ASRock has launched two new 700 series Mini ITX motherboards optimized to overclock Intel’s latest 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs. The two new boards are the Phantom Gaming Z790i Lightning WiFi and the B760I Lightning WiFi. Both feature robust power delivery systems, enough to support the i9-14900KS and memory overclocking support of up to 8600MHz. And the Z790i Lightning WiFi has already been used by master overclocker Splave to achieve multiple world records with Intel's Core i9-14900KS.
The Z790I Lightning WiFi is the higher-end variant of the two motherboards, featuring Intel’s flagship Z790 chipset. The board comes with all the goodies you would expect from an overclocking-tuned board, including a beefy 14+1+1 power phase design and Smart Power Stages. The board also sports a server-grade PCB design featuring an 8-layer PCB with 2-ounce copper inner layers — designed to stabilize ultra-high memory frequencies. Due to the compact nature of Mini-ITX, ASRock has turned the rear I/O cover into a VRM heatsink and connected it to the top heatsink with a heatpipe. Additionally, there’s a cooling fan mounted right behind the rear I/O to help cool the internal components further.
Aesthetically, the board comes with a very stealthy matte-black finish across all of the heatsinks, covers, and system components (save for the PCIe slot and CPU socket). There is no RGB lighting on the board itself. However, there are two addressable LED headers for users who want to use RGB accessories.
For connectivity, the board features a single PCIe Gen 5 x16 slot, two PCIe Gen 4x4 M.2 slots, and Wi-Fi 6E wireless support. The rear I/O features four USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A ports, one USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port, a single Gen 2 Type-A port, 7.1 surround sound with six audio jacks (including a mic jack), a 2.5Gb Dragon RTL8125GB ethernet port, SPIDF out, one DisplayPort 1.4, and one HDMI connector.
The B760I model is identical in most ways to the Z790I variant, the only difference between the two is the fact it lacks the Z790 chipset, preventing users from overclocking their CPU. On the flip side, memory overclocking is still available. Despite the lack of CPU overclocking support, we still rated the B760I Lightning Wi-Fi as the Best Motherboard at CES 2024 due to its competitive $200 MSRP.
Overclocker Splave used the MSI Z790I Lightning WiFi with a Core i9-14900KS and G.Skill DDR5-8600 memory to achieve several new CPU world records. In Geekbench 3,4,5 and 6, he achieved a new world record on the single-core tests. In Geekbench 4,5 and 6, he also achieved world-record results in the multi-core tests. In Cinebench 2003 and four different benchmarks of GPUPI, he also landed in first place, breaking previous world records.
