ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 Motherboard Review

How Much Does it Cost?

At £289.95 in the UK and $279.99 in the US, the new ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 Motherboard isn’t cheap, but it’s also pretty fairly priced. Z490 as a whole it a premium chipset and mini-ITX comes with premiums of its own, and while I’m beating the word to death here, this is a premium board with a lot of premium features. So yeah, a price close to £300 really isn’t all that surprising.

Overview

The ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 Motherboard is one awesome piece of hardware. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, ASRock really knows how to put together a great motherboard. They use fantastic quality components and that often leads to reliable products thanks to their extensive server market knowledge. The performance was really fantastic throughout, and alongside the ATX ASRock Velocita, they’re putting out some of the best motherboards on the market right now.

Build Quality & Design

The colour scheme on this motherboard really stands out. It looks ultra-clean thanks to the matte black PCB and the dark grey hardware. There’s a little hint of white and red on there too, which may divide some customers, but I think it looks perfect. The board has a lot of hardware to show off, and the triple VRM cooling design looks great, but also gives us great cooling performance. They’ve armoured the PCIe lane, they’ve given us a cool breakout board for additional storage, and more.

Performance

It’s easily competitive with any other Z490 motherboards. It was easily competing with the big ATX boards in most benchmarks, and even managed to thrash boards that cost 3x as much in some others. Memory performance was exceptional, with some of the lowest latency we’ve seen. It’s no slouch when it came to any benchmark though, and it gave really excellent productivity and gaming scores. For those wanting a compact PC for the office or the games room, it’ll fit either use just fine.

Added Value

Despite the compact size and the rather fair price tag, you still get a lot for your money here. Dual M.2, USB 3.2 Gen2, USB 3.2 Gen 1, Thunderbolt 3 Type-C, Polychrome RGB, 2.5 GbE LAN and WiFi 6, as well as Nahimic audio. That’s a heck of a setup for an ATX motherboard, and it’s an exceptional setup for a mini-ITX board.

Should I Buy One?

Not only is it one of the best mini-ITX motherboards out there right now, it’s one of the best Z490 motherboards overall. All the features and performance of its bigger counterparts, and all of the performance too.