x570 Taichi - all the issues I've had thus far

These ryzen 3000's are also limited by temperature.. Are you sure you're not being limited by cooling issues?

I have a type C phone I connect. It doesn't have to connect to that spot, I just feel like there has to be a better long term solution than "never use that header because ASRock stuffed up", but it is my Plan B.

Thermals are decent. even running multiple all core cinebench runs back to back (like 12) I can't get the Ryzen Master temp reading to ever hit 80 (and that's at 1.3v). Idle is about 41, and single core workloads it doesn't really break 50. AIO water temp is about 30 (ambient of 25). Running everything on auto, I've had it actually sit at 3750 (good effort for a 3800 base clock) on all core workloads with the temps in the 60's. Long story short, unless I clock it to 4.2 all core and 1.325v (which is slightly unstable, haven't looked into why yet), the temps never leave the green zone in Ryzen Master.

I'm thinking of just leaving it on 4.1 all core manual clock, and waiting a few weeks for some BIOS maturity at this piont. Would be good to know if PCIE slot 2 runs 16 lanes to the CPU if slot 1 is unoccupied though. Putting the GPU down there would solve quire a few problems at once...

Just to be clear, this is not an angry rant post, but rather an explanation of the issues I've experienced trying to get this system up and running, in the hopes that someone out there in ASRock land either has a solution, or realises these are issues and takes steps to resolve them going forward.

By way of background, I'll spec out my system:

Mainboard: x570 Taichi
CPU: 3900x
RAM: 16gb(2x8) Corsair Dominator 3600C18 (CMT16GX4M2C3600C18)
Storage: Corsair Force Series MP510 1920GB M.2 NVME SSD
Case: Lian Li PC 0-11 Dynamic
GPU: EVGA GTX1080 SC
Cooler: Corsair H1150iPro 360mm AIO
Case cooling: 3x Corsair ML120 fans
PSU: Corsair HX750i

I'd like to note that the ram is listed as compatible with the motherboard on ASRock's website. That being said, here are the issues:

USB-C Header: This USB type C header is directly in line with the top PCIE slot on the mainboard. Even though my case has a connector with a right-angle plug on it, it still sticks up too far once plugged in to allow the GPU to connect into the PCIE slot. Instead, the rear of the GPU touches down on the connector before the card is close enough to plug in. I expect this will be an issue on most large GPUs, and I expect most people buying a motherboard this high up the product stack are putting such a GPU in their system. I have temporarily resolved the issue with a vertical GPU riser, but that won't work once I upgrade to a PCIE gen 4 GPU. Does the 2nd slot support full kx16 if the first is unoccupied? If so, that might be a solution.

Fan Noise: defaulting the bios to have max RPM at all times is not a good look for your mainboard (I know tom's hardware were savage in their review because of the noise). As soon as I powered it up, my heart sank and I thought "what have I done!" Once I found the "quiet" setting in Bios, that made it a bit better, but once the chipset gets past 60-65C, the fan is again the loudest part of my PC, even on the "quiet" profile.

Ram compatibility: As mentioned above, I have 3600mhz ram, albeit with fairly loose timings. I bought this because AMD specify that this is the sweet spot for Infinity Fabric clock speeds. enabling XMP profiles on the out-of-the-box bios worked a treat, but updating the BIOS meant that as soon as I re-engaged XMP the machine failed to get past the post screen. I slowly back-stepped through the BIOS revisions, determining that 1.21 is the most recent BIOS that allows my PC to boot with XMP enabled.

CPU clock speeds: Obviously now all my attempts to extract performance from my CPU have to be done on BIOS 1.21. In this bios revision, I cannot find any way to get the CPU to naturally boost past 3.9ghz even on single core workloads, even turning PBO up as high as I could. I then went in and manually overclocked, being stable at 4.1ghz all core and 1.3v with almost no effort. Unfortunately, switching it back to Auto leaves it booting in 4.1 manual clock, and the only way to get the system to think it's in normal boost mode is to clear the CMOS.

So here I am. Running my GPU on a header because it won't plug in the slot it's meant to without hitting another connector, and running a 4.1ghz all core "overclock" because I can't upgrade my bios version any higher without tanking my ram speed...


Anyone have any thoughts? Suggestions? Obvious things I've overlooked?