Saturday, May 23rd 2020
ASRock Z490 AQUA Helps Set Four 10th Gen Core Records
Being the latest flagship and limited motherboard, the Z490 AQUA has been pleased all gamers and PC enthusiasts since its announcement. The cutting edge performance and design of Z490 AQUA push Intel 10th Gen Core CPU to 4 global first place benchmark results. The well-known overclocker, Splave achieves four Global First Places with Z490 AQUA and Intel Core i9-10900KF CPU. Our platform completed the wPrime 1024M benchmark in 35.562 seconds, which wins the Global First Place. Find the HWBot submission here.
On the GPUPI for CPU benchmark, best record is one minute and 25.015 seconds, made by using Z490 AQUA with Intel Core i9-10900KF. (Check new record here on HWBot). Splave takes a huge lead by scoring 9108 marks on Intel Core i9-10900KF with the ASRock Z490 AQUA, and captured the 1st place in the Intel 10th Gen Core CPU category (HWBot submission). In conjunction with Intel Core i9-10900KF with the ASRock Z490 AQUA, Splave creates a new record of 42.17 points on Cinebench-R11.5 and wins the Global First Place (submission).
Winning a total of 4 Global First Place is not an easy task. Thanks and congratulations to Splave, he has managed extremely well to overclock i9-10900KF on Z490 AQUA. These achievements are attributed by the hard work and ASRock's key esprit - pursuing innovation. The Z490 AQUA is no doubt the right choice for PC enthusiasts.
Update May 28th: As you can see from the comments of this news post, the motherboard that achieved the records is slightly different to the actual Z490 Aqua. Whereas the Z490 Aqua has four memory slots, the version that broke the records has only two memory slots, which is mandatory to achieve the highest memory speeds. We talked to ASRock and they confirmed that "that Z490 AQUA is a special version of Z490 AQUA, we will focus more on providing clear info in the future and apologize for any misunderstanding this caused".
Now that doesn't mean that the Z490 Aqua with four memory slots is bad, it actually seems to be a very capable board. Also looking at who actually buys these halo products, I suspect most of them will actually prefer a four-DIMM version because "more is better", and they won't be doing nearly as much memory OC. It would be interesting to see if ASRock could create a special two-DIMM SKU, optimized for memory overclocking.
On the GPUPI for CPU benchmark, best record is one minute and 25.015 seconds, made by using Z490 AQUA with Intel Core i9-10900KF. (Check new record here on HWBot). Splave takes a huge lead by scoring 9108 marks on Intel Core i9-10900KF with the ASRock Z490 AQUA, and captured the 1st place in the Intel 10th Gen Core CPU category (HWBot submission). In conjunction with Intel Core i9-10900KF with the ASRock Z490 AQUA, Splave creates a new record of 42.17 points on Cinebench-R11.5 and wins the Global First Place (submission).
Update May 28th: As you can see from the comments of this news post, the motherboard that achieved the records is slightly different to the actual Z490 Aqua. Whereas the Z490 Aqua has four memory slots, the version that broke the records has only two memory slots, which is mandatory to achieve the highest memory speeds. We talked to ASRock and they confirmed that "that Z490 AQUA is a special version of Z490 AQUA, we will focus more on providing clear info in the future and apologize for any misunderstanding this caused".
Now that doesn't mean that the Z490 Aqua with four memory slots is bad, it actually seems to be a very capable board. Also looking at who actually buys these halo products, I suspect most of them will actually prefer a four-DIMM version because "more is better", and they won't be doing nearly as much memory OC. It would be interesting to see if ASRock could create a special two-DIMM SKU, optimized for memory overclocking.
28 Comments on ASRock Z490 AQUA Helps Set Four 10th Gen Core Records
Or, a hole in your desk/bench table due to melting through like hot lava.
Nice score (obviously) but totally nonsense content for all but 25-ish people globally.
Besides, you can purchase a board as "endowed" as this one and then shove a custom block on there - with enough money left for a nice 16GB kit (or even 32?) of RAM - and probably still have some change left for a somewhat decent case...... and probably a couple of 64GB USB sticks for Winbloze installs.....
Choice is indeed choice, though.
Edit - this news needs editing in all fairness - @btarunr
Reasoning: "fake news" - the board was not retail and in all fairness probably not even the claimed Z490 Auqa.... unless I'm misunderstanding something about the following images:
There are multiple differences between the two boards; not least the lack of two RAM slots... also, the next two image crops are fairly funny:
All a bit odd.....
@TheLostSwede & @EarthDog any ideas on this?
Edit 2 - pre-pro Aqua.
Edit: the one with four sticks is photoshoped, look at the ice lines on top of the modules, they are the same by pairs.
Probably an es cpu, es board and all fake pictures, you can tell.
The board used for the record is a 2dimm "special" board and not the 4dimm "actual" board. Plain and simple false advertising enabled by overclockers stooping to another low.
Splave shouldn't pretend this is the Aqua board (or allow confusion) and Asrock should most definitely not make this claim in their official Press Release www.asrock.com/news/index.asp?iD=4490
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
But, still, this is not a retail board and custom or prototype stuff should not be spoken of as if it were retail.... posts like this - where the news editor of TPU doesnt reply when tagged in obviously misleading news (@btarunr again) - somewhat strike me as placed advertisement... I mean, what else is it?
At the least, its a poorly proofed press release from ASrock thats been pushed by TPU without any effort into looking at the links provided in the news article - at worst its sneaky paid advertisement with some backdoor money or other such services offered (motherboard for review?); either way it shouldnt be left on the front page all weekend to mislead the lesser forum goers into thinking that the Z490 Aqua is any good for the money OR capable of getting these results out of the box... or even tweaked. :shadedshu:
This is so stupid. The Z490 Aqua looks like an awesome board already. Especially for those who want the high-end custom loop look. There's no reason to tarnish the reputation of this amazing product with this kind of nonsense. Also Splave is a genuinely good guy and very supportive in the overclocking community. Plus, he's one of the best overclockers in the world. This is so unnecessary it's painful to watch.
The isnt a retail board and should not be claimed as such..... its very misleading information and to be thrown out in a press release (that very few other sites have even mentioned) and not corrected by TPU's amazing news editor as he seemingly refuses to acknowledge being tagged in posts he publishes, is very odd indeed lol
So, with that all in mind, I can only once again assume this is a nice placed piece of marketing for some reason or another.... and if it is, it should be labeled as so.
TPU should add an editor's note about the deceptive marketing being incorporated.
Video on the subject from Buildzoid:
It's not a simple modified retail board, it's a specially made PCB. The removed 2 DIMMs slots and moved the 2 remaining slots closer to the socket.
This should be labeled the Aqua OC Formula or OC Edition.