ASRock X570 Taichi OC Review
Ambient overclocking & everyday performance
Unlike with when dealing with sub-zero cooling, the infinity fabric here along with the DRAM frequencies can be pushed quite a bit. 1900MHz was the limit of the IF as you’d expect and naturally this allowed the DRAM frequency to match it.
3800MT/s seems to be the sweet spot (perhaps even the only spot) to get the best performance out of Ryzen for everyday use. How tight your DRAM timings can be at this frequency will depend on the memory kit (I strongly recommend you look at G. SKILL’s recently released Trident Z Neo series made specifically for AMD 3rd gen Ryzen & X570).
ASRock X570 Taichi Game performance
The Ryzen 5 3600X chosen to show everyday board performance was rather compliant and average with a maximum stable clock frequency of 4325MHz using Level 1 LLC and 1.375v. Just as was the case with the sub-zero overclocking, there was no need to make any changes to the SOC and VDDG voltage. AUTO or the reference 1050mv work just fine. All the way up to 1900/3800MHz (IF/DRAM).
Going back to the CPU voltage, 1.375v is at the edge of what I would consider worthwhile or reasonable for a 24/7 configuration. Power draw here remains under 120W (recorded a peak of 117W) for the CPU and temps stay relatively manageable. Anything higher than this yielded very little returns where even 4375MHz would need 1.45v to stabilize which would in turn raise temperatures and push the power consumption north of 150W. Not worth it in the least.
That said, the performance the board delivered was bang on and easily the highest I’ve recorded thus far onm any of the boards. 3DMark score above was the best the system could give at usable everyday settings. Which was 1.45v DDR 3800 C15-16-16-36-1N. Once again CPU-Z screenshot isn’t showing the memory tab. (Oops)