Verdict and Conclusion
Over the past few months, we reviewed a bunch of Phantom Gaming Series motherboards from ASRock, including the Z790 PG Lightning WiFi and the Z790 PG Riptide WiFi, both of which were very good motherboards offering decent peformance and great value for money. The new Z790 PG NOVA WiFi follows the same path, but this time you get more features and more performance.
The motherboard now features a powerful 20+1+1 VRM design with SPS for Vcore+GT, plus it’s equipped with a composite VRM heatsink combining a cooling fan inside the I/O hood, a bigger aluminum sink and heat pipe for maximum heat dissipation.
It can support higher speed DDR5 memory modules with speeds of up to 8000 MHz and above. It also supports both Intel XMP and AMD EXPO standards too. For memory compatibility and QVL (qualified vendors list), I recommend you check ASRock’s QVL page here.
You also get a full cover heatshield for the M.2 slots on the motherboard, including a large and unique heatsink with a quick release latch on the Blazing M.2 PCIE Gen5x4 slot for easy mounting of your SSD.
ASRock have included onboard power on/off buttons and a diagnostic LED, which I really like. You tend to find these on more expensive enthusiast motherboards.
During our tests, we used Intel’s 14th Gen Core i9-14900K processor, along with 32GB of Lexar ARES RGB DDR5-7200 ram and a Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card. We managed to get some excellent scores in all of our benchmarks, including a Cinebench R23 score of 38,024 (multi core) and 2,263 (single core). For PCMark 10, we got a score of 10,701, and a score of 12,921 for PassMark10.
For UL’s Procyon Photo Editing Benchmark, we got a score of 10,446 and 9,788 for the video editing suite. For 3DMark Speed Way and Port Royal, we got decent scores of 6,118 and 16,325 respectively. And finally, for Timespy and Firestrike, we got an amazing score of 29,002 and 47,096 respectively.
For connectivity, you get Intel’s Killer E3100G 2.5 GbE LAN and Wi-Fi 7 plus Bluetooth 5.3, which is more than enough for most user’s needs.
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 4 x SATA ports, and a total 6 x NVMe M.2 slots for your SSDs, the most I’ve on a motherboard. These include 1 x Blazing M.2 (PCIe Gen5x4), and 5 x Hyper M.2 (PCIe Gen4x4) slots.
And lastly, the motherboard comes with 7.1 HD Nahimic audio, Lightning Gaming Ports, Dr.MOS, 8-layer 2oz Copper PCB, and of course ASRock’s POLYCHROME RGB for great ligting effects.
The ASRock Z790 PG NOVA WiFi is virtually on par with the Z790 Taichi Lite in terms of features and performance. The only difference is price. We didn’t get a MSRP for the ASRock Z790 PG NOVA WiFi motherboard, but expect to pay around USD $480-$499 from various online retailers.
In the meantime, you can buy something similar the original ASRock Z790 Tachi motherboard for around USD $5xx from Amazon – https://amzn.to/40HQ7Lt
Final Words:
The ASRock Z790 PG NOVA WiFi is an awesome feature-rich motherboard that offers good performance, decent cooling, high-speed connectivity, and loads of M.2 slots for storage. If you’re after a high-end gaming motherboard with enthusiast features, then take a look at this motherboard.
Related articles
- ASRock Z790 PG Lightning WiFi Motherboard Review
- ASRock Z790 PG Riptide WiFi Motherboard Review
- ASRock B650E Taichi Lite Motherboard Review
- ASRock Z790 Taichi Lite Motherboard Review
- ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XTX Taichi White 24GB OC Graphics Card Review
- ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XTX Phantom Gaming 24GB OC Graphics Card Review
