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Firmware
ASRock’s BIOS on the Aqua follow a different theme than the Z690 Taichi or PG Velocita we reviewed previously. Gone is the black and red from that line, replaced by black, white and light blue highlights that match the board’s theme and the Steel Legend SKUs. The colors present a good contrast and are easy to read.
An EZ Mode displays high-level information, including CPU clock speeds and temperatures, fan speeds, storage information, etc. Advanced Mode has several headers across the top that drop down additional options. The BIOS is easy to maneuver in and laid out logically. There is a bit of digging involved for some overclocking options, but overall, it’s a user-friendly BIOS with more options than most will ever use.
Software
Unlike some other board partners, ASRock doesn’t combine most of its utilities under a larger application. Instead, they are all standalone programs, which can lead to clutter, but they cover a wide gamut of functionality. From overclocking and monitoring (A-Tune) to audio (Nahimic), networking (Killer Dashboard), and RGB lighting (Polychrome), all of the applications for this board worked without issue.
Test System / Comparison Products
As of October 2021, we’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 64-bit OS with all updates applied. We kept the same Asus TUF RTX 3070 video card from our previous testing platforms but updated the driver to version 496.13. Additionally, our game selection was updated, as noted in the table below. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted. The hardware we used is as follows:
Test System Components
| CPU | Intel Core i9-12900K |
| Memory | Kingston Fury DDR5 5200 CL40 (9KF552C40BBK2-32) |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | GSkill Trident Z DDR5 5600 CL36 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) |
| Row 3 - Cell 0 | ADATA XPG DDR5 6000 CL40 (AX5U6000C4016G-FCLARBK) |
| GPU | Asus TUF RTX 3070 |
| Cooling | MSI MEG Coreliquid S360 |
| PSU | EVGA Supernova 850W P6 |
| Software | Windows 11 64-bit (21H2, Build 22000.282) |
| Graphics Driver | Nvidia Driver 496.13 |
| Sound | Integrated HD audio |
| Network | Integrated Networking (GbE or 2.5 GbE) |
EVGA supplied our Supernova 850W P6 power supply (appropriately sized and more efficient than the outgoing 1.2KW monster we used) for our test systems, and G.Skill sent us a DDR5-5600 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) memory kit for testing.
Benchmark Settings
| Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings | Row 0 - Cell 1 |
| Procyon | Version 2.0.249 64 |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | Office Suite, Video Editing (Premiere Pro), Photo Editing (Photoshop, Lightroom Classic) |
| 3DMark | Version 2.20.7290 64 |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | Firestrike Extreme and Time Spy Default Presets |
| Cinebench R23 | Version RBBENCHMARK330542 |
| Row 6 - Cell 0 | Open GL Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded |
| Blender | Version 3.0.1 |
| Row 8 - Cell 0 | Full benchmark (three sub-tests) |
| Application Tests and Settings | Row 9 - Cell 1 |
| LAME MP3 | Version SSE2_2019 |
| Row 11 - Cell 0 | Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s) |
| HandBrake CLI | Version: 1.2.2 |
| Row 13 - 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 15 - Cell 0 | Custom benchmark |
| 7-Zip | Version 21.03-beta |
| Row 17 - Cell 0 | Integrated benchmark (Command Line) |
| Game Tests and Settings | Row 18 - Cell 1 |
| Far Cry 6 | Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, HD Textures ON |
| F1 2021 | Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, HBAO+, RT Med, TAA + 16xAF, Bahrain, FPS Counter ON |
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