Today, we will be taking a look at the ASRock Z790 PG Sonic motherboard. This motherboard uses Intel’s Z790 chipset and is suitable for all the latest Intel 13th Gen and older 12th Gen processors on the LGA1700 socket.
It comes with some really cool-looking heatsinks with Sonic the Hedgehog design, and a unique hologram showing the iconic golden ring on the I/O hood. It’s perfect for any Sonic fans or system builder who wants a unique looking motherboard for their PC build.
The motherboard features a powerful 14+1+1 Phase Power Design, Dr.MOS for VCore+GT, and supports DDR5 ram with speeds of up to DDR5-7200+ OC.
Expansion slots include 1 x PCIe 5.0 x16 slot for next-gen graphics cards, 1 x PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, 1 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slot, and 1 x M.2 Key-E for the optional WiFi 6.
For storage, it comes with 1 x Blazing M.2 PCIE Gen5x4 slot, and 4 x Hyper M.2 PCIE Gen4x4 slot for SSDs, as well as 8 additional SATA ports.
There’s plenty of USB ports, a total 10 USB 3.2 ports and 6 USB 2.0 ports. You also get the Killer 2.5GB LAN, but no WiFi 6E … for that, you’ll need to get the optional WiFi module for the M.2 Key-E slot.
And of course, you get all of ASRock’s uniques features including the 7.1 HD Nahimic audio, Lightning gaming ports, Dr.MOS, 2oz copper PCB and ASRock’s Polychrome Sync.
Intel Z790 Chipset
The 13th Gen Intel® Core™ desktop processors, when paired with the Z790 chipset, deliver the breakthrough performance and features that gamers, creators, and professionals need to work at their best. Optimized for overclocking1 and precision tuning when paired with an unlocked processor, the Z790 chipset empowers you with the control and confidence to choose the best performance and thermal characteristics for the task at hand. Harness the processing power, responsiveness, and connectivity of up to 38 high-speed I/O lanes—including 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes, 8 PCIe 3.0 lanes, and 5 USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20G) ports—as well as Intel® Killer™ Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+) to take your gaming, content creation, and productivity to the next level.
The Z790 chipset allows a total 20 usable PCIE 4.0 lanes, with upto a maximum memory capacity of 128GB. It’s also capable of up to 10 x USB 3.2 Gen1 5Gbps, 10 x USB 3.2 Gen2 10Gbps and up to 5 x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 20Gbps.
Below is the SKU chart of all the available Intel 13th Gen Core processors (Raptor Lake) at launch.
I would like to thank ASRock for providing the review sample. This is a snippet from what ASRock has to say about themselves on their website:
ASRock Inc. is established in 2002, specialized in the field of motherboards. ASRock strives to build up its own brand. With the 3C design concept, “Creativity, Consideration, Cost-effectiveness”, the company explores the limit of motherboards manufacturing while paying attention on the eco issue at the same time, developing products with the consideration of eco-friendly concept.
ASRock has been growing fast and become world third largest motherboard brand with headquarter in Taipei, Taiwan and branches in Europe and the USA. The young and vibrant company targets from mainstream to enthusiast MB segments for different kinds of users, owning reputation around the world market with its reliability and proficiency.
The ASRock Z790 PG Sonic is perfect for Sonic fans, system buiders and modders, who’s after a unique-looking motherboard that’s packed with features with performance to match.
We’ll be testing this motherboard using an Intel Core i9-13900K, along with some nice DDR5-6200 ram and a GeForce RTX 3090 to see how it peforms.
OK, let’s not waste any more time and start by taking a look at the specifications and features in our next page.
You can buy the the ASRock Z790 PG SONIC motherboard for around USD $295 (reduced) from Amazon – https://amzn.to/3WnhAOs
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