Intel Z390 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Analyzed

ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI/ac

The ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI/ac is available with or without Wi-Fi which gives users the choice if they want to spend the extra for wireless capability or save money if wireless doesn't feature into the plan; the price variance is expected to be just $10 during launch. The Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI is a slightly different take on ASRock's own Z390 Phantom Gaming 6 and Phantom Gaming 4 boards and sits right in between them in terms of features and pricing in the current ASRock product stack. The board has a total of five 4-pin fan headers, has an advertised 10-phase power delivery and offers users a single 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input. 

With this being an SLI supported model as the name suggests, the Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI has two full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which run at x16 and x8, with an additional four PCIe 3.0 x 1 slots. Both full-length slots are treated to ASRock's Steel Slot armor protection and the board supports up to two-way SLI and two-way CrossFire multi-graphics card setups. The board has two PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA supported M.2 slots with the bottom slot being complemented by an M.2 heatsink, while users looking to use SATA based devices will be happy to know the board has the Z390's maximum supported allocation of six ports. The board has four RAM slots which support up to DDR4-4266 and with a total combined capacity of up to 64 GB. 

On the networking front the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI and Phantom Gaming SLI/ac models both feature a single Realtek RTL8125AG 2.5 G LAN with the latter model also including an 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter; this is the only difference between both of the aforementioned models. Both boards have a total of six USB ports on the rear which is comprised of a single USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, a single USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C and four USB 3.0 ports. The Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI also features a pair of HDMI and DVI-D display outputs, a PS/2 combo port and a single S/PDIF, with five 3.5 mm audio jacks powered by a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec.

The ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI has an MSRP of $160 and the Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI/ac has an MSRP of $170; a price premium of $10 for the integration of 802.11ac wireless networking is fair as a decent quality USB based network adapter can cost this, and more depending on the brand. ASRock has aimed both these models primarily at gamers and with the inclusion of 2.5 G Realtek LAN and a Realtek ALC892 audio codec, I think it would have been a smarter choice to use a Gigabit LAN and use the savings to upgrade the codec to the better quality Realtek ALC1220 offering, but the inclusion of the new Realtek 2.5 G RT8125AG gaming LAN is something not to be sniffed at!