ASRock’s Phantom Gaming Z790 Nova WiFi is likely one of the new “refresh” LGA 1700 motherboards launched in time for the launch of Intel’s 14th-gen CPUs, themselves a refresh of final 12 months’s Raptor Lake processors.
In addition to the brand new 14th-generation Intel CPUs, the board additionally helps twelfth and Thirteenth-generation Intel CPUs. It is a peculiar 12 months in that the final three generations of Intel CPUs and motherboards are all interchangeable. However simply as Intel has refined its Raptor Lake CPUs, motherboard producers have spent the final 12 months refining their 700-series motherboards. The nuts and bolts of it’s that buyers are getting a bit extra for his or her cash this 12 months.
The very first thing I famous was that the mid-range value doesn’t match the board’s somewhat spectacular performance. It has six (64Gb/s) M.2 SSD sockets, one among which is PCIe 5.0 (128Gb/s). All of the M.2 drives are lined by heatsinks that stylishly combine with the board’s aesthetics. Which means you possibly can just about get rid of SATA exhausting drives until you’re a little bit of a storage fanatic, during which case there are 4 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s slots for you.
This can be a DDR5 motherboard; it doesn’t help DDR4. 4 DDR5 DIMM slots help as much as 7800+ modules to a most of 192 GB.
The board has three PCIe slots: 1x PCIe 5.0 x16, 1x PCIe 4.0 x16, and 1x PCIe 3.0 x1. They’re well-spaced, so you’ll nonetheless be capable of entry them even in case you are utilizing a chunky 2.5x expansion-slot GPU.
Processors with built-in GPUs can use the HDMI 2.1 socket, supporting HDCP 2.3 and a most decision of 4K/6-Hz and/or the DisplayPort 1.4 as much as 8K 60Hz/5K 120Hz. The I/O panel additionally has outputs (inc. optical) for the onboard Realtek 7.1 HD audio.
Connectivity is offered by way of the Killer E3100G 2.5 Gigabit LAN Ethernet controller and super-fast WiFi 7 wi-fi networking. The board additionally has Bluetooth 5.4. There’s help for as much as 19 USB ports: 2x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Kind-C (one on the rear I/O panel, the opposite on a header for the entrance of your case), 4x USB 3.2 Gen2 Kind-A (on the rear I/O), 7x USB 3.2 Gen1 Kind-A (three on the I/O, 4 on a entrance header) and 6x USB 2.0 (two on the I/O, 4 entrance).
Three thermistor cable headers on the board can be utilized with the included thermistors for temperature monitoring. If you wish to mild your case, there are three addressable LED headers and one RGB LED header. There are additionally seven 4-pin good fan headers for chassis followers or water pumps.
For DIY system builders, the Phantom Gaming Z790 Nova affords a couple of further options to assist with placing all of it collectively. The Dr. Debug LED gives standing/error codes throughout booting which might be helpful ought to there be any points. There’s additionally an illuminated on-button and reset button on the board for bypassing the chassis entrance panel.
The UFEI BIOS menu is a somewhat average-looking interface and probably not that intuitive, however I’ve seen worse. The straightforward mode does have all of the vital stuff at hand; you possibly can test the CPU frequency and the RAM configuration and swap on the DDR5 XMP profile with out having to delve into the intestine of it. The superior menu permits for computerized overclocking in case you suppose your CPU cooling system is up for it, in addition to extra superior tweaks. It might look a little bit of a multitude, however novice and superior customers will discover all the things they want.
Up and working, the motherboard was a dependable little bit of package that I might simply be proud of working in my very own rig. Be it taking part in video games, utilizing enterprise apps, or picture/video processing, the Z790 Nova WiFi proved to be an amazing performer.
The ASRock Phantom Gaming Z790 Nova WiFi is a strong, handsome motherboard. It has extra options that it deserves to have as a mid-level Z790 board. Whether or not in a pre-build system, a novice DIYer, or a veteran tweaker, you may discover this motherboard is a pleasure to make use of and may have all the things that you just want on your high-end gaming PC.
