ASRock’s Phantom Gaming Z790 Nova WiFi is one of the new “refresh” LGA 1700 motherboards released to coincide with the launch of Intel’s 14th generation CPUs, which itself is a refresh of last year’s Raptor Lake processors.
This board supports the new 14th Gen Intel CPUs as well as 12th and 13th Gen Intel CPUs. This year is special in that the past three generations of Intel CPUs and motherboards are all compatible. But just as Intel has improved its Raptor Lake CPUs, motherboard manufacturers have also spent the past 12 months improving their 700 series motherboards. The bottom line is that consumers will get a little more bang for their buck this year.
The first thing I noticed was that the mid-range price didn’t match the board’s pretty impressive features. There are 6 (64Gb/s) M.2 SSD sockets, one of which is PCIe 5.0 (128Gb/s). All his M.2 drives are covered with heatsinks and are stylishly integrated into the board’s aesthetic. This means you can pretty much do away with SATA hard drives unless you’re a storage geek. In that case, there are four SATA3 6.0 Gb/s slots.
This is a DDR5 motherboard. DDR4 is not supported. Four DDR5 DIMM slots support up to 7800+ modules up to 192 GB.
This board has three PCIe slots: 1 x PCIe 5.0 x16, 1 x PCIe 4.0 x16, and 1 x PCIe 3.0 x1. These are spaced well apart so you can access them even if you have a large 2.5x expansion slot GPU.
Processors with integrated GPUs can use an HDMI 2.1 socket that supports HDCP 2.3 and DisplayPort 1.4 with resolutions up to 4K/6Hz and/or up to 8K 60Hz/5K 120Hz. The I/O panel also has outputs (including optical) for onboard Realtek 7.1 HD audio.
Connectivity is provided via the Killer E3100G 2.5 Gigabit LAN Ethernet controller and ultra-fast WiFi 7 wireless networking. This board also has Bluetooth 5.4. Supports up to 19 USB ports: 2 x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C (1 on the rear I/O panel and another on the header on the front of the case), 4 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A (rear) I/O O), 7x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A (3 in I/O, 4 in front header), and 6x USB 2.0 (2 in I/O, 4 in front).
Three thermistor cable headers on the board can be used with the included thermistor for temperature monitoring. If you want to light up your case, there are three addressable LED headers and one RGB LED header. There are also seven 4-pin smart fan headers for chassis fans or water pumps.
For DIY system builders, the Phantom Gaming Z790 Nova offers several additional features to help you put everything together. Dr. Debug LED provides useful status/error codes in case of problems during startup. There is also an illuminated on and reset button on the board to bypass the chassis front panel.
The UFEI BIOS menu is a pretty average interface and not very intuitive, but I’ve seen worse. Easy mode has everything important. You can check CPU frequency and RAM configuration and turn on DDR5 XMP profiles without digging too deeply. If you think your CPU cooling system is capable, you can use the advanced menu to perform automatic overclocking or make more advanced adjustments. It may look a little cluttered, but both beginners and advanced users will find everything they need.
The working motherboard was a reliable piece of kit that I was easily happy to get working with my equipment. Whether you’re playing games, using business apps, or doing image/video processing, the Z790 Nova WiFi proved to be a great performer.
ASRock Phantom Gaming Z790 Nova WiFi is a solid and good-looking motherboard. It has even more features that make it a worthy intermediate-level Z790 board to have. Whether you’re running a pre-built system, a novice DIYer, or a seasoned tinkerer, you’ll find this motherboard is fun to use and has everything you need in a high-end gaming PC.
