Board Features

The X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 is the only current small form factor motherboard in ASRock's X570 product stack and commands a price tag of $240. It has a couple of interesting inclusions including an HDMI 2.0 which allows users of AMD's Ryzen APUs the ability to output the integrated graphics. A single DisplayPort 1.2 input allows users to re-route the video signal from a graphics card and output it through the Thunderbolt 3 USB 3.1 G2 Type-C port; one of the main benefits to Thunderbolt 3 is it has a blisteringly fast 40 Gbps throughput which is capable of driving multiple 4K displays at once. Also on the rear panel are two USB 3.1 G2 Type-A and two USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports. A common limitation of using a small form factor such as mini-ITX is that there is little room for PCIe and X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 has just one full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot.

ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 ITX Motherboard
Warranty Period 3 Years
Product Page Link
Price $240
Size mITX
CPU Interface AM4
Chipset AMD X570
Memory Slots (DDR4) Two DDR4
Supporting 64 GB
Dual Channel
Up to DDR4-4533
Video Outputs N/A
Network Connectivity Intel I211-AT GbE
Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax 
Onboard Audio Realtek ALC1220
PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) 1 x PCIe 4.0 x16
PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH) N/A
Onboard SATA Four, RAID 0/1/10
Onboard M.2 1 x PCIe 4.0 x4/SATA (CPU)
USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) 2 x Type-A Rear Panel
1 x Type-C Rear Panel (Thunderbolt 3)
USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) 2 x Type-A Rear Panel
1 x Type-A Header (2 x ports)
USB 2.0 1 x Type-A Header (2 x ports)
Power Connectors 1 x 24-pin ATX
1 x 8pin CPU
Fan Headers 1 x CPU (4-pin)
1 x Water Pump (4-pin)
1 x System (4-pin)
IO Panel 2 x USB 3.1 G2 Type-A
1 x USB 3.1 G2 Type-C Thunderbolt 3
2 x USB 3.1 G1 Type-A
1 x Network RJ45 (Intel)
5 x 3.5mm Audio Jacks (Realtek)
1 x S/PDIF Output (Realtek))
2 x Intel AX200 Antenna Ports
1 x HDMI 2.0 Output
1 x DisplayPort 1.4 Input
1 x PS/2 Combo Port
1 x Clear CMOS Button

For storage, the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 has just one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot which is mounted onto the rear of the board. The other physical slot located on the front of the PCB is a M.2 Key-E slot which is already populated with an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax wireless interface which offers uses BT 5.0 connectivity. This board also features an Intel I211-AT Gigabit NIC which powers the single Ethernet port on the rear panel. Also featured are four SATA ports which support RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. Another limitation of mini-ITX is present with just two memory slots which support up to DDR4-4533 and offer a maximum capacity of up to 64 GB. A Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec powers the five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output on the rear panel, as well as the front panel audio header.

Test Bed

As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

Test Setup
Processor AMD Ryzen 3700X, 65W, $329 
8 Cores, 16 Threads, 3.6 GHz (4.4 GHz Turbo)
Motherboard ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 (BIOS 1.70)
Cooling ID Cooling Auraflow 240mm AIO
Power Supply Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W Gold PSU
Memory 2x8GB G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 16-16-16-36 2T
Video Card ASUS GTX 980 STRIX (1178/1279 Boost)
Hard Drive Crucial MX300 1TB
Case Open Benchtable BC1.1 (Silver)
Operating System Windows 10 1903 inc. Spectre/Meltdown Patches

Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.

Hardware Providers for CPU and Motherboard Reviews
Sapphire RX 460 Nitro MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC Crucial MX200 +
MX500 SSDs
Corsair AX860i +
AX1200i PSUs
G.Skill RipjawsV,
SniperX, FlareX
Crucial Ballistix
DDR4
Silverstone
Coolers
Silverstone
Fans

New Test Suite: Spectre and Meltdown Hardened

Since the start of our Z390 reviews, we are using an updated OS, updated drivers, and updated software. This is in line with our CPU testing updates, which includes Spectre and Meltdown patches. We are also running the testbed with the new Windows 10 1903 update for AMD's Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, and X570 motherboard reviews. The Windows 1903 update improves multi-core and multi-thread performance on AMD's Ryzen processors with topology awareness meaning previous issues in regards to latency have been known to affect performance. As users are recommended to keep their Windows 10 operating system updates, our performance data is reflected with the 1903 update.

BIOS And Software System Performance
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  • GreenReaper - Wednesday, October 9, 2019 - link

    I think that's because Thunderbolt at a lower level works over individual 10Gbps lanes. You can have multiple "ports" but then you'll have multiple interfaces - perhaps you can team them at a higher level? But if it's Alpine Ridge you'll almost certainly be limited to low-power 10Gbps.
  • firewrath9 - Wednesday, October 9, 2019 - link

    huh? 18TB of SSD storage?
    My asrock Z87 Extreme11, with its 22 sata ports can do EIGHTY-EIGHT TB OF SSD
    WOAH

    also if 10gbe costs 100$, why is the X470 Taichi Ultimate only 50$ more than the non-ultimate? (it also has other additonal features)
  • lmille16 - Thursday, October 10, 2019 - link

    Your board is an EATX board. DCide is talking about mITX boards....
  • siuol11 - Friday, October 11, 2019 - link

    I'd settle for 2.5 or 5G ethernet, both have readily available chips that cost under $10, and Intel is about to release one (the 225V) that costs less than $2.50.
  • masteraleph - Thursday, October 10, 2019 - link

    No, the M.2 is a big deal. If you're stuffing this into a small case- and plenty of people buying X570 ITX boards will- there's a big advantage to not having any 2.5" drives in the case, whether for airflow, cables, what have you.
  • Calamarian - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link

    Shabby:

    You could always bifurcate the slot and add a 10GB NIC!

    Some cases come with!

    https://www.sliger.com/products/cases/sm580/
  • umano - Thursday, October 10, 2019 - link

    I am so happy I am not alone with this, 16 cores and thunderbolt means one thing, content creator, not a gamer. I mean the cheapest thing you can attach to TB3 is a 10gbe (200$).

    There are a lot of video makers and some colourists (who do not need to work with 6-8k raw) that own the x299 itx because it can be portable even in a backpack.

    Unless they have the crazy idea of putting a threadripper on a DTX board they lost a great opportunity. This board is a compromise for everyone, too expensive due to tb3 to who is budget-wise, as a gamer I would go with gigabyte for the 2 m2 and the backplate armour (and a very respectable 8 phase vrm) or better the dtx Asus board.

    This board can be good only if someone wants a very portable setup with no GPU and they need a faster (x4 PCI 3) GPU. So almost none

    I think except Asus maybe, but they were not that good either, manufacturers went very wrong with PCIe 4.0 and the x570.
    Asrock could have used the 4x link from the chipset (like only Asus did on their pro board reviewed here) for the second m2, they could have swapped 2xUsb3 5gbs with 2 basic usb3 port for mouse and keyboard with the lanes shared with the wifi module (it will never need full bandwidth and how much data transfer is there for mouse and keyboard) so here you are the 10gbe.
    I cannot think the number of devices that can saturate a TB3, 2 x 10gbps usb3 and 2x5gbps.
    I have a Wacom tablet, 2 Eizo with 5gbps USB 3 hubs, a das, several and different external drives, HDD, SSD, and a printer. Even with one 10gbps USB, it would have been fine, we can have tb3, who needs to connect 2 nvme external drive? By the way 4 SATA ports without raid 5?

    The 2080ti barely (2-3%) saturates a PCI 3 8x link, sharing the lanes between the GPU and the third m2 is not blasphemy at all, so there will be bandwidth, 12x PCIe 4, for a dual GPU card more powerful than a dual 2080ti.

    So now I need to change pc and I will buy this board because of the TB3 but I hope they will understand their mistake and someone will release something better, way better

    Now I have to spend 250 for the board, 300 for a thunderbolt dock with 10gbe (connected to the NAS) that I cannot use while I am using my raid das, 300+ for 64gb instead of 32gb because I cannot have a fast nvme drive for photoshop/DaVinci cache, and I still don't know how much for 2 custom water block for VRM, and other 40 for the chipset block and probably I will buy a USB DAC for headphones

    So I know it is almost impossible to have a sabre and 3 m2 on an itx board but at least for me a board with that stuff and a big block for vrm and chipset, that could have saved some space for extra daughter boards, it is worth more than 900+ and still I would have saved money

    I know it is insane and liquid cooling is not for everyone, but an ITX motherboard with 2 m2, tb3, 10gbe and some USB ports (maybe a second tb3) sharing the GPU link it is not unreasonable.

    They probably did not do it because they want content creators going with threadripper, but 3d is not the only thing that matter, video has the largest market, and we cannot bring matx cases onset easily, especially because they are ugly and the market is accustomed to see apple products, so we get no money from it, so I will not buy threadripper even I know it is amazing

  • FiveOhFour - Saturday, January 11, 2020 - link

    you have other options come on
  • CheapSushi - Saturday, October 12, 2019 - link

    Reaallly wish ASRock and others would push for Mini-DTX! With a second PCIe slot. Put the M.2 somewhere else. :O
  • Calamarian - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link

    With both 10GB USB 3.2 and Thunderbolt I'd bet it's more an issue of available PCIe lanes than MB space...

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