ASRock Z790 PG-ITX TB4 Motherboard Overview

Introduction, Specs, and Pricing

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With Intel’s 14th Gen reportedly across the nook, it’s nonetheless considerably unclear if this new technology can be a refresh of Raptor Lake-S or if we’ll see the brand new Meteor Lake structure make an look in any case. That mentioned, my intestine feeling is that Z790 will dwell yet one more cycle because the Raptor Lake-S refresh seems to be extra doubtless as we inch nearer to October.

ASRock’s Z790 PG-ITX TB4 is one in all only a few ITX options discovered on the high-end for twelfth and thirteenth Gen Intel CPUs. This board helps DDR5 reminiscence with a peak capability of 96GB, whereas velocity could be ramped as much as 7000MHz+ through overclocking.

Growth is minimal with the ITX kind issue, although ASRock features a single PCIe x16 that does provide Gen 5 help whereas storage grabs three m.2 slots, all supporting Gen4. SATA, too, has been made obtainable for legacy connectivity, with three ports.

Connectivity on this motherboard consists of two Thunderbolt 4 and 6 USB 3.2 Gen 2 on the rear panel, with further ports obtainable through inner headers. Additional connectivity consists of the Killer Suite for LAN and Wi-Fi, providing 2.5Gbe wired connectivity and WiFi6e. Show connectivity consists of HDMI and DP on the rear panel and two further show connections obtainable over USB4.

Pricing

Pricing on the ASRock Z790 PG-ITX TB4 is available in at $349.99 with a three-year guarantee.

Packaging, Equipment, and Overview

Packaging and Equipment

Packaging has stayed the identical in comparison with the earlier technology Phantom Gaming providing. The PG brand is centered on the field, and supported CPUs are listed alongside the underside.

Now we have board specs on the again alongside the underside with a rear I/O diagram.

Included with the board, we discovered the consumer guide, Wi-Fi antenna, and SATA cables.

Motherboard Overview

Being ITX, the PG is a small motherboard. Now we have two DIMM slots to the suitable of the LGA1700 socket, the primary m.2 slot and chipset tucked beneath the middle heatsink, and a full PCIex16 slot on the backside.

On the bottom, we’ve a backplate throughout the highest of the board, two m.2 proper under the CPU socket.

The rear I/O provides us DP and HDMI on the high. That is adopted by a mass of USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports and Thunderbolt/USB4 alongside the underside. Additional proper, we’ve Wi-Fi and audio.

Taking a visit across the board, the underside has just some headers for entrance panel audio and chassis connections.

Across the nook, the aspect of the board packs in a lot of the connectivity. Three SATA and several other USB 3.2 headers could be discovered right here, together with the 24-pin energy and fan headers.

Throughout the highest, we’ve extra fan headers and eight-pin energy.

UEFI, Software program and Check System

UEFI

This BIOS ought to look acquainted for anybody who has used an ASRock platform in the previous few generations, although this one has a PG theme. Beginning with EZ Mode, we’ve CPU and reminiscence info on the highest left and temperatures to the suitable. Down under, the dashboard is cut up into classes for DRAM, followers, and storage, every with its personal choices. To the far proper, we’ve fast entry besides precedence.

OC Tweaker consists of present CPU and reminiscence clocks on the high, tuning for each under. The superior menu comprises choices for SATA storage, PCH, Thunderbolt, and NVMe. CPU config consists of the power to allow/disable cores, together with E cores and P cores, individually.

Monitoring is included alongside fan management, whereas the software menu means that you can management RGB and Safe Erase storage units.

Motherboard Software program

ASRock A-Tuning permits for fast entry to efficiency profiles seen above.

Customers can also manually tune from the OC Tweaker menu.

Moreover, with this platform utilizing Killer for LAN and WLAN, you will have entry to Killer Intelligence Heart.

Motherboard Testing Supporters

Sabrent helps our storage testing with the Rocket 4 Plus.

TweakTown Intel Motherboard Check System

Cinebench R23,Crossmark and AIDA64

Cinebench R23

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been closely relied upon by each Intel and AMD to focus on their latest platforms throughout unveils. The benchmark has two assessments, a single-core workload using one thread or 1T and a multi-threaded check that makes use of all threads or nT of a examined CPU.

The PG ITX did fairly effectively in our testing, with R23 displaying 2077 single core and 28879 multicore.

CrossMark

CrossMark landed us an general of 2498 for PG.

AIDA64

In AES, we picked up 223935.

SHA3 tapped in at 6387.

Reminiscence latency landed at 66.1ns.

UL Procyon,3DMark, and CrossMark Benchmarks

UL Procyon Suite

The UL Procyon Workplace Productiveness Benchmark makes use of Microsoft Workplace apps to measure PC efficiency for workplace productiveness work.

The Picture Modifying benchmark makes use of Adobe Lightroom to import, course of, and modify a choice of photographs. Within the second a part of the check, a number of edits and layer results are utilized to {a photograph} in Adobe Photoshop.

Procyon scored a stable 10339 for Workplace with Picture proper there, scoring 11248.

3DMark

Beginning with CPU Profile, the PG grabbed 1156 single thread whereas 16 threads scored 10838.

Flipping over to storage, our Rocket 4 Plus scored 3941 on the PG ITX.

Time Spy provides us our first take a look at a gaming workload. The PG ITX did fairly effectively, scoring 21737 general.

Pace Means was related, the PG ITX proper consistent with others at 5889.

Gaming Benchmarks and Remaining Ideas

We default to our Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark for gaming, testing 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. For the PG ITX, we noticed 202 FPS peak at 1080p, adopted by 160 FPS at 1440p and 92 FPS at 4K.

Remaining Ideas

With testing wrapped on the Z790 PG ITX, it comes off the check bench as one of many higher ITX options we’ve examined. Options of this motherboard embody help for USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4, alongside a number of USB 3.2, each gen 1 and a pair of, and even Intel’s Killer Suite with the E3100G and AX1675.

That being mentioned, this motherboard is an identical to the Z690 providing, with just some beauty adjustments to the heatsinks and a chipset swap. The underlying elements are the identical. That is actually a cost-cutting measure from ASRock however mustn’t intrude with efficiency, and our outcomes affirm this.

Talking of outcomes, the Z790 PG-ITX ran proper with dearer options like Godlike, AORUS Xtreme, and ROG Maximus Hero in every little thing from R23, Cross Mark, and AIDA. Reminiscence latency was among the many higher motherboards on this PG, and 3DMark provided help with top-notch performances in Time Spy and Pace Means.

Pricing on this answer carries an MSRP of $349.99, whereas final 12 months’s Z690 PG ITX got here in at $329.99, a slight enhance. With that, the Z790 PG-ITX is at the moment one of many cheaper choices available on the market for these wanting ITX, with comparables just like the Strix Z790-I going for $469.99 and AORUS Extremely at $359.99, each missing lots of the options included within the stable ASRock providing.