ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 Review

Name: ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4
Brand: ASRock
Price: 350 USD

ir_cow

on Mar 15th, 2022,

in Motherboards.

Manufacturer: ASRock

Board Software »

BIOS Overview

Clocks	Range	Interval
BCLK Frequency:	97.5 MHz - 500 MHz	0.010 MHz
CPU P-Core Ratio:	8–85	1
CPU E-Core Ratio:	8–85	1
CPU Cache Ratio:	8–85	1
DRAM Frequency:	DDR5-800 - DDR5-1000	N/A
CPU Voltages	Range	Interval
CPU Voltage:	0.8–1.6 V	0.005 V
CPU Input Voltage:	1.7–2.1 V	0.010 V
VCCSA Voltage:	N/A	N/A
VDD_IMC:	0.005–1.4 V	0.005 V
DRAM Voltages	Range	Interval
DRAM VDD:	0.800–1.65	0.010 V
DRAM VDDQ:	0.800–1.65	0.010 V
DRAM VPP:	1.5–2.135 V	0.050 V

The ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 BIOS is a bit all over the place in terms of layout and organization of the BIOS. Upon first boot or clearing of the CMOS, the default landing screen is EZ Mode. This gives you the ability to set the memory XMP profile, drive boot priority, and fan control without digging deeply into the sub-menus.

Switch to advanced mode and you will be greeted with a main menu in which you can create a favorites menu. A "My Favorites" type of menu is where you can add and subtract commonly used settings for future convenience. This will come in handy if you plan on returning to the BIOS often.

Those looking to dive deep into the BIOS will find themselves mostly confined to the OC Tweaker section as this is were all the CPU, memory, and voltage settings can be found. However, this Z690 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 has a few BIOS bugs that will need to be ironed out in future updates. If you are on 4.06 or below, expect to be impacted by these issues as well.

My biggest concern is that the Clear CMOS button does not in fact reset the BIOS settings. Instead, it boots the system into safe mode, leaving all the previous settings in tact. In some regards, this is nice if you do not have your current configuration saved, but I would counter that a Clear CMOS button should do exactly what its name entails, unless it can of course be toggled between two modes—the ASUS Flex button does that and can be set to just clear everything or go into safe mode. Unfortunately, that is not the case here. I did not find an option to change this button's function.

What may be equally important and concerning is that the default (Auto) CPU Tj Max is set to 115°C internally. Intel specifications state 100°C for 12th generation Tj Max. This is a concern for those who blindly rely on that safeguard. Generally speaking, the default Tj Max should not be above Intel specifications. Many do not question these types of thermal safe guards even when overclocking. It is something I may have to manually set from now on, just out of caution.

Lastly, there are a few odds and ends that affect memory overclocking. ASRock has flipped the VDD_IMC and VDD_CPU voltages. I mean the names are swapped. VDD_IMC is actually the VDDQ_TX and VDD_CPU is really the CPU integrated memory controller (IMC). This can be confirmed by setting one to a specific voltage and checking in hardware monitoring software. While VDDQ_TX is a supporting memory voltage, CPU IMC it is not, as specified by Intel for these 12th generation Intel processors.