storage options either. We’re sad to see pricing is really going upwards though. If Cascade Lake-X is on your shopping list (we’ll have a full review in our next issue), the Taichi CLX may actually end up being one of the more affordable X299 refresh options if you can believe that. It’s a good solid board and brings a welcome feature update to the X299 platform.