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Software, Firmware and Test System

Software

On the software side, ASRock includes programs for a variety of applications including RGB lighting control, overclocking and an App Shop designed to download and update your applications and drivers. ASRock doesn’t have a single program to house all of these applications, so you will have to download them separately. Below we’ve captured several screenshots of the App Shop, Polychrome Sync, A-Tune, and the Nahimic 3 audio program.

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ASRock Z490 Aqua — (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Firmware

To give you a sense of the Firmware, we’ve gathered screenshots showing a majority of the BIOS screens.

ASRock’s BIOS is one of the more user-friendly and good-looking UEFIs out of the major brands. Using a black background with white writing and sky-blue highlights, it’s easy to read. The Taichi’s gear/clockwork theme also finds its way in here.

At first boot, you’re greeted by Easy Mode, a more information-based page than tweaking, though you can adjust some things (XMP profiles, canned fan settings, etc). Going into the Advanced Mode, we see several headings across the top. The BIOS is deep and includes a lot of functionality, with the most frequently used items easily accessible and not buried within sub-menus.

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Test System and Comparison Products

Our test system uses Windows 10 64-bit OS (1909) with all threat mitigations applied. The motherboard BIOS used is the latest non-beta available to the public, unless otherwise noted. The hardware used is as follows:

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CPU	Intel i9-10900K	Row 0 - Cell 2
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z Neo 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (F4-3600C16D-16GTZNC)	Row 1 - Cell 2
Memory 2	G.Skill Trident Z Royale 4x8GB DDR4 4000 (F4-4000C18Q-32GTRS)	Row 2 - Cell 2
GPU	Asus ROG Strix RTX 2070	Row 3 - Cell 2
CPU Cooler	Corsair H150i	Row 4 - Cell 2
PSU	Corsair AX1200i	Row 5 - Cell 2
Software	Windows 10 64-bit 1909	Row 6 - Cell 2
Graphics Driver	Nvidia Driver 445.75	Row 7 - Cell 2
Sound	Integrated HD audio	Row 8 - Cell 2
Network	Integrated Networking (GbE or 2.5 GbE)	Row 9 - Cell 2
Graphics Driver	GeForce 445.74	Row 10 - Cell 2

For this review, we’ll be directly comparing the ASRock Z490 Aqua ($1,105.99) to the other flagship Z490 boards we’ve tested, Asus’ ROG Maximus XII Extreme ($849.99), the MSI MEG Z490 Godlike ($749.99), and Gigabyte’s Z490 Aorus Extreme ($799.99).

Benchmark Settings

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Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings	Header Cell - Column 1
PCMark 10	Version 2.1.2177 64
Row 1 - Cell 0	Essentials, Productivity, Digital Content Creation, MS Office
3DMark	Version 2.11.6866 64
Row 3 - Cell 0	Firestrike Extreme and Time Spy Default Presets
Cinebench R20	Version RBBENCHMARK271150
Row 5 - Cell 0	Open GL Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded
Application Tests and Settings	Row 6 - Cell 1
LAME MP3	Version SSE2_2019
Row 8 - Cell 0	Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s)
HandBrake CLI	Version: 1.2.2
Row 10 - Cell 0	Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x264 (light AVX) and x265 (heavy AVX)
Corona 1.4	Version 1.4
Row 12 - Cell 0	Custom benchmark
7-Zip	Version 19.00
Row 14 - Cell 0	Integrated benchmark
Game Tests and Settings	Row 15 - Cell 1
The Division 2	Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080
Forza Horizon 4	Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080