ASRock Z690 PG Velocita Motherboard Review

TweakTown's Rating: 89%

The Bottom Line

PG Velocita is a gamers platform, built on the customization gained with the Killer Suite on top of connectivity from Z690.

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

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ASRock is the last of the big four vendors to send over an Intel Z690 platform for us to test and review. The PG Velocita is an upper mid-range platform sitting under the Taichi, but above the Extreme, Steel Legend, and Pro series. It also happens to be one of the first Z690 boards to have the Intel Killer Suite that includes the AX1675 for WiFi6e and E3100G 2.5Gbe LAN.

Outside of those, specifications give us the LGA1700 socket, Z690 chipset, and DDR5 memory support. Max capacity is 128GB with speeds from 4800-6400MHz supported alongside XMP 3.0.

Internal connectivity includes three PCIe x16 slots; the top two are Gen5 and operate in x16 or x8 x8 mode. The bottom slot pulls from the chipset at PCIe 3.0. Storage includes four m.2 slots; one and three support PCIe Gen4 with slot 2 supporting Gen3. Slot 4 supports Gen5 128 GB/s mode. Legacy connectivity is available via six SATA3 connections.

Networking is the Killer suite as mentioned above, AX1675 for WiFi6e and E3100G for 2.5Gbe. ASRock has included a second LAN as well running on the i219v from Intel.

Pricing

The Z690 PG Velocita carries an MSRP of $469.99 with a three-year warranty.

Packaging, Accessories, and Overview

Packaging and Accessories

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The packaging features a Phantom Gaming logo. Down below, we have socket and chipset support.

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The rear of the packaging includes features to the right and specs right below, including a rear I/O layout.

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Accessories include Wi-Fi antenna, SATA cables, and ASRock GPU support bracket.

Z690 PG Velocita Overview

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The PG Velocita is a dark board in the colorway; black, gunmetal and red panels cover most of the board. We have three PCIe x16 slots; two Gen5 are shielded, heat piped VRM sinks, and a large heat sink for the main NVMe slot. Memory and VRM are contained with RGB covers, and the power and reset buttons are tucked to the far right.

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The back of the board is mostly clean, few ICs near the rear I/O.

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Rear I/O includes a full host of USB 3.2; eight ports counted for, we also have 2.5Gbe, 1Gbe, and HDMI/DP connections for display output.

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Front panel audio starts our journey around this platform. We then run into a Thunderbolt header, a few fan connections, and USB 2.0 header.

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The Debug LED and the CMOS Clear button are on the edge of the board.

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Six SATA ports sit next to the USB 3.2 Gen 1 header, which is followed by a fan header.

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Near the top of the board, we run into the Gen2x2 header and a second Gen1 1 header. 24Pin power pushes us into the power and reset buttons.

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Across the top, RGB and fan connections.

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Dual eight pin power wraps this up.

UEFI, Software and Test System

UEFI

EFI includes EZ Mode with information about installed memory and CPU at the top. You can enable XMP and adjust storage and cooling settings from this menu too.

Advanced menus include a main menu for information about installed hardware, OC Tweaker to change and configure CPU and Memory settings, and the advanced menu itself for low-level tasks like storage configuration and power settings for the CPU. The tool menu offers onboard support for RGB, RAID setup, and Secure Erase of both SATA and NVMe drives.

Motherboard Software

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Phantom Gaming Tuning contains all the "OC Tweaker" functionality of the board in an easy-to-use Windows application. This includes presets for CPU and memory overclocking.

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Additionally, you can manually tune in Windows.

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Last, we have fan tuning for all onboard headers.

Motherboard Testing Supporters

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Sabrent supports our storage testing with the Rocket 4 Plus.

TweakTown Intel Motherboard Test System

• CPU: Intel Core i9 12900K
• RAM: Crucial DDR5 5200MHz 32GB CL38 (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: ASUS Thor 1200W (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 (buy from Amazon)

Cinebench R23 and AIDA64

Cinebench R23

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been heavily relied upon by both Intel and AMD to showcase their newest platforms during unveils. The benchmark has two tests, a single-core workload that will utilize one thread or 1T. There is also a multi-threaded test that uses all threads or nT of a tested CPU.

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With our charts filling up, the PG Velocita was one of the better platforms in R23 single core. Scoring 2004 points it sits above the average of 1982 by 22 points.

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Multi-thread gave us 27653, on par for average with Z690.

AIDA64

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AES offers are the highest performance yet, next to the Unify at 207829.

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SHA3 tapped in at 6038.

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Memory throughput pushed 81K read, 73K write, and 72K copy.

PCMark10, 3DMark and CrossMark Benchmarks

PCMark 10

PCMark is a benchmark from UL and tests various workload types to represent typical workloads for a PC. Everything from video conferencing, image import, and editing, along with 3D rendering, are tested.

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The overall score in PCMark came in at 6329, near average for the 600 series boards we have tested.

CrossMark

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CrossMark pushed in at 2341, slightly above the average of 2330.

3DMark

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CPU Profile, too, had the PG Velocita on par with the other boards tested, 16 threads at 10538, with the average being 10470.

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Timespy showed above-average performance one more time. Scoring 933 compared to the average of 928.

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Firestrike puts the Velocita towards the top at 2736.

Storage Benchmarks and Final Thoughts

3DMark SSD Gaming Test

UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. We consider it to be superior to testing against games themselves, because as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs on the actual game itself. This test is in fact the same as running the actual game, just without the inconsistencies inherent to application testing.

In short, we believe that this is the world's best way to test an SSDs gaming prowess and accurately compare it against competing SSDs. The 3DMark SSD Gaming Test measures and scores the following:

• Loading Battlefield V from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Call of Duty Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Overwatch from launch to the main menu.
• Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch.
• Installing The Outer Worlds from the Epic Games Launcher.
• Saving game progress in The Outer Worlds.
• Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.

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With our Rocket Pus, the PG Velocita gave us 511 MB/s bandwidth, the second-highest of the boards we have tested to this point.

Final Thoughts

The PG Velocita was a relatively surprising board in testing; for some reason, in my mind, I had this board pegged as a lower-end platform competing against the likes of the AORUS Pro or Strix Gaming-F. Instead, the build quality is a step up. The board uses a 16+1-phase design with Smart Power Stages that are more efficient and deliver ample current for 12th Gen CPUs. The cooling design, too, is quite efficient. A single heat pipe pulls heat evenly between the two banks of VRMs, while the chipset sink integrates into the M.2 storage slots.

There were several cases where this board outperformed the running average of Z690 boards we have tested, most notably single-core performance in R23 and 3DMark; that said, it was consistently a top 3 platform across all scenarios tested.

Achieving a solid balance of features vs. cost, ASRock is attempting to market the PG Velocita as a tier two platform in their own stack of 600 series motherboards. There is no doubt a small premium attached to the Killer Suite vs. bare metal AX210 and i225 found on most Z690 platforms, but how much is unknown. What we do know is the market is tight and competing products in the same price range of the PG Velocita, like the AORUS Master are offering 10Gbe, Rear Panel Gen2x2, and ESS Sabre audio to grab potential consumers on the value aspect alone.

That said, the PG Velocita is a board geared towards gamers, and as such for those that take advantage of Killer Suite to customize their own experience may find this solution a better pick overall.