Thursday, May 16th 2019
ASRock Outs Z390 Phantom Gaming 4S Motherboard
ASRock today rolled out the Z390 Phantom Gaming 4S motherboard. Clearly built to a cost, the board ships with a narrow ATX PCB, and is positioned below both the Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 and the Z390 Pro4. It draws power from a 24-pin ATX and an 8-pin EPS, conditioning it for the CPU with a 6+2 phase VRM. The LGA1151 socket is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots, and a single PCI-Express 3.0 x16. The second x16 slot is electrically x4 and wired to the PCH. An M.2 PCIe E-key slot (for WLAN cards) and three open-ended PCIe 3.0 x1 slots make for the rest of the expansion area. Storage connectivity includes just the one M.2-22110 slot (PCI-Express 3.0 x4 and SATA 6 Gbps wiring), and six SATA 6 Gbps ports.
Display outputs include just the one HDMI port. USB connectivity includes eight USB 3.2 gen 1 ports, four on the rear panel, four by headers. The board's sole 1 GbE network interface is driven by an Intel i219-V controller. The onboard audio solution combines a rather premium Realtek ALC1220 CODEC with 6-channel analog output, audio-grade capacitors, and ground-layer isolation. Separate PS/2 ports, one 3-pin addressable-RGB, two 4-pin RGB, and five 4-pin PWM fan headers make for the rest of this board. We expect this to be ASRock's cheapest Z390 offering, priced between USD $110-120.
Display outputs include just the one HDMI port. USB connectivity includes eight USB 3.2 gen 1 ports, four on the rear panel, four by headers. The board's sole 1 GbE network interface is driven by an Intel i219-V controller. The onboard audio solution combines a rather premium Realtek ALC1220 CODEC with 6-channel analog output, audio-grade capacitors, and ground-layer isolation. Separate PS/2 ports, one 3-pin addressable-RGB, two 4-pin RGB, and five 4-pin PWM fan headers make for the rest of this board. We expect this to be ASRock's cheapest Z390 offering, priced between USD $110-120.
13 Comments on ASRock Outs Z390 Phantom Gaming 4S Motherboard
The rest of the phantom series motherboards are pricey but have higher quality.
Its like they took Wv Golf and named it Porsche just because Porsche stands for higher quality pricier product.
and on top of that, it's friggin fuuugggly as hell, all those stripes makes me wanna have a seizure :cry: :cry:
What are you going to overclock? This kind of VRM would thermal throttle i9-9900K at stock speeds.
Even if you do intend to put i3-9xxxK in it, it will still get really hot (and possible throttle again).
With this kind of VRM you can't expect to have high OC results.
Look, they even use discreet low and high side mosfets. It means they are using cheapest possible mosfets with terrible capabilities.
No wonder it costs 110 USD. They added 30USD just for Phantom name, so they had to cut costs somehow else.
- FOREST, FOREST GUMP...
WELL SORTA ANYWAYS :)
I think its fairly "misleading" for companies to release a Z390 board's with basically zero OC capabilities - especially in a segment where consumers are typically expected to be overclocking - this openly-accepted statement that I just made somewhat diminishes the "more than sufficient" claim as 3 phases simply will not be enough.
Also, dare I even mention system longevity/component ware? 2 years down the line and this board wont be looking so healthy after accumulating any kind of serious on-hours.