Wednesday, May 29th 2019
ASRock X570 Aqua is a $1000 Zen2-ready Liquid-Cooled Monsterboard
We were pleasantly mistaken when we thought ASRock would stop at the X570 Phantom Gaming X or the X570 Taichi for AMD's new "Valhalla" enthusiast desktop platform. It turns out that they have a roughly-$1,000 monster motherboard in the pipes, called the X570 Aqua. Pictured below, the board is based on a slight variation of the X570 Phantom Gaming X PCB. The biggest change of course is the aluminium shroud that covers most of the board's front side. There's also a metal back-plate.
Beneath the metal shroud is what gives the board its name: a massive liquid-cooling monoblock that cools not just your processor (including heavyweights such as overclocked Ryzen 9 3900X chips), but also the CPU VRM, and the feisty AMD X570 chipset. The coolant channel first goes over the CPU through a large micro-fin lattice, then onto the X570 chipset, and finally over the CPU VRM on its way out. Much like the Phantom Gaming X, this board features daisy-chained dual-channel DDR4 memory slots designed to make the most OC out of 2-module setups.
Expansion includes three PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slots, the top two are wired to the AM4 SoC, and the bottom-most one is electrical gen 4.0 x4, wired to the chipset. There are three gen 4.0 x1 slots in between them. Storage connectivity includes two M.2-22110 slots (64 Gbps, PCIe gen 4.0 x4), from which one includes SATA 6 Gbps wiring; and six other SATA 6 Gbps ports. The board serves up not one, but two 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 ports, complete with USB 3.1 and DisplayPort passthrough to the boot! USB connectivity includes six USB 3.1 gen 2 at the rear panel, including two type-C ports, and four USB 3.1 gen 1 headers. Networking includes a 10 GbE connection driven by an AQuantia AQC107 controller, a 1 GbE connection pulled by an Intel i211-AT, 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) WLAN pulled by Intel "Cyclone Peak" PHY, and Bluetooth 5.0. The onboard audio solution is premium Realtek ALC1220 fare.
We've heard from several sources that this board could command a $1,000 price, which is over two times that of the X570 Phantom Gaming X. Value-addition comes in the form of a slightly beefed up 8-layer PCB, two 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 ports, 10 GbE replacing 2.5 GbE, additional 10 Gbps USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, the aluminium front- and back cladding, and of course, the $200-ish nickel-plated copper monoblock. ASRock is only producing 999 pieces of this board, and the one on display is uniquely marked "002/999," so there's that.
Beneath the metal shroud is what gives the board its name: a massive liquid-cooling monoblock that cools not just your processor (including heavyweights such as overclocked Ryzen 9 3900X chips), but also the CPU VRM, and the feisty AMD X570 chipset. The coolant channel first goes over the CPU through a large micro-fin lattice, then onto the X570 chipset, and finally over the CPU VRM on its way out. Much like the Phantom Gaming X, this board features daisy-chained dual-channel DDR4 memory slots designed to make the most OC out of 2-module setups.
We've heard from several sources that this board could command a $1,000 price, which is over two times that of the X570 Phantom Gaming X. Value-addition comes in the form of a slightly beefed up 8-layer PCB, two 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 ports, 10 GbE replacing 2.5 GbE, additional 10 Gbps USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, the aluminium front- and back cladding, and of course, the $200-ish nickel-plated copper monoblock. ASRock is only producing 999 pieces of this board, and the one on display is uniquely marked "002/999," so there's that.
58 Comments on ASRock X570 Aqua is a $1000 Zen2-ready Liquid-Cooled Monsterboard
Edit: I didn't see the "DP IN".
The HDMI is an output, though.
The 9900K doesn't fit, you know that, right? :rolleyes: Comparing with Intel doesn't help here, since all mainstream Intel CPU's have integrated graphics, except for a few variants. This doesn't apply to AMD.
Taichi would have made much more sense, to me at least.
With such a high-end, limited edition $1K board with a brand new, modern 2019-era chipset, why oh why does it STILL have a stinkin, antiquated PS/2 port ?????? Surely they could have found some other type of port from this century to take up that space, yes ?
Yea I know there are people who will insist that they are still useful, but I'm am NOT one of them......
www.asrock.com/mb/photo/X570 Taichi(L2).png
www.asrock.com/mb/photo/X570 Phantom Gaming X(L2).pngThe design of the X370 Taichi was simply the best X370 design, VRM-wise. The only board that was close to it was Asus' C6H. The X370 Taichi is still better than many X470 motherboards. It's VRM was overdesigned, and still is overdesigned, so it simply didn't and doesn't need to be changed.
AIO, EK, Noctua and other PC cooling vendors gonna see sales go up with those 7nm parts.
Buildzoid will my X370/X470/B450/B350 mobo be good enough for Ryzen 3rd gen
So, well... that's that.
Is there a black version available...?
Upgrading a Phantom Gaming board like this is interesting, but would've much preferred a Tai Chi.