{"id":1139735,"date":"2026-02-05T11:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/Vqm7JcvdshPPtAp5kbSRCo"},"modified":"2026-02-05T11:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:24:12","slug":"asrock-z890-taichi-lite-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/asrock-z890-taichi-lite-review\/","title":{"rendered":"ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For over two decades, ASRock has been designing and manufacturing motherboards for desktop PCs, workstations, and servers. The first use of the model name Taichi appeared in 2016 with the X99 Taichi, and since then, every new chipset released has been given the Taichi treatment.<\/p>\n

As part of ASRock’s motherboard range for Intel Core Ultra 200S processors, the Z890 Taichi Lite is the cheapest of the Taichi line-up<\/a> but it’s not exactly a mainstream offering. With a retail price of $400, the Z890 Taichi Lite is certainly expensive, though there are far pricier Z890 boards around.<\/p>\n

So what exactly is one getting for four hundred notes, and compared to ASRock’s Z890 Taichi, what’s so ‘Lite’ about it? Well, the former is around $90 more expensive but you get more substantial VRM and SSD heatsinks, an additional M.2 SSD expansion card, and that’s about it. The rest of the specifications are identical, other than the fact that the Taichi Lite has silver\/white heatsinks to the Z890 Taichi’s black\/purple colour scheme.<\/p>\n

And speaking of specifications, you get a lot<\/em> with the Z890 Taichi Lite. At first glance, that might not seem to be the case, as there are only two PCIe slots on the board\u2014one for your graphics card and one for an expansion card. However, the lack of PCIe slots is balanced by the fact that there are six<\/em> M.2 slots, one being Gen5 x4 and the rest all being Gen4 x4.<\/p>\n

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ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite specs<\/div>\n
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(Image credit: Future)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Socket: <\/strong>Intel LGA1851
Chipset:<\/strong> Intel Z890
CPU compatibility:<\/strong> Intel Core Ultra 200S desktop
Form factor: <\/strong>ATX
Memory support:<\/strong> DDR5-4800 to DDR5-9600+ (OC), up to 256 GB, CUDIMM supported
Storage: <\/strong>6x M.2, 4x SATA
USB (rear):<\/strong> 2x Thunderbolt 4\/USB4 Type-C 40 Gbps, 4x USB 3.2 Type-A 10 Gbps, 4x USB 3.0 Type-A 5 Gbps, 2x USB 2.0
Display:<\/strong> 1x HDMI 2.1, 2x DisplayPort 2.1 via Thunderbolt 4
Networking: <\/strong>Realtek 5 Gbps LAN, Dragon 2.5 Gbps LAN, Wi-Fi 7
Audio:<\/strong> Realtek ALC4082
Price:<\/strong> $400<\/a> \/ \u00a3384<\/a> \/ AU$740<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

One of the Gen4 slots will be disabled if you use the second PCIe slot, but at least all the PCIe and M.2 slots are all full-speed. Some Z890 motherboards sport more PCIe slots, but they’ll often be a slower Gen or more commonly, they have fewer M.2 slots. Here, you’re getting a veritable smorgasbord of storage options.<\/p>\n

In terms of connectivity, it’s almost as impressive. The rear IO panel sports 12 USB ports, but there are no 20 Gbps USB 3.2 ports. At least you get two Thunderbolt 4\/USB4 40 Gbps sockets to use if you do need blistering transfer speeds. Frustratingly, the USB ports aren’t grouped by speed on the rear panel and the colouring is misleading.<\/p>\n

Underneath each LAN socket, there are two USB Type-A connections. The one closest to the LAN is a 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, whereas the bottom one is 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2. The ports coloured in yellow are ASRock’s ‘Lightning Gaming Ports<\/a>‘, where each socket is connected to a different controller to reduce input lag.<\/p>\n

I can’t say I’ve ever experienced any issues having a keyboard and mouse connected to the same USB controller, and I’d have preferred ASRock to have grouped the USB ports by actual transfer performance.<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Future)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You also get WiFi 7, and while that might not sound worth having, if you have a router that only supports WiFi 6, for example, every WiFi 7-enabled motherboard I’ve tested so far has better download performance than older systems. Not just in terms of peak throughput but also sustained transfer rate.<\/p>\n

In terms of niceties, you get a quick-release heatsink for the main SSD slot, power and reset buttons on the board, and an LED display for BIOS codes (super useful for diagnosing problems). However, there is no quick-release system for the graphics card slot and the other SSD heatsink only covers three slots\u2014the remaining two are open to the air, so if you do fit them with a fast NVMe drive, you’ll need to make sure they have their own heatsinks.<\/p>\n

Benchmarks and performance<\/span><\/h2>\n

PC Gamer test bench
<\/strong>CPU: <\/strong><\/em>Intel Core Ultra 9 285K | <\/em>Cooler:<\/strong><\/em> MSI MAG Coreliquid I360 | <\/em>RAM:<\/strong><\/em> 32 GB Lexar Thor OC DDR5-6000 | <\/em>Storage: <\/strong><\/em>2 TB Corsair MP700 | <\/em>PSU:<\/strong><\/em> Corsair RM850x Shift 850 W | <\/em>OS:<\/strong><\/em> Windows 11 24H2 | <\/em>Chassis: <\/strong><\/em>Open platform | <\/em>Monitor:<\/strong><\/em> Acer XB280HK<\/em><\/p>\n

Arrow Lake motherboards have gone through a torrent of BIOS updates since first appearing in October 2024, and Windows 11 has also seen similar tweaks for improving Core Ultra 200S processor performance. The ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite sample was issued with a very old BIOS, so I flashed it to v2.19, the main recent non-beta one.<\/p>\n

I also retested the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk (an Arrow Lake launch review sample motherboard) with its latest BIOS, but I’ve included original figures for an Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero<\/a>, marked with an asterisk, to show how things have improved since last year.<\/p>\n