ASRock Z490 Steel Legend Motherboard Review


++++ The ASRock Z490 Steel Legend motherboard is available for approx. 180 Euro (08/2020) and is thus in the middle price segment of the Intel LGA 1200 motherboards.

The ASRock Z490 Steel Legend Intel LGA 1200 DDR4 ATX motherboard has a very good basic configuration with USB 3.2 Gen2 ports up to 2.5 Gigabit LAN on the motherboard in camouflage optics including addressable RGB lighting, which is already integrated in the I/O panel, in the chipset and under the motherboard and can overclock current Intel LGA1200 processors of the 10th generation extensively!

As basic equipment the Z490 Steel Legend motherboard offers five PCI Express slots, six SATA3 ports, three fast Ultra M.2 32Gb/s slots with preparation for Hyper M.2 64Gb/s, one M.2 2230 slot for an optional WIFI/BT module, one USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A, up to six possible USB 3.2 Gen1 ports, an additional USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C front panel connector, up to six possible USB 2.0 ports, a 2.5 Gigabit LAN port, analog sound output via five jacks, digital sound output via optical S/PDIF, four DDR4 slots, ASRock A-Tuning software also for controlling the fans in Windows, ASRock Polychrome RGB for addressable RGB LED lighting and much more.

In contrast to the B460/H470 the Intel Z490 chipset allows extensive overclocking!

The ASRock Z490 Steel Legend motherboard is a reasonable choice for overclockers due to the Intel Z490 chipset, has a powerful VRM power supply and the ASRock Hyper BCLK Engine III to get the maximum performance out of CPU and RAM. In addition, the stylish ASRock Z490 Steel Legend motherboard has an extensive basic equipment and convinces with numerous USB ports up to the fast USB 3.2 Gen2 as well as the performant 2.5 Gigabit LAN port.

The approx. 20 Euro surcharge from the H470 to the Z490 is worth it!

If you are looking for a strong motherboard for current high-end Intel processors with open or locked multiplier, the ASRock Z490 Steel Legend is an excellent platform with extensive features and high overclocking potential. It even received our OCinside.de Overclocking Dream Award 08/2020.

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Here you can order the ASRock Z490 Steel Legend motherboard at a favorable price. *Ad

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Special thanks to ASRock for their support.

* All Intel LGA 1200 motherboard tests from 01.07.2020 are based on an Intel Core i5-10500 CPU, ASRock Radeon RX 5700 Challenger D 8G OC PCIe 4.0 and/or MSI Radeon R9 280 Twin Frozr Gaming 3GB PCI Express 3.0 video card, 4x 16GB Ballistix Sport DDR4-2666 memory modules, Cooler Master Silent Pro M 600W power supply unit and the following software configuration: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro, SiSoftware Sandra, Futuremark PCMark10, 3DMark and 3DMark06 (OC software is available in the Links & Downloads section). All benchmark results only offer a comparison among themselves for a rough motherboard performance comparison.

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