Overclocking

The ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming X proved a little underwhelming in the overclocking department; that is, if 5.1 GHz all-core can be framed in such a way. I expected equivalent performance to the Z390 Phantom Gaming 7 the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming X shares so many similarities with. The difference (100 MHz only) probably comes down to efficiency. ASRock prioritized lowering the current draw on the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming X, resulting in a 16 W reduction in power draw at the same clock speed and voltage. Personally, I would prefer high-end boards like this to be more liberal with current output. Most of us who overclock heavily are not too concerned over our power bill, caring more about higher stable clocks.


The postcode display on the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming X is well placed for easy problem diagnosis, on the bottom of the board, below the M.2 heatsink. ASRock has included the Hyper BCLK for those who want to dig into the nitty-gritty of hardcore BCLK overclocking.




When it comes to memory clock stability, the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming X did fairly well. XMP was perfectly stable, and I was able to get up to 4000 MHz without touching voltages on my T-Force Extreem kit. Not too bad overall, I'm glad to see this at least carried over from the Phantom Gaming 7.