Closer Look
We are used to see the same package type for nearly all ASRock motherboards in mini ITX format. The package is just a small box but it contains everything we need and all is well-protected for the time of transport.
Inside the box, we will find user’s manual, driver’s DVD, I/O shield, SATA data cables, M.2 screws, WiFi antenna and of course, the motherboard.
The motherboard itself seems not much different than other ASRock ITX motherboards from gaming series. There are however a couple of new things. For sure it’s a motherboard from a new gaming series – Phantom Gaming so also the design is slightly different than the Fatal1ty. The motherboard is whole black or maybe a mix of black and gunmetal-gray.
For sure it’s hard to miss large heatsinks which is a totally new thing. Both heatsinks are connected with a quite thick heat pipe. VRM heatsink is taking care of five CPU phases. The second heatsink is cooling M.2 SSD. It’s actually really good idea as the best performing M.2 NVMe drives are also generating a lot of heat and in a small case, it can be an issue which leads to overheating and performance drop due to thermal throttling of the drive.
The M.2 heatsink is helping to reduce our drive’s temperature by nearly 20°C. It’s a lot and I’m actually surprised there is so high difference.
Power design is much better than we could say at first sight. 5+2 phases are more than enough to overclock any processor above 5GHz. We were able to overclock the i7-9700K and the i7-8086K processors up to 5.2GHz without issues.
On the next page, we will take a closer look at the BIOS. As usual, enthusiasts and overclockers will be happy to see how many various options delivers ASRock. Let’s move to the next page to check all the available options.
RGB Software
One of the things which are not really visible on the photos is RGB lighting. ASRock installed three RGB LEDs which we can manage from ASRock Polychrome RGB software. We can also adjust the lighting on other devices and all RGB connectors which are on the motherboard. Of course, there are various modes in which lighting can work. Many users will probably know them well. Just take a look at the screenshots.
