ASRock Z490 Steel Legend Motherboard Review

Verdict and Conclusion

Last we reviewed the ASRock H470 Steel Legend motherboard aimed at the budget/mainstream market. It uses the H470 chipset and is basically a “cut-down” version of the Z490. Which means it lacks overclocking ability and some essential features such as support for higher memory speeds and XMP.

So when I got the ASRock Z490 Steel Legend motherboard, it gave me a chance to compare the two, and see what it has to offer in terms of overclocking. And I have to say, the ASRock Z490 Steel Legend motherboard is quite a hidden gem. I’m pretty impressed with its overclocking ability and overall performance, and I love the camo/silver/white/grey design. In fact, there are a couple of the things that makes ASRock’s Steel Legend motherboards so attractive, and that’s the price and the rich feature list.

We got some very good scores during our benchmarks. For PCMark10, it produced an impressive score of 7,798, and for Passmark9, we got a score of 7898. In Port Royal, we got a score of 6,680 a DLSS score of 45.22. For 3DMark Time Spy and Firestrike, we got an excellent score of 11,318 and 24,371 respectively. 

I was quite surprised with the overclocking ability of the Z490 Steel Legend. With most of the BIOS options set to AUTO, we managed overclock our Intel Core i9-10900K to 5.3GHz on ALL 10 cores with a voltage increase of 1.3-1.4V. Not bad, not bad at all … for a sub $170 motherboard.

With a price tag of only $165, the ASRock Z490 Steel Legend Motherboard is a great bargain. You get all your favourite features from ASRock, as well as great aesthetics with performance to match!

You can buy the ASRock Z490 Steel Legend Motherboard from various online retailers including Amazon for around USD $165 – https://amzn.to/32na917

Pros:

• Supports all Intel 10th Gen (Comet Lake) processors
• Intel Z490 chipset
• Very good performance
• Good overclocking options for both CPU and memory
• Supports AMD CrossfireX
• Dragon 2.5GB/s LAN
• 2 x Ultra M.2 slots for SSD with 2 full coverage heatsink

Cons:

• No native support for PCIE 4.0 (Intel issue)

Final Words:

If you’re planning to build a PC system based on an Intel 10th Gen (Comet Lake) processor, then take a look at the ASRock Z490 Steel Legend. It’s a feature-packed motherboard that offers excellent value, good performance and decent overclocking ability,