ASRock Z790 PG-ITX TB4 Motherboard Evaluation

TweakTown’s Score: 93%

The Backside Line

These an ITX motherboard for Intel’s twelfth or thirteenth Gen CPUs actually ought to put ASRock’s Z790 PG-ITX on the shortlist.

Execs

• + DDR5/PCIe 5.0
• + Thunderbolt 4 and USB 3.2
• + Killer LAN + Wi-Fi
• + Value and good efficiency
• + ITX platform

Cons

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Introduction, Specs, and Pricing

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With Intel’s 14th Gen reportedly across the nook, it’s nonetheless considerably unclear if this new technology will likely be a refresh of Raptor Lake-S or if we’ll see the brand new Meteor Lake structure make an look in any case. That mentioned, my intestine feeling is that Z790 will reside yet one more cycle because the Raptor Lake-S refresh appears to be like extra possible as we inch nearer to October.

ASRock’s Z790 PG-ITX TB4 is considered one of only a few ITX options discovered on the high-end for twelfth and thirteenth Gen Intel CPUs. This board helps DDR5 reminiscence with a peak capability of 96GB, whereas velocity will be ramped as much as 7000MHz+ through overclocking.

Enlargement is minimal with the ITX kind issue, although ASRock features a single PCIe x16 that does supply Gen 5 assist whereas storage grabs three m.2 slots, all supporting Gen4. SATA, too, has been made accessible for legacy connectivity, with three ports.

Connectivity on this motherboard consists of two Thunderbolt 4 and 6 USB 3.2 Gen 2 on the rear panel, with extra ports accessible through inner headers. Additional connectivity consists of the Killer Suite for LAN and Wi-Fi, providing 2.5Gbe wired connectivity and WiFi6e. Show connectivity consists of HDMI and DP on the rear panel and two extra show connections accessible over USB4.

Pricing

Pricing on the ASRock Z790 PG-ITX TB4 is available in at $349.99 with a three-year guarantee.

ASRock Z790 PG-ITX TB4 Motherboard

	At this time	Yesterday	7 days in the past	30 days in the past
		$334.99	–	–
		$334.99	–	–
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Packaging, Equipment, and Overview

Packaging and Equipment

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Packaging has stayed the identical in comparison with the earlier technology Phantom Gaming providing. The PG brand is centered on the field, and supported CPUs are listed alongside the underside.

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We’ve got board specs on the again alongside the underside with a rear I/O diagram.

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Included with the board, we discovered the consumer guide, Wi-Fi antenna, and SATA cables.

Motherboard Overview

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Being ITX, the PG is a small motherboard. We’ve got two DIMM slots to the proper of the LGA1700 socket, the primary m.2 slot and chipset tucked below the middle heatsink, and a full PCIex16 slot on the backside.

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On the bottom, we’ve a backplate throughout the highest of the board, two m.2 proper beneath the CPU socket.

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The rear I/O provides us DP and HDMI on the high. That is adopted by a mass of USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports and Thunderbolt/USB4 alongside the underside. Additional proper, we’ve Wi-Fi and audio.

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Taking a visit across the board, the underside has just some headers for entrance panel audio and chassis connections.

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Across the nook, the aspect of the board packs in many of the connectivity. Three SATA and several other USB 3.2 headers will be discovered right here, together with the 24-pin energy and fan headers.

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Throughout the highest, we’ve extra fan headers and eight-pin energy.

UEFI, Software program and Take a look at System

UEFI

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This BIOS ought to look acquainted for anybody who has used an ASRock platform in the previous few generations, although this one has a PG theme. Beginning with EZ Mode, we’ve CPU and reminiscence info on the highest left and temperatures to the proper. Down beneath, the dashboard is break up into classes for DRAM, followers, and storage, every with its personal choices. To the far proper, we’ve fast entry in addition precedence.

OC Tweaker consists of present CPU and reminiscence clocks on the high, tuning for each beneath. The superior menu comprises choices for SATA storage, PCH, Thunderbolt, and NVMe. CPU config consists of the flexibility to allow/disable cores, together with E cores and P cores, individually.

Monitoring is included alongside fan management, whereas the instrument menu lets you management RGB and Safe Erase storage units.

Motherboard Software program

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ASRock A-Tuning permits for fast entry to efficiency profiles seen above.

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Customers can also manually tune from the OC Tweaker menu.

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Moreover, with this platform utilizing Killer for LAN and WLAN, you have got entry to Killer Intelligence Heart.

Motherboard Testing Supporters

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Sabrent helps our storage testing with the Rocket 4 Plus.

TweakTown Intel Motherboard Take a look at System

Cinebench R23,Crossmark and AIDA64

Cinebench R23

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been closely relied upon by each Intel and AMD to focus on their latest platforms throughout unveils. The benchmark has two assessments, a single-core workload using one thread or 1T and a multi-threaded check that makes use of all threads or nT of a examined CPU.

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The PG ITX did fairly effectively in our testing, with R23 displaying 2077 single core and 28879 multicore.

CrossMark

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CrossMark landed us an total of 2498 for PG.

AIDA64

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In AES, we picked up 223935.

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SHA3 tapped in at 6387.

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Reminiscence latency landed at 66.1ns.

UL Procyon,3DMark, and CrossMark Benchmarks

UL Procyon Suite

The UL Procyon Workplace Productiveness Benchmark makes use of Microsoft Workplace apps to measure PC efficiency for workplace productiveness work.

The Photograph Modifying benchmark makes use of Adobe Lightroom to import, course of, and modify a number of pictures. Within the second a part of the check, a number of edits and layer results are utilized to {a photograph} in Adobe Photoshop.

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Procyon scored a stable 10339 for Workplace with Photograph proper there, scoring 11248.

3DMark

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Beginning with CPU Profile, the PG grabbed 1156 single thread whereas 16 threads scored 10838.

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Flipping over to storage, our Rocket 4 Plus scored 3941 on the PG ITX.

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Time Spy provides us our first have a look at a gaming workload. The PG ITX did fairly effectively, scoring 21737 total.

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Velocity Manner was related, the PG ITX proper consistent with others at 5889.

Gaming Benchmarks and Closing Ideas

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We default to our Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark for gaming, testing 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. For the PG ITX, we noticed 202 FPS peak at 1080p, adopted by 160 FPS at 1440p and 92 FPS at 4K.

Closing Ideas

With testing wrapped on the Z790 PG ITX, it comes off the check bench as one of many higher ITX options we’ve examined. Options of this motherboard embody assist for USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4, alongside a bunch of USB 3.2, each gen 1 and a couple of, and even Intel’s Killer Suite with the E3100G and AX1675.

That being mentioned, this motherboard is similar to the Z690 providing, with just some beauty modifications to the heatsinks and a chipset swap. The underlying elements are the identical. That is definitely a cost-cutting measure from ASRock however shouldn’t intrude with efficiency, and our outcomes affirm this.

Talking of outcomes, the Z790 PG-ITX ran proper with costlier options like Godlike, AORUS Xtreme, and ROG Maximus Hero in all the pieces from R23, Cross Mark, and AIDA. Reminiscence latency was among the many higher motherboards on this PG, and 3DMark provided assist with top-notch performances in Time Spy and Velocity Manner.

Pricing on this answer carries an MSRP of $349.99, whereas final 12 months’s Z690 PG ITX got here in at $329.99, a slight enhance. With that, the Z790 PG-ITX is presently one of many cheaper choices in the marketplace for these wanting ITX, with comparables just like the Strix Z790-I going for $469.99 and AORUS Extremely at $359.99, each missing most of the options included within the stable ASRock providing.