ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming X Motherboard Review

1. Introduction2. Packaging and Bundle3. Board Layout and Features4. UEFI5. Software6. Testing Methodology7. Tests: CPU Related8. Tests: Memory Related9. Tests: Gaming Related10. Tests: Motherboard Features Performance11. Overclocking & Power Consumption12. Closing Thoughts13. View All Pages

Manual CPU Overclocking:

To test the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming X motherboard’s CPU overclocking potential, we set the CPU core voltage no higher than 1.3V and push for the highest stable clock speed. We maintain the DRAM frequency at 3200MHz to take memory stability out of the overclocking equation.

Our particular CPU is not stable at 5.1GHz even with 1.45v. The final stable overclock for almost all Z390 motherboards we may test should be 5GHz, unless there is something particularly wrong with the VRM that limits the voltage or power it can supply. In the case of the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming X it achieved 5GHz at 1.3 volts with no significant issues.

Motherboard Sensors

The ASRock Z390 Phantom 9 had two dedicated VRM sensors on a separate IC to measure temperature of the VRMs. For whatever reasons, either the chip was removed or HWiNFO is no longer able to read these sensors, this same information was not available on the “upgraded” Z390 Phantom Gaming X, which we found disappointing.

There was, however, a “motherboard” temperature sensor which seemed to correspond to VRM temperatures that measured 70 degrees Celsius peak (average 63) at stock and 77 degrees Celsius peak (average 73) at overclocked load. There is of course the suspicion that these could also be related to the CPU temperatures, given the close similarity, so are to be taken with a pinch of salt.

In any case, there were no VRM issues encountered and the power draw figures below indicate a system working in a peak efficiency band. Prospective Intel Core i9 9900KS buyers will have nothing to worry about if the results of our testing are anything to go by.

Overclocked Performance

System Power Consumption

We leave the system to idle on the Windows 10 desktop for 10 minutes before taking a reading. For CPU load results we run AIDA64 CPU, FPU, Cache and Memory stress tests and take a reading after 10 minutes. The power consumption of our entire test system (at the wall) is shown in the chart.

Overclocked performance and power consumption align very closely to the MSI Z390 MEG ACE, a highly acclaimed motherboard that we also reviewed.

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