A few weeks ago at Computex, ASRock announced two interesting motherboards: the Z790 Taichi Lite and the B650E Taichi Lite. Today, they are officially announced. And I am happy with this announcement.

The idea behind the Lite series is simple. Exactly the same as the existing Taichi series, but with a simpler design. at Computex 2023, an ASRock representative said that the complex gears and wheel heatsinks of recent Taichi boards are quite expensive to produce, and by replacing this with a simpler one, same motherboard at a much lower price, he told me. Hooray!

I have reviewed many Taichi boards, including the Z690 Taichi and the B550 Taichi Razer Edition. I think the first one I reviewed was the X99 Taichi in 2016 or 2017. This was the era of excessive RGB and the "gamingization" of entire product lines. Adding the word "gaming" to the board was supposed to make it more appealing; Taichi was a refreshing change.

At the time, Taichi really stood out with its blend of affordability, relatively simple non-gamer black and white aesthetic, and solid feature set. In recent years, ASRock has strengthened the Taichi brand, and with the exception of limited edition models like the Aqua, it is now the company's flagship series; Taichis are generally very good boards, but their appeal has been slightly diminished

due to excessive pricing. Whatever the reason - component shortages, electrical complexity, feature creep, the need for greater profit margins - high-end motherboards are just too expensive. Of course, you can still buy cheap motherboards, but what I would like to see is less emphasis on flashy designs, accessory bundles, and the "everything plus the kitchen sink" approach.

I'd like to see more "light" motherboards. For starters, ditch the heat sinks, which are nothing more than a glorified advertisement; M.2 and chipset cooling is usually hidden under the graphics card. Make the heatsink functional with a large surface area (e.g., fins) while keeping a strong VRM capable of handling the K CPU and its fastest turbo mode. Six high-speed USB ports, two M.2 ports, two SATA, 2.5G LAN and WiFi. This saves hundreds of dollars. Sometimes less is more.

As long as boards like this have good BIOS support, you can put a 14900K on it and let it do the turbo for the next five years. Close the case and you won't even notice you don't have a flagship board.

If you need a board with Thunderbolt 4, dual 10G LANs, or an SSD add-in card, manufacturers will be just as happy to sell you one as they are now. But as a consumer, why wouldn't you have the option of buying a high-end motherboard with an entry-level bundle?

Of course, that's not possible. The reasons are obvious. Money, profit, and margin. Motherboard manufacturers want you to buy their more expensive boards. Capitalism! Yay.

The DIY PC market is struggling and forcing users to spend on high-spec gaming motherboards is not conducive to a healthy ecosystem. Given that there are already hundreds of motherboards on the market, there is room for unconventional motherboard products with wish lists like mine above. However, one can only hope.

I applaud Asrock's decision to release the Taichi Lite series, although no pricing has been announced. I hope sales are good and we see more products like this in the future.