ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming 4 Review

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• ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming 4 Review

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With a large number of Z590 motherboards already under its belt, ASRock kicks off the series with the ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming 4, its cheapest motherboard supporting the latest 590th generation Intel processors. For those looking for a no-frills, basic motherboard, the Z4 Phantom Gaming 590 might be the affordable option you've been looking for. It's best for those who aren't going to tinker with overclocking and supports decent memory speeds too. There are also a very good number of storage options and a good number of fan headers for the processor and case fans. But there are definite discounts that have been made with this card to keep it low in price. The rear panel IO ports are oddly spaced, and we can't help but lament the lack of USB Type-A ports, even though there are plenty of headers on the motherboard. There's also no shielding on the IO components and very small heat sinks elsewhere on the motherboard that aren't very effective at keeping temperatures down for long periods of time. You get what you pay for with this card, and while it may not appeal to PC enthusiasts or modders, the Z4 Phantom Gaming XNUMX is ideal for anyone looking to build an entry-level gaming rig with the latest Intel processors.

Prices and availability

ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming 4 is priced at € 188 (AED 689), available from Vektra

Integrated

FEATURES Form Factor: ATX 12,0 in x 9,6 in, 30,5 cm x 24,4 cm
Processor: 10th / 11th generation Intel Core processors
Chipset: Intel Z590
Memory: 4 DDR4 DIMM slots up to 128GB
Audio: 7.1ch HD audio (Realtek ALC897 audio codec)
LAN: Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000Mb/s
Slots: 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, 3 x PCI Express 3.0 x1 slots
Storage: 6 x SATA3, 1 x Gen 4x4 M.2 socket, 2 x Gen 3x4 M.2 socket
Back panel: 1 x PS/2 mouse/keyboard port, 1 x HDMI, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A. 1 USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port, 2 USB 3.2 Gen1 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 RJ-45 LAN port, Line-in / front speaker / microphone Design-wise, the Z590 Phantom Gaming 4 is simplicity at its finest expression. There are no flashy logos or fancy RGB lighting, and the card looks very minimalist in any PC case. However, the predominantly black PCB can make it a bit difficult to spot the connectors, so we recommend familiarizing yourself with the location of the various key components before you start connecting anything. Inside the box you'll find an instruction manual, screws to secure the M.2 drives, an I/O shield, SATA cables, and an installation DVD with the drivers. The first thing you'll notice about this motherboard is the small size of the heat sinks. There are two located on the VRM, but they are smooth rather than finned, so we don't rely too much on heat dissipation under heavy workloads. As mentioned above, there is no protection on the IO components, which is another sacrifice to be made at this price.

(Image credit: ASRock) On the right are four DIMM slots, capable of supporting a maximum of 128GB of DDR4 RAM, up to 3200MHz natively when using an 11th Gen Intel processor. Overclocking is available via BIOS, and there are XMP 2.0 profiles that can also be automatically loaded for the best possible performance. There probably isn't a scenario where you want that much RAM on this board, so we would have liked to see just two RAM slots and more attention to cooling and I/O options. Right next to the DIMM slots you'll find the first one. of two RGB headers, one 5V/3A addressable and one RGB 12V/3A, using ASRock's Polychrome SYNC software. There are also two more RGB headers on the bottom of the board, which should be enough to change the RGB lighting you want on your case or components. What we love about this map is the large number of fan headers placed in various places on the map. In total, there are six of them: two for the processor (fan or water cooling) and four for the case. This allows for plenty of airflow in your case and luckily we've used all the connections to keep the air flowing freely. Towards the center of the card you'll find three M.2 sockets, the closest to the processor running at PCIe 4.0 speeds. The other two will run at PCIe 3.0 speeds, and the third slot will accommodate drives up to 110mm long. That's a fair number of slots to use for storage, so if you want you can skip having to use one of the built-in SATA controllers for traditional hard drives or SSDs entirely. But if you choose to use those as well, you also have several SATA ports to connect your drives. There's also a USB 3.1 header on the card so you can connect the front ports, making it easy to use compatible drives and other hardware. The card does not include WiFi or Bluetooth, but there is an M.2 E socket to connect a WiFi module. There are two PCI Express x16 slots that can function as single for Gen4x16 or dual for Gen4x16 (PCIE1) / Gen3x4 (PCIE3). There are also three PCI Express 3.0 x1 slots available for other devices, but if you're using larger GPUs on this card, you might run into a bit of a problem trying to plug some items into adjacent PCIe slots. The card supports AMD Quad CrossFireX and CrossFireX, but there is no mention of SLI support here.

(Image credit: ASRock) The rear I/O panel is spaced out very oddly, and what's easy to notice is that there are only five USB ports available here. While the card itself has more USB headers for front-facing connectivity, it's very easy to eat up the rear USB ports when devices start connecting, so use them sparingly. There's a USB 3.2 Type-C port on the back for compatible devices, which is good to see as we're now seeing more and more motherboard manufacturers include it on their motherboards at a minimum. You'll also find an Intel Gigabit LAN and HDMI port, as well as 7.1 HD audio ports (powered by the Realtek ALC897 audio codec) that support Nahimic Audio. There's also, oddly enough, a PS/2 port, although why it's included on the cards is a real headache these days.

The Z590 Phantom Gaming 4 has a fairly straightforward BIOS, and each section allows you to change memory settings, fan speeds, and control RGB options. Advanced View lets you explore overclocking both RAM and CPU, but as we found out later, that's not always a good idea. The card also includes ASRock's Base Frequency Boost feature, which allows non-K-series processors to take advantage of a base frequency boost and run at faster speeds in the long run. ASRock also includes some utilities to manage your carte mère from Windows, dont un pour the déglage et l'overclocking, the Nahimic 3 audio software, the RVB control, even if you can maintain the micro-logic and the drivers of your choice every day mother letter. These programs did not encounter any problems when we used them, and the BIOS is also easy for new and advanced users to navigate.

Performance

Benchmarks Here's how the ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming 4 performed in our test suite: Shot: 18723
Extreme Fire Strike: 9735
Time Spy: 7248
Cinebench 15: CPU 1577 GPU 168 fps Our test system consisted of an Intel i5-11400 processor, GamerStorm Assassin III processor cooler, Nvidia GTX 1080 GPU, Patriot Memory Viper Steel Series DDR4 16 GB (8 GB x2 ), a Gigabyte 850W power supply, a Gigabyte C200 Case PC, Lian Li Bora Digital Silver 120mm case fans (x3), and a 2GB M.500 Mushkin SSD in slot 1. The overall performance of our synthetic benchmarks was promising and overall gameplay was pretty decent. Despite using an older GPU, we were still able to get a consistent 60fps in Overwatch and Valorant on medium settings, though this dropped to 45-50fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider on similar settings. Where things take a turn for the worse is with the CPU throttling on this card. We ran Intel's Extreme Tuning utility to perform a 30-minute stress test, but within fifteen seconds of starting the test, the processor choked. Performance increased from 4,21 GHz (at 1,138 V) to 3,67 GHz (at 0,989 V) and stayed there until the end of the test. So for any application that uses a lot of CPU time, even for a short time, you will have to deal with a lot of throttling to control temperatures and voltages. Temperatures peaked at around 60 °C for the processor under load and around 45 °C for the motherboard; they fell to 32°C and 29°C respectively at rest. ASRock continues its base rate boost feature we saw on previous boards, which allows non-K-series Intel processors to run at higher base rates for a longer period of time. You can adjust this setting in the BIOS, but we found that increasing the voltage gave us an extra 5 fps at best in some of our games, but made some of our benchmarks run a bit less.

Final verdict

The ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming 4 is positioned as an entry-level gaming card, and for this purpose it certainly fills this need. This is a card to go for if you're really not interested in ASRock's higher-tier offerings and just want the bare minimum for your build that won't have an overclocked CPU. There are a fair number of storage and cooling options available with this motherboard, though once again we need to show off the limited number of USB ports on the back. Where things are going to start to cause problems is with the performance of the processor. This card cannot sustain high clock speeds for long, and at low CPU load it will immediately start to slow down performance. This might not be very noticeable in games that use the GPU for most heavy tasks, but for any application that is more CPU-reliant, you'll find that performance will suffer to keep up with both power consumption. under control.