ASRock recently unveiled its Z690 motherboards for Intel’s latest 12th generation Alder Lake processors. As spotted by the material sleuth momomo_us, ASRock cooperated with Razer on the Z690 Taichi Razer Edition, which was absent from the range announced by the motherboard supplier.
Ther Z690 Taichi Razer Edition marks the third time ASRock and Razer have reunited. Both companies were previously working on the B550 Taichi Razer Edition and the X570 Taichi Razer Edition, so it was entirely appropriate to give the Z690 Taichi the same attention. In terms of hardware, the Z690 Taichi Razer Edition should be identical to the vanilla Z690 Taichi. The difference is in the Razer Chroma inspired aesthetic. It’s easy to see that ASRock has revamped the motherboard’s passive heat sinks to blend into the Razer’s ecosystem. Obviously, the Z690 Taichi Razer Edition comes with full Razer Chroma support right out of the box.
Assuming there aren’t any surprises under the hood, the Z690 Taichi Razer Edition should sport the same 20-phase power supply subsystem on an eight-layer PCB with 105A SPS (Intelligent Power Stages). and premium 90A power chokes. Additionally, the motherboard comes with two 8-pin EPS power connectors to ensure that your Alder Lake chip receives enough juice during your overclocking journey. In terms of memory support, the motherboard has four DDR5 memory slots, offering support for DDR5-6400 +, XMP 3.0 memory modules and up to 128GB of memory.
The Z690 Taichi Razer Edition offers plenty of storage options. You have six standard SATA III ports and three M.2 2280 slots, two of which are PCIe 4.0 x4 and the last one conforms to SATA III speeds. RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10 are supported on SATA ports, while only RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5 are possible on M.2 slots.
When it comes to expansion slots, the motherboard has three PCIe 5.0 x16 expansion slots and one PCIe 3.0 x1 expansion slot. Due to the bandwidth limitation on Alder Lake processors, PCIe 16 slots work differently, depending on how many PCIe devices you have on the motherboard. For example, the primary expansion slot works at PCIe 5.0 x16 with a single graphics card, while two will drop the two expansion slots at PCIe 5.0 x8. With a third device installed, the expansion slots work at PCIe 5.0 x8, PCIe 5.0 x8, and PCIe 4.0 x4.
The Z690 Taichi Razer Edition has one HDMI 2.1 port and two Intel Thunderbolt 4 ports if you plan to use Alder Lake’s iGPU. Gigabit Ethernet support comes from Intel’s I219V controller, while 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet is possible thanks to Killer’s E3100G. If you prefer wireless, the motherboard also offers Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth connectivity.
The Z690 Taichi Razer Edition audio codec is based on Realtek’s ALC1220 solution and offers 7.1-channel HD sound. The audio system also operates an ESS Saber ES9218 DAC and gold-plated audio jacks. In addition, there are five 3.5mm audio connectors with LED lighting and an optical S / PDIF output.
The motherboard does not lack connectivity either. The rear panel has two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, four USB 4.0 Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, and four USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports. Additional USB ports are available through the internal headers, including two USB 2.0 headers, one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A connector, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 headers, and one USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type header -C on the front panel.
Scan, a UK retailer, has listed the Z690 Taichi Razer Edition for sale at £ 559.99 (~ $ 766,359). For comparison, the store offers the regular Taichi Z690 for £ 539.99 (~ $ 738.98); therefore, the Razer Edition appears to carry a slight premium of 3.7%.
