ASRock’s X570 Phantom Gaming ITX ditches AM4 cooler support in favour of 115X mounts

AMD’s X570 platform is here, but right now mini ITX motherboards remain rare. Yes, some are available at retail, but stock is scarce, and you will often have limited choice.   

The thing about ITX motherboards is that they are often more challenging to design than their larger ATX and MATX 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, especially for overclocking-ready motherboards. 

With ASRock’s X570 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB3, the company has taken a novel approach to solve some of the shortcomings of the Mini-ITX form factor. To save space, ASRock has abandoned AMD’s AM4 mounting hardware to utilise Intel LGA 115X-style mounting holes. This means that ASRock’s X570 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB3 will not support AMD’s Stock cooling solutions, or any AM4 cooler for that matter. Only CPU coolers with LGA 115X mounts are supported, with ASRock providing a limited Cooler compatible list on their website. Yes, this motherboard supports Intel’s stock cooler designs…

Another neat addition to ASRock’s X570 Phantom Gaming ITX is support for Thunderbolt 3 Type-C, which is available via the motherboard’s rear I/O. This makes The ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX one of the first consumer-grade AM4 motherboards to support Thunderbolt 3. This motherboard also supports a single PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, which is located at the rear of the motherboard.