ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming Velocita Review

Name: ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming Velocita
Brand: ASRock
Price: 470 USD

ir_cow

on Apr 8th, 2022,

in Motherboards.

Manufacturer: ASRock

Board Software »

BIOS Overview

Clocks	Range	Interval
BCLK Frequency:	90 MHz - 650 MHz	0.010 MHz
CPU P-Core Ratio:	8–85	1
CPU E-Core Ratio:	8–85	1
CPU Cache Ratio:	8–85	1
DRAM Frequency:	DDR5-800 - DDR5-1000	N/A
CPU Voltages	Range	Interval
CPU Voltage:	0.8–1.6 V	0.005 V
CPU Input Voltage:	1.7–2.5 V	0.005 V
VCCSA Voltage:	0.001-2.00	0.001
VDD_IMC:	0.005–1.410 V	0.005 V
DRAM Voltages	Range	Interval
DRAM VDD:	0.800–1.65	0.010 V
DRAM VDDQ:	0.800–1.65	0.010 V
DRAM VPP:	1.5–2.135 V	0.050 V

The ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming Velocita BIOS is a bit all over the place in terms of layout and organization if you are unfamiliar with ASRock's style. Upon first boot, or clearing of the CMOS, the default landing screen is EZ Mode. This gives you the ability to set the memory XMP profile, drive boot priority, and fan control without digging deeply into the sub-menus.

Switch to advanced mode and you will be greeted with a main menu in which you can create a favorites menu. A "My Favorites" type menu is where you can add and subtract commonly used settings for future convenience. This will come in handy if you plan on returning to the BIOS often.

Those looking to dive deep into the BIOS will find themselves mostly confined to the OC Tweaker section as this is were all the CPU, memory, and voltage settings can be found. However, this Z690 Phantom Gaming Velocita motherboard has a few minor BIOS bugs that will need to be ironed out in future updates. If you are on 6.02 or below, expect to be impacted by these issues as well.

From my findings, ASRock has swapped the VDD_IMC and VDD_CPU voltages. "VDD_IMC" is actually the VDDQ_TX and "VDD_CPU" really VDD2. This can be confirmed by setting one to a specific voltage and checking in hardware monitoring software. While VDDQ_TX is a supporting memory voltage, the CPU IMC as specified by Intel for these 12th generation Intel processors it is not. Although uncommon, I was occasionally also stuck in a boot-loop after adjusting the memory timings, which I couldn't replicate reliably.