ASRock Phantom Gaming-ITX/AC Z390 Motherboard Review

A Closer Look

For a mini-ITX motherboard, you already start off with a small workspace. However, ASRock has really crammed a lot in here. For starters, there are two massive heatsinks around the socket, with a thick heatpipe to help dissipate extra heat. The rear heatsink even extends to over the rear I/O to give it increased surface area.

The lower one is dual purpose, as you can lift part of it out, and fit an M.2 drive right underneath. The durable build quality continues with the PCIe slot armoured to support the weight of modern GPUs.

On the side, you’ll find four SATA slots broken into two pairs on either side of the DIMM slots.

RGB

There’s also a single RGB header in the top right, which is great for lighting lovers.

The CPU is fed from a single 8 pin header in the top left, where you’ll also find the pre-fitted WiFi module.

The CPU is flanked with those lovely black caps and robust chokes. Hopefully, that’ll translate to some decent overclocking performance.

Rear I/O

On the rear, you’ll find six USB 3.0 ports, as well as a Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C port. There are two display connections; one DP and one HDMI. Networking comes from both the built-in WiFi and Intel Gigabit Lan.

Finally, you have the Nichicon Audio hardware, with a couple of gold capacitors lurking next to the gold-plated audio jacks.

M.2

Flip the board over, and you’ll also find the second M.2 drive mount; perfect for RAID or Optane.