Overclocking

The ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X was able to squeeze 4.5 GHz out of my Ryzen 5 3600X sample CPU at 1.45 V. That is a new record for this sample. While that extra 25-100 MHz over competitors is small and could even be due to BIOS or driver updates, it is still good to see that there is at least a little bit of wiggle room with Ryzen 3000 processors.


The postcode display on the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X is well placed for easy problem diagnosis, on the bottom of the board, below the M.2 heatsink. ASRock has included BIOS Flashback for recovery in worst case scenarios.




When it comes to memory clock stability, the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X did not live up to the potential of other X570 boards I have tested. XMP was perfectly stable, and I was able to get up to 3933 MHz without touching voltages on my T-Force Extreem kit. Given the nature of the Infinity Fabric AMD is using with Ryzen 3000 processors, this is more than enough to reach the ideal 3733 MHz. However, I have seen speeds of up too 4466 MHz with this memory kit/ CPU combo, and the Phantom Gaming X falls pretty far short of that. The ASRock boards use the T topology for their DIMM configuration, and this accounts for some of the difference. T topology setups are more favorable to 4-stick kits, but at a penalty to maximum clocks on two stick kits like the one I test with. I still believe ASRock can offer a performance uplift with future BIOS revisions, and I hope they do so.

Another small issue with the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X while tweaking memory was that the board booted with stock settings anytime an overclock failed with no indication of it until I got into Windows. A prompt on post that the board had failed and booted in the last stable configuration, like ASRock has implemented on their Intel motherboards, would have been nice.