The Intel Z690 Motherboard Overview (DDR5): Over 50+ New Models

ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 (DDR5)

For the launch of Intel's Alder Lake, ASRock has prepared two mini-ITX form factor motherboards for launch, one for the premium market and one for entry-level users. The most premium of the pairing is the ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 which continues the brand's lineage of providing premium power and features but on the smaller mini-ITX sized platform. The pocket rocket Z690 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 opts for a classy glossy black rear panel cover and heatsink selection, with elements of red around the board and within the ASRock and PG gaming logo too. ASRock is also advertising an 11-phase power delivery with smart power stages, with a single 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input delivering power to the processor.

As this is a mini-ITX sized motherboard, it includes just one full-length PCIe slot which is operating at PCIe 5.0 x16. As a consequence of its size, it's only able to fit two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots on it and opts for just three SATA ports, which are still capable of supporting Intel RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. On the right-hand side of the board is a pair of memory slots that are capable of supporting DDR5-6400 out of the box, with a combined capacity of up to 64 GB. 

One of the board's most prominent features is that it has one Thunderbolt 4 Type-C port, with additional support from four USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and one USB 3.2 G1 Type-A port. Integrated audio consists of five 3.5 mm audio jacks with one S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec, with a Killer E3100G 2.5 GbE controller and Killer AX1675 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi providing the boards networking support. Finishing off the rear panel is one HDMI 2.1 and one DisplayPort 1.4 video output, with a clear CMOS button and BIOS Flashback button.