Asrock x299 taichi clx review in Spanish (full analysis)

This time we have with us the new ASRock X299 Taichi CLX board. Intel will continue with its LGA 2066, and this is ASRock's second most aggressive and highest performing bet for this Cascade-Lake platform after the launch of three new models. A motherboard with 13 power phases for the most powerful X-series CPUs and great high-speed connectivity bringing up to maximum capacity, and more, the X299 chipset.

It also implements Wi-Fi 6, 2.5 Gbps RJ-45 and no less than 10 SATA ports and 3 M.2 NVMe slots for storage. Likewise, USB 3.1 gen2 connectivity has been increased through a dedicated ASMedia chip. Let's see in this in-depth analysis everything that ASRock offers us with its second top range, with the permission of the X299 Creator.

Before proceeding, we always thank ASRock for trusting us in giving us this motherboard for our analysis.

ASRock X299 Taichi CLX technical characteristics

Unboxing

The ASRock X299 Taichi CLX is a board that strives for excellence on the X299 platform so the presentation must rise to the occasion. We think that this has been the case, the manufacturer has opted for a briefcase-type flexible cardboard box fully printed on the external faces with the typical ASRock grays and some of the novelties it brings us.

Inside this main box we all have two rigid black cardboard cases. As you may have guessed, in one of them we have the base plate fixed to two polyethylene foam molds and with clips. In the other, all the accessories of the board are stored.

In summary, we have a bundle that contains the following elements:

• ASRock X299 Taichi CLX Motherboard User Guide Support CD 4 SATA 6 Gbps cables Dual bridge Nvidia SLI connector Expandable antenna for Wi-Fi Screws for installing 3 M.23 spacers for M.2 sockets Screwdriver

ASRock always has the detail of including a SLI bridge in its high-end boards, something that will come in handy for users working with Multi GPU configurations. However, the bridge is for a dual configuration and this board supports triple configuration.

Design and Specifications

ASRock has been one of the last to present no less than three motherboards for this Intel X299 platform, betting on variety and updating its range to support more connectivity and more storage. These boards are the ASRock X299 Steel Legend, ASRock X299 Taichi CLX and ASRock X299 Creator as top of the range. And precisely the one we are analyzing today is the one that offers the best quality / price ratio for everything it provides us, as is always the case with intermediate models.

In this case we have a renewed design, and very much in line with what the manufacturer presented for its X570 boards a few months ago. The board offers us very compact measurements, maintaining the ATX form factor with 305 mm high and 244 mm wide as usual. This is great news in the face of compatibility with standard ATX towers, not giving up at any time the connectivity that we will see later.

As always, the board is presented in a matte black color, using a large backplate for the chipset area and M.2 slots. All of them are covered by aluminum plates, leaving only the PCIe 3.0 slots accessible. Likewise, the chipset has a passive heatsink that integrates RGB lighting compatible with ASRock Polychrome RGB, both in the upper area and in the back of the board. It is an exquisite design in aesthetics, but we must give it a negative point for the management of the slots, since to install an SSD we must completely remove the backplate. In addition, it has two types of screws, the main torx type strange as it may seem and two star rear. At least the manufacturer has included a screwdriver of this type torx to work on the board, which is greatly appreciated.

We cannot forget that the three M.2 slots have their own thermal pad installed on the aluminum plates, so in this case buying an SSD with a heatsink would not make much sense, since we should remove it to install it.

We go up to the top, where we have a passive cooling system for the VRM made up of two good-sized aluminum blocks and joined by a copper heatpipe to improve heat transfer. Remember that the VRM of an X299 is always in the central part and not divided into two as in the rest of the plates, so it is a good way to extend the cooling capacity with the help of the aluminum EMI protector that is integrated into the rear panel. The entire area of ​​the sound card integrates a metal protector to improve the aesthetics of the set.

Regarding accessibility, we are also in luck, since the power and reset button in the lower right area of the board could not be missing, as well as a debug LED panel to display the BIOS status codes. All PCIe 3.0 x16 slots are metal-reinforced, and the board has been made from different layers of glass cloth to separate the different layers of power tracks.

VRM and power phases

This ASRock X299 Taichi CLX has a powerful power system or VRM for the SoC and CPU, consisting of 13 power phases. To ensure power supply, two solid 8-pin connectors have been installed, that is, a complete configuration to ensure performance in possible overclockings.

The entire system is managed by an Intersil ISL69138 digital PWM controller, which is capable of managing a total of 7 power phases with its two full channels. What does this mean if we have 13 phases? Well, as on other occasions, ASRock has used signal benders to duplicate these supply phases, otherwise two drivers would be needed. Specifically, the configuration used is 6 × 2 + 1 as we will now see.

These duplicators are installed on the back of the board, and in total there will be 6 of them to generate the V-Core. These duplicators are responsible for doubling the voltage signal and thus having two MOSFETS instead of one. This method is usually used by the manufacturer, having seen it on other boards such as the AMD X570 and Intel Z390. It does not provide the capacity of the real phases, this is evident, and the duplicated phases tend to rise in temperature, but it is not an impediment to correct stability against high demands. Finally, the 13th phase is not duplicated, and is responsible for supplying power to the SoC.

The 13 MOSFETS used for the supply are signed by DrMOS as usual, with a capacity of 60 A like the 13 Chokes or choke of the next stage. Finally we find high-performance, solid-compound Nichicon 12K black capacitors with a life of at least 12, 000 hours.

Socket, chipset and RAM memory

By now we all know the platform perfectly with the Intel X299 chipset. A chipset manufacturing in 22 nm that offers us a maximum capacity of 24 PCIe 3.0 Lines. The most powerful made by Intel for its enthusiastic workstation and gaming platform, offering compatibility with Intel Cascade Lake-X, Skaylake X Refresh and Skylake X processors. Likewise, it offers overclocking capacity to these processors superior to 8 cores with HyperThreading technology mounted on the LGA 2066 socket.

This ASRock X299 Taichi CLX supports a total of 256 GB of RAM memory in its 8 288-contact DIMM slots. In this way we can install modules of up to 32 GB in each slot, always DDR4 at a maximum allowable frequency of 4200 MHz. Intel XMP 2.0 technology will always be in charge of taking the highest performance JEDEC profile of the modules that we install.

Like any X299 board, this one also supports Quad Channel, being something basic for all users of this platform. This time the RAM installation mode to activate the Quad Channel is somewhat different from other manufacturers. In the instructions it is quite clear how to do it, but it is as easy as occupying the two slots on each end and then alternating a space between each module . It will be seen more clearly in these images, where we must always occupy the DIMM A1-B1-C1-D1 or the DIMM A2-B2-C2-D2.

Storage and PCIe slots

And it is precisely in this section where the ASRock X299 Taichi CLX brings out many of the novelties that the manufacturer has wanted to introduce in its new generation of plates. Especially in storage, we have impressive capacity.

Let's start with it, specifically with the 10 SATA III 6.0 Gbps ports that are installed in the lower right corner. We have to divide them into two groups, on the one hand 8 of them (from 0 to 7) will be controllers by the chipset, offering compatibility with RAID storage 0, 1, 5, and 10 and Intel Rapid Storage. In this case we should only take into account that the SATA_7 port will be disabled if we install a SATA SSD in slot M.2_3, which is the one located in the lower area and is compatible with sizes of 22110.

The second group is made up of the two at the bottom, SATA A1 and A2, and they are controlled by an ASMedia ASM1061 chip and, like the previous ones, they support NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug. Nothing is specified about compatibility with RAID systems, since being a dedicated chip the management is somewhat different.

We continue like this with the M.2 slots of the ASRock X299 Taichi CLX, which in this case will be no less than 3. The two upper slots (M.2_1 and M.2_2 in the instructions) are only compatible with PCIe 3.0 x4 to 32 Gbps. They support 2242, 2260 and 2280 format drives and will be directly connected to the CPU rails. Meanwhile, the third M.2_3 slot, connected in this case to the chipset, is compatible with both SATA and PCIe, and we already know its limitation from the previous paragraph. All of them will be compatible with Intel Optane.

We now turn to look at PCIe connectivity when it comes to slots, where ASRock has also fully utilized Intel CPU lanes with some shared with two M.2 slots as normal. In total we will have 4 PCIe 3.0 X16 slots with metal reinforcement and a PCIe x1. These can work in the following way depending on the CPU used:

• With a 48-lane CPU: The main slots will work at x16, x8, x16, x8 (from top to bottom). But if an NVMe SSD is installed in M2_1 or M2_2 the second slot will work at x4, and if 2 are installed, it will be directly deactivated. In the case of a CPU with 44 lanes: the main slots will work at x16, x4, x16, x8 (from top to bottom). But if an NVMe SSD is installed in M2_1 or M2_2 the second slot will be disabled and the M.2_2 will suffer the same fate. Finally, for 28-lane CPU: The main slots will work at x16, x4, x16, x0 (top to bottom). But if an NVMe SSD is installed in M2_1 or M2_2 the second slot and M.2_2 will be disabled.

All this is perfectly explained in the specifications, but if you do not feel like searching, here we leave you the information. Both the PCIe x1 and the M.2 slot for the beef card are managed by the chipset by discard.

Network connectivity and sound card

With the above we come to the section of multimedia and network connectivity, and in this case the ASRock X299 Taichi CLX has also been updated in an excellent way.

Starting with the network section, we find an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 chip, which we have already seen ad nauseam in many AMD and some Intel models. A chip that works on the IEEE 802.11ax standard that offers a maximum bandwidth in 5GHz of 2, 404 Mbps and 733 Mbps in 2.4 GHz. The MU-MIMO and OFDMA technologies operate on the channels to provide these new cards with a high capacity.

In the case of the wired network, we also have a pretty good one worthy of an enthusiastic range with two chips. The first of them is a Realtek Dragon RTL8125AG installed directly on the back of the board as we see in the image. This chip provides us with a maximum bandwidth of 2.5 Gbps LAN. The second is the traditional Intel I219V with 10/100/1000 Mbps bandwidth. In both cases we have support with Wake-On-LAN and PXE.

Continuing with the sound section, the Realtek ALC1220 codec, the one used in practically all current boards, has been chosen to offer the best performance in terms of on-board sound chips. This supports a maximum of 7.1 channels in high fidelity compatible with Purity Sound 4 thanks to high-end Japanese Nichicon Fine Gold capacitors. That's not all, because a dedicated Texas Instrument-signed NE5532 120 dB SNR DAC has been installed for headphones up to 600Ω input impedance.

I / O ports and internal connections

We finished the study of the board giving data about the connectivity of peripherals and internal ports. And once again, the ASRock X299 Taichi CLX offers us a very good number of options, although with some absences, what will they be?

Starting with its rear I / O panel we have:

• Clear CMOS2x USB 2.0 button (black) 4x USB 3.1 Gen1 (blue) 1x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C 1x USB 3.1 Gen2x2 Type-C 2x RJ-45 (red is 2.5 Gbps) S / PDIF for digital audio5x Jack 3.5mm for audio Two Wi-Fi antenna connectors

Here we see two notable absences, firstly, the absence of Gen2 10Gbps USB Type-A ports, and secondly the absence of direct Thunderbolt 3 connectivity. In his case, we are struck by that USB Type-C port that has a bandwidth of 20 Gbps, being double for example than the standard Gen2. This is thanks to being connected to an ASMedia ASM3242 chip instead of the CPU or Chipset.

And the main internal ports add up to the following:

• AIC Thunderbolt2x USB 2.0 connector (with up to 4 ports) 1x USB 3.1 Gen1 (with up to 2 ports) 1x USB Type-C 3.1 Gen2 internal Front audio connector 7x headers for fans / water pumps 4x headers for lighting (2 for RGB and 2 for A-RGB) TPM connector

Here we have two elements to highlight. On the one hand, we have that connect AIC that we would only have to use together with a PCIe card with Thunderbolt 3 compatible with the board and CPU. On the other hand, the Gen2 USB-C connector is connected to another ASMedia chip ASM3142

testing bench

Our test bench with the ASRock X299 Taichi CLX, consists of the following components:

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i9-7900X
Base plate:	ASRock X299 Taichi CLX
Memory:	32GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 3600MHz QC
Heatsink	Asus ROG Ryuo 240
HDD	ADATA SU750
Graphic card	Asus ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti OC
Power supply	Cooler Master V850 Gold

BIOS

The BIOS of ASRock X299 Taichi CLX has an interface practically the same as that of other models of the brand, and what undoubtedly changes the most is the background of it, which is always in perfect harmony with the design of the board. For the Intel platform, ASRock does present an updated BIOS and with the latest standards, such as SM BIOS 3.0 and ACPI 6.1, something that for example we did not see in recent models for AMD. In addition, it is a dual 2 ROM 128 MB configuration, with a second backup and restore BIOS. This time we don't have a flashback BIOS button on the rear panel, which would have been very useful.

The menu is divided into 8 different sections, already known and standardized for practically any firmware of this type. The most important is the OC Tweaker, since it not only gives us all the options related to the CPU and its performance and power management, but also the activation of the XMP profile for the memories.

In our case, we have installed an Intel Core i9-7900X of Skylake architecture, which will work at 3.3 GHz with the automatic configuration of the BIOS. Likewise, the Quad Channel that we have assembled with the Dominators has been detected correctly, although the XMP 2.0 profile has had to be activated manually to take advantage of those 3600 MHz OC. The operation has been stable and smooth, with all the options very accessible and intuitive for the user.

Something that we do not like is the option of loading optimized values ​​for CPU overclocking, located as the first option in the overclocking section. With this option we can select between different operating profiles for the CPU already preconfigured. They seem to be generic, since for example the 4.5 GHz, which would be the maximum of our CPU is not available.

In the screenshot we see the results that will be modified for the 4.4, GHz profile, where we are going to see something at least striking. And it is that the voltage will be placed in a fixed mode at 1, 900 V, when this CPU in OC should be around 1.30 / 1.35 V. Perhaps the fact of also modifying the offset and the Load Line Calibration makes the board have a Perfect voltage control and not really 1.9 V. But we do not recommend placing one of these profiles automatically, for greater security, let's do it manually.

VRM temperatures

Repose

Repose

Stress

Stress

In our case, we have kept all the factory BIOS settings on the CPU, and activated the XMP profile for RAM. With this, we have kept the plate under stress for a few hours to see how the temperature of the VRM evolves.

We have taken thermal captures with our Flir One PRO to measure the temperature of the VRM externally. In the following table you will have the results that have been in the outer area of ​​the VRM during the stress process.

	Relaxed Stock	Full Stock
VRM	39.5ºC	63.8ºC

As we could anticipate, this VRM has relatively good surface temperatures when we stress the set. The fact of having duplicated phases makes the set acquire a little more heat, also the configuration of these 13 phases so close together due to the typical space limitations of the X299 platform does not make things easier. This temperature will rise a little if we use 4.4 GHz overclocking since the power demand will be higher in this 14 nm CPU.

Final words and conclusion about ASRock X299 Taichi CLX

It is time to take stock of this ASRock X299 Taichi CLX, with which the manufacturer increases and improves its family of X299 boards with greater connectivity and much more capacity in general. This is the highest performance model below the Creator, with a very gaming aesthetic where there is no shortage of build quality and addressable Polychrome RGB lighting on a very compact and successful ATX format instead of opting for an E-ATX.

Where this motherboard stands out the most, is undoubtedly the internal connectivity. We have no less than 4 x16 PCI slots that take advantage of the 48 PCI lines of the CPU together with a useful x1 for 10 Gbps network cards or something else. Along with them, we have 3 M.2 PCIe x4 and 10 SATA ports with ASMedia controller for two of them as "extra". We would have liked the M.2 heatsinks to be independent, since to install one, you have to remove it completely.

The large internal capacity causes us to lose, for example, Thunderbolt 3 connectivity on the rear panel, although a curious USB-C with 20 Gbps bandwidth managed by another ASMedia chip has been installed instead. To this we add dual LAN interface at 2.5 and 1 Gbps and Wi-Fi 6 card to adapt to the new times.

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In the power section we have had very good benefits, although we would have liked that those 13 power phases did not use duplicators, in order to offer solid support for the overclocking of the top-of-the-range CPUs from Intel. Temperatures would surely be somewhat better in these cases. You cannot miss the 8 slots for DDR4 RAM, where we are finally assured of support for 256 GB at 4200 MHz with XMP 2.0 working flawlessly on Quad Channel.

Regarding the BIOS, we have a latest generation installed for this platform, with a very ASRock-style management, complete and intuitive and with the capacity to store OC profiles that we create. However, we do not end up liking those preconfigured OC modes that it offers, since the adopted voltage parameters cause us to distrust CPUs as expensive as these are.

Soon we will find this ASRock X299 Taichi CLX for a price that will be around € 399 approximately, being directly above the Taichi XE full of connectivity and a fairly deep renovation of the platform. One of ASRock's best X299 boards for the Intel enthusiast platform at a consistent price.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ FULL PCIE CONNECTIVITY SECTION	- AUTOMATIC OC PROFILE NOT RECOMMENDED
+ 10 SATA + 3 M.2 PCIE	- DOES NOT HAVE THUNDERBOLT 3 PORT OF FACTORY
+ WI-FI 6 AND DOUBLE LAN	- INTEGRAL M.2 HEATSINK
+ GAMING DESIGN IN ATX FORMAT
+ GOOD GENERAL PERFORMANCE OF VRM
+ STABLE AND INTUITIVE BIOS

The Professional Review team awards him the platinum medal:

ASRock X299 Taichi CLX

COMPONENTS - 92%

REFRIGERATION - 88%

BIOS - 90%

EXTRAS - 94%

PRICE - 89%

91%