The Box and Packaging
Inside the box, you’ll find the usual user manual, 3 x thermal probes/sensors, a 3-pin ARGB splitter cable, antennas for the WiFi 7, 5 x M.2 screws/screw mounts, 2 pairs of SATA cable, an ASRock keycap, Phantome Gaming case badge and a GPU support backet.
The ASRock Z790 PG NOVA WiFi Motherboard
The motherboard is equipped with a composite VRM heatsink which includes a cooling fan inside the I/O hood, a bigger aluminum sink and heat pipe for maximum heat dissipation.
On the back of the motherboard, you’ll find a large metal backplate with a nice NOVA logo. This will help give the motherboard extra rigidity and also helps with the cooling.
There are a total of 6 x M.2 slots for your SSDs, the most I’ve seen on a motherboard. The Blazing M.2 PCIE Gen5x4 slot is covered by a large and unique heatsink with a quick release latch for easy mounting of your SSDs. It also features a full cover XXL M.2 heatsink with anti-drop screw design which helps to cool the other 5 x Hyper M.2 slots.
A Closer Look
Starting on the top left-hand corner of the board, you’ll find 2 x 8-pin PCIE power connectors, Make sure the power cables are plugged in. It’s needed to power the board, plus it will give you extra stability especially during overclocking.
I love the onboard power on/off buttons which is located on the bottom-right of the motherboard, and also the diagnostic LEDs on the top-right of the board.
For connectivity, you get the Killer E3100G 2.5 GbE LAN and Wi-Fi 7 plus Bluetooth 5.3
For expansion, you get 1 x PCIE 5.0 x16 slot and 1 x PCIE 4.0 x16 (both with + Surface-Mount Tech), and 1 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slot.
For storage, you get 1 x Blazing M.2 (PCIe Gen5x4), and 5 x Hyper M.2 (PCIe Gen4x4) slots, as well as 4 additional SATA ports.
For RGB lovers, you’ll find 2 x 3-pin ARGB (5V) headers located on the top right side of the motherboard, and another 1 x 3-pin ARGB (5V) header, as well as 1 x 4-pin RGB (12V) towards the bottom middle of the board.
And lastly, you also get all of ASRock’ unique features such as the auto driver installer, Dr. MOS, 8-layer PCB, Lightning gaming port, the Realtek 7.1 HD Nahimic audio and Polychrome RGB.
On the rear I/O panel, you’ll find a Clear CMOS button, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI port, 2 x USB 2.0 ports, 2 x Ultra USB poer ports, 2 x Lightniong gaming ports, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A Ports (10 Gb/s), 1 x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C Port (20 Gb/s), 1 x 2.5 GbE LAN Port, 2 x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A Ports, 2 WiFi 7 anntenna connectors, and an array of HD Audio Jacks: Microphone, Line-out and SPDIF.
