ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac Review: ITX Excellence

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How We Test

The second Mini ITX board we’ve tested using the Core i9-9900K, ASRock’s Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac goes up directly against Supermicro’s C9Z390-CG-IW. Full ATX models we included in our comparison give the tiny boards some big competition while helping to fill out the charts.

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SoundIntegrated HD audio
NetworkIntegrated gigabit networking
Graphics DriverGeForce 399.24

The same platform that cooled the 10 cores of our Core i9-7900X worked equally well with the eight cores of the Core i9-9900K, as we’ll show in the overclocking evaluation on the next page.

Comparison Products

Benchmark Settings

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Synthetic Benchmarks & Settings
PCMark 8Version 2.7.613Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe & Microsoft)
3DMark 13Version 4.47.597.0Skydiver, Firestrike, Firestrike Extreme Default Presets
SiSoftware SandraVersion 2016.03.22.21CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography, Memory Bandwidth
DiskSPD4K Random Read, 4K Random Write128K Sequential Read, 128K Sequential Write
Cinebench R15Build RC83328DEMOOpenGL Benchmark
CompuBenchVersion 1.5.8Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
Application Tests & Settings
LAME MP3Version 3.98.3Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s)
HandBrake CLIVersion: 0.9.9Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x265 mp4
BlenderVersion 2.68aBMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark, BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-ZipVersion 16.02THG-Workload (7.6GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Adobe After Effects CCRelease 2015.3.0, Version 13.8.0.144PCMark-driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CCRelease 2015.5.0, 20160603.r.88 x64PCMark-driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CCRelease 2015.4, Build 11.4.0.90 x64PCMark-driven routine
Adobe IllustratorRelease 2015.3.0, Version 20.0.0 (64-bit)PCMark-driven routine
Game Tests & Settings
Ashes of the SingularityVersion 1.31.21360High Preset - 1920 x 1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAACrazy Preset - 1920 x 1080, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 20152015 Season, Abu Dhabi track, RainMedium Preset, no AFUltra High Preset, 16x AF
Metro: Last Light ReduxVersion 3.00 x64High Quality, 1920 x 1080, High Tesselation, 16x AFVery High Quality, 1920 x 1080, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF
The Talos PrincipleVersion 267252Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AFUltra Preset, Very High Quality, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF

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Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
  • xidharta
    I love these reviews of itx boards, I would like to see gigabyte and msi ixt z390, which have a better price, many thanks!
    Reply
  • iankphone
    It'd be nice to see some followup with asrock regarding the dram over voltage...
    Reply
  • Crashman
    21470029 said:
    It'd be nice to see some followup with asrock regarding the dram over voltage...
    "Everyone" does it, this time it was more egregious than the typical 15-25mV. I'm currently writing up a board that's only 7mV over. Seven. That's incredibly closer to spec than most competing products. Heck, I might just give the new board kudos for ONLY being 7mV over-spec.

    Reply
  • johnphilips
    I would love to see a roundup between all z390 itx boards, specially the overclocking part.
    Reply
  • echovelox
    What was your firmware ?
    Reply
  • Crashman
    21474712 said:
    What was your firmware ?
    P1.27
    Reply
  • eddygonewild
    Why tom's hardware modifies pictures of reviews with extreme contrast. I can't see under the heatsink fins. Its totally useless, people are coming here to decide, not look at flashy eyecandy.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    21511630 said:
    Why tom's hardware modifies pictures of reviews with extreme contrast. I can't see under the heatsink fins. Its totally useless, people are coming here to decide, not look at flashy eyecandy.
    The images match the profile of my monitor. Maybe I should be using a different monitor?

    Reply
  • ioanbordei
    Thunderbolt port is not working at full speed? 40Gb/s ? Why is running at half (20Gb/s) ?
    Reply
  • Crashman
    21528908 said:
    Thunderbolt port is not working at full speed? 40Gb/s ? Why is running at half (20Gb/s) ?
    Because it's using a cheaper PCIe x2 controller.
    Reply