ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB3

[Black Haru]

ASRock is back once again with another successor to their Phantom Gaming line. The ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB3 features Thunderbolt 3, dual M.2 slots, 90 A power stages, and a finned heatsink design in a tiny ITX form factor package.

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[Sabishii Hito]

Horribly disappointed with the memory OC capabilities of this board; despite being 2DIMM, it couldn't even post at DDR4-4800 with Samsung B-die sticks I have that could boot DDR4-5000 on a Z390 setup.

 

[F-man4]

In Z390 generation, only Phantom Gaming provides reasonable VRM for heavy CPU load (ASUS/MSI/Gigabyte ITX’s VRM reached 100C when Prime95-ing 9700K) so its poor RAM OC ability can be forgiven.
But in Z490 generation, almost all manufacturers powered up their ITX MB’s VRM so Phantom Gaming’s poor RAM OC ability becomes a pain.

 

[Caring1]

Bent pins on the add in M2 card already uh oh.
Aren't the Trident Z Neo tuned for AMD?

 

[Condelio]

the daughter board looks awful! especially those two sata ports ughh.. z370 fatal1ty itx-ac and z390 phantom gaming itx look way better

 

[Woomack]

Horribly disappointed with the memory OC capabilities of this board; despite being 2DIMM, it couldn't even post at DDR4-4800 with Samsung B-die sticks I have that could boot DDR4-5000 on a Z390 setup.

I will only add that the same is on most Z490 that I tested and what some others report. I have no idea why but in my case it looks like listed below and it works the same on ASRock and ASUS boards that I tested:
- Samsung B 2x8GB - a wall at 4300 (using sticks that passed 5200 on Z390)
- Micron E 2x8GB - a wall at 4800 (sticks that make 5000+ easily on X570)
- Hynix D 2x8GB - a wall at 4800
- Micron E 2x16GB - 4500, the same on all
- Micron B 2x32GB - surprisingly can make 4500 on the PG ITX/TB3 while on other boards ~4200 is max

I have no idea what is wrong with Samsung B on these boards but I have exactly the same 4300 max clock on ASRock PG and ASUS Strix (5 different mobos in total), and yesterday one friend said that he has the same limit on his MSI Z490 Unify. He can stabilize memory at 4300 CL16 but can't even boot at 4400.
Additionally, most motherboards are not even booting at 3600+ CR1. Maybe you have a different experiences with that.
There is MSI Z490I Unify on the way so I will check it in some days.

I'm adding a screenshot of 2x32GB Micron B HyperX Fury@ 4500 CL18 1.45V on the Z490 PG ITX/TB3 (no tweaking, just main timings).

 

[Assimilator]

@Black Haru Image of the board on page 1 is horrible and pixellated.
Page 4, "... 10-phase VRM in a 6+2+1 configuration" shouldn't that be 9-phase?

 

[Black Haru]

@Black Haru Image of the board on page 1 is horrible and pixellated.
Page 4, "... 10-phase VRM in a 6+2+1 configuration" shouldn't that be 9-phase?

Fixed!

 

[ppn]

It looks like the back side NVMe is 4.0 provided by rocket lake, not the z490.

 

[Sabishii Hito]

I will only add that the same is on most Z490 that I tested and what some others report. I have no idea why but in my case it looks like listed below and it works the same on ASRock and ASUS boards that I tested:
- Samsung B 2x8GB - a wall at 4300 (using sticks that passed 5200 on Z390)
- Micron E 2x8GB - a wall at 4800 (sticks that make 5000+ easily on X570)
- Hynix D 2x8GB - a wall at 4800
- Micron E 2x16GB - 4500, the same on all
- Micron B 2x32GB - surprisingly can make 4500 on the PG ITX/TB3 while on other boards ~4200 is max

I have no idea what is wrong with Samsung B on these boards but I have exactly the same 4300 max clock on ASRock PG and ASUS Strix (5 different mobos in total), and yesterday one friend said that he has the same limit on his MSI Z490 Unify. He can stabilize memory at 4300 CL16 but can't even boot at 4400.
Additionally, most motherboards are not even booting at 3600+ CR1. Maybe you have a different experiences with that.
There is MSI Z490I Unify on the way so I will check it in some days.

On the M12 Apex I can boot 4800 with Samsung B-die sticks that did the same on Z390, unsurprisingly. But 4-DIMM Aorus boards are managing the same. It's not clear what's up with Asrock and MSI.