Asrock x570 phantom gaming itx will support 115x cooling and not am4

AMD's X570 platform is here, but right now mini ITX motherboards are still rare. Yes, some are available at retail, but stocks are in short supply, and you will often have limited options. X570 Phantom Gaming ITX / TB3 is one of the latest motherboards announced by ASRock in this segment, which comes with some radical changes to its cooling bracket.

ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX will only support heatsinks compatible with LGA 115X

The thing about ITX motherboards is that they are often more difficult to design than their larger ATX and M-ATX variants. A lot of hardware needs to be condensed into a compact form factor, and VRM designs often need radical redesigns to work well under these circumstances.

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With ASRock's X570 Phantom Gaming ITX / TB3, the company has taken a novel approach to address some of the deficiencies of the Mini-ITX factor. To save space, ASRock has abandoned AMD's AM4 mounting bracket to use Intel LGA 115X style mounting holes. This means that the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX / TB3 will not support AMD Stock cooling solutions, nor any AM4 coolers. Only CPU coolers with LGA 115X mounts are supported, and ASRock provides a limited list of compatible coolers on its website. Yes, this motherboard supports Intel's cooling designs.

Among other novelties of the X570 Phantom Gaming ITX is the support for Thunderbolt 3 Type-C, which is available through the rear I / O of the motherboard. This makes the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX one of the first Thunderbolt 3 compatible AM4 motherboards. The motherboard also supports a single PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot.

Ultimately, removing the AM4 cooling bracket is a sacrifice to have a motherboard in this format without removing too many features from AMD's X570 chipset.

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