Asrock X370 Taichi Build Thoughts

EchoWars

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 7, 2010
Messages
497
So...my sister works for a financial analysis and is going to be doing some work from home. Her aging Phenom II x4 is starting to have issues now and again, and I told her that there's no sense in fooling with it...we'll put a new GPU in it, freshen it up with a new Windows install, and turn it into a play system for the kids. For her, let's do a new AMD Ryzen 5 1600X setup. :cool:

I won't go into detail about the MB requirements, but we wanted native Wi-Fi and a reasonable price. The X370 Taichi looked pretty good, so we went with it.

Parts Link @ PC Parts Picker: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PDX3pb

Basically:
Asrock X370 Taichi ATX
Ryzen 5 1600X
Noctua NH-U14S (needs NM AM4-UxS kit for AM4 compatibility)
Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3000 2x8GB
MSI GTX 1060 6GB Armor OC (husband likes flight sims)
....and boot with a Samsung 850 Pro 512GB, with a WD Black 1TB for slow storage. Wanted to go with an M.2 boot drive, but we just upgraded the old Phenom setup last year with the 850, so it got moved and the old Phenom will have to live with a spinny drive.

Oh...and the Corsair Air 540 case. I ordered it online, and really had no concept of its size. Height isn't bad, but the damn thing is 13" wide :eek:. Sister is gonna shit a brick...hope I can find some place to stuff the thing where she won't be whining about it. Should have built a u-ATX or m-ITX, but we were going to use the old case until we decided that the old system could be salvaged for the kids - by that time we were locked into the ATX as parts were already on the way. It's pretty though, FWIW. And stuffing all the new parts into that ancient case would have been the proverbial 10lbs 'o shit in a 5lb bag.

Never built with an Asrock board. Always used Asus or MSI, and I was a bit nervous about it. But I gotta say, it went slick as snot. Not a hiccup. The LED feature on the board is a bit of a joke though, as the LED's are few and not terribly bright. Wish MB mfgr's would give up on the whole LED thing and concentrate on something that simply works reliably. Only other complaints: cheap-ass I/O shield, cheap-ass Wi-Fi antennas, and the onboard Wi-Fi uses Intel's cheapest AC solution (the 1x1 Wireless-AC 3168, whereas the 2x2 8260 or 8265 would have added little to the cost). But, if you really want, the 8260 or 8265 can be fitted to the MB, as the M.2 card simply pops into a slot (but it's buried in the I/O section really good. Changing would be a PITA now that the system is up and running, but it can be done if ya really need it.)

The Taichi and the Noctua both get along with the GTX 1060 in the top slot, thanks to Asrock putting one of the two M.2 slots between the CPU socket and the first PCIe x16 slot. That Noctua is a tad wide, but does have tons of ram clearance.

Booted right up. Oh...crap...no post speaker! Why do I always forget that nobody builds a goddamn speaker into their MB anymore?:mad: Temps in the UEFI BIOS are about 30°C after accounting for the 20°C AMD offset, and HW Monitor agrees. One hour of Prime95 and temps peak at about 49°C...house is kept pretty cool and the builds are done in the basement, where it's even cooler.

Updated the UEFI right there in the BIOS. No problem. Set the memory to 2933 and we're off to the races.

No o'clocking on this work machine, other than the memory. I'll be running some diags on the memory to make sure it's happy at that speed, but for the last two days of the build, it has been solid.

Not an important post here, but a lot of ideas I got for the build were from here, so thanks guys. Only thing I have to deal with now is the look on her face after she gets back from VaCa next week and sees that giant Corsair case. heh.
 
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I'm surprised you went with the Taichi, considering your sister's needs. I was under the impression the X370 was for OCing with multiple GPUs, while the B350 is for OCing with single GPUs. Considering it's a workstation, won't be OCing, and definitely won't have a multiple GPU setup, seems like a waste of money to me.
 
I'm surprised you went with the Taichi, considering your sister's needs. I was under the impression the X370 was for OCing with multiple GPUs, while the B350 is for OCing with single GPUs. Considering it's a workstation, won't be OCing, and definitely won't have a multiple GPU setup, seems like a waste of money to me.
The Taichi was one of the only boards available from Microcenter with native Wi-Fi. Otherwise the B350 chipset would have been fine.

CPU's, GPU's, motherboards, power supplies, and memory I buy locally in case of trouble. Microcenter is 20 minutes away.
 
Makes total sense. I'm lucky to have Newegg and MC a half hour away on either side of me.
 
Makes total sense. I'm lucky to have Newegg and MC a half hour away on either side of me.
Spoiled!

Before Microcenter opened up a few years ago, KC was a computer parts wasteland.

The Taichi was certainly more than we wanted to spend, but compare its price against a similarly featured Intel 1151, X99, or even the X299, and it doesn't look so bad.

I'm personally still running the system in my sig line, waiting for something that makes it worth my while to upgrade to. But I think back to the time I built it and how that Asus motherboard cost me over $300 (and I cringed at the time) but ended up being one of the best boards that I've ever built or used. So, with that in mind I try to prioritize quality first, needed features second, and price third.
 
I've got an itch to upgrade, but I know I should wait another generation, at least. Part of me wants to pick up a B350 and 1700 to play with.
 
if you weren't going to overclock i would of gone with the 1600 and used the stock cooler, things silent. as far as the wireless yeah it feels cheap but hell the damn thing picks up of my wireless without the antenna's installed so it can't be that bad. but for the price of the board it's hard to complain about those things, if they went with the higher end wifi controller you'd probably be seeing much closer prices to the pro gaming board.
 
if you weren't going to overclock i would of gone with the 1600 and used the stock cooler,
By the time I had ordered, I finally realized that the plain-Jane 1600 had a cooler, and the 1600X did not. My bad.

The big Noctua is probably a better idea with them anyway...they keep the house stupidly warm in the summer (95°F outside, and their damn thermostat is set to 82°).

So yeah, in retrospect the 1600 should have gotten a closer look. Could have told 'em they'd have to turn down the thermostat or it wouldn't run.:ROFLMAO:
 
...they keep the house stupidly warm in the summer (95°F outside, and their damn thermostat is set to 82°).

I can't understand people like this. I set mine to 75, and that's only because the 70 I'd LIKE to keep it at would push my bills way higher than I'd like.
 
I can't understand people like this
Me neither. 74°~75° here. When we go over to visit, I secretly bump the setting on theirs down to 77°. ;)

Discovered that the Taichi will power up from an 'off' state (not just sleep) with a touch of the keyboard. A nice feature for some, but I don't see a way to turn it off. Kids and pets flailing about are liable to power it up when it ought to stay off.
 
Me neither. 74°~75° here. When we go over to visit, I secretly bump the setting on theirs down to 77°. ;)

Discovered that the Taichi will power up from an 'off' state (not just sleep) with a touch of the keyboard. A nice feature for some, but I don't see a way to turn it off. Kids and pets flailing about are liable to power it up when it ought to stay off.

Might be part of the quick boot or what it's called in the bios if you have that on. Mine doesn't do it but I'm using a wireless keyboard.
 
Mine did that for a bit (Asus Z77-lk) and it drove me bonkers. Finally fixed it, but now it's even worse... My RGB keyboard lights up if the cats step on it, but the computer is still powered off. Maddening to wake up to a rainbow breathing effect in the middle of the night.
 
S
Me neither. 74°~75° here. When we go over to visit, I secretly bump the setting on theirs down to 77°. ;)

Discovered that the Taichi will power up from an 'off' state (not just sleep) with a touch of the keyboard. A nice feature for some, but I don't see a way to turn it off. Kids and pets flailing about are liable to power it up when it ought to stay off.

Should usually be an option for 'allow boot from keyboard' or 'mouse' or peripherals or something. Usually in the boot section of the bios. I can't imagine they'd not have the ability to turn it off??
 
Selecting "Shut Down" from the Windows menu. Wakes up like it was simply sleeping.

Sis has the system now, so experimenting will be a bit more difficult. Next time I'm over there I'm going to power down and then hit the power switch on the power supply for a few seconds, then see if the keyboard powers it up.
 
Not convinced that that is directly related to the kybd startup, but it can't hurt to see WTF it does. I'll try it in a few days once I get over there.
 
That does it. Seems that with Fast Startup on, the computer is never off and you're waking it up like from an S3 state. Weird. Never had to deal with that before.
 
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