ASRock Z490 Aqua Motherboard Review: The $1100 LC Monoblock Flagship

Conclusion: Is $1100 Too Much? Most Likely

The Z490 Aqua is ASRock's second iteration of the Aqua generation, this time for Intel. It is hard to get around that price - the daunting $1100 MSRP is a little hard to stomach unless you are a user/OEM with a purpose. But the Z490 Aqua, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful and elegantly styled motherboards I've ever seen.

The multiple aluminum panels cover at least 75% of the boards PCB, with the big custom monoblock designed to keep both the CPU and power delivery cool. That's the aim of the game here for ASRock: cool 😎. With Intel's Comet Lake desktop processors running at high temperatures, the Aqua is an expensive, albeit a solid offering for users that play with custom water coolers and enthusiasts with deep pockets.

Some of the Aqua's biggest features include an Intel Titan Ridge Thunderbolt 3 controller, which adds two Type-C and two mini DisplayPort inputs on the rear panel, with USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps support as well. This is in addition to the single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, three USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports. The boards networking array is also solid with an Aquantia AQC107 10 GbE and Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 GbE Ethernet controller pairing and Intel's AX201 Wi-Fi 6 CNVI, which also includes support for BT 5.1 devices. The board's four memory slots can accommodate up to 128 GB. Although official memory support is limited to DDR4-4700, which is lower than some of the competitor's models, it doesn't mean overclockers won't be able to push higher. Powering the audio is a premium Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec, with an assist going to an ESS SABRE9218 DAC which boosts the front panel header's performance.

Focusing on expansion support, the Aqua has three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which can operate at x16, x8/x8, and x8/x8/+x4. That top slot is also rated for PCIe 4.0, for when PCIe 4.0-enabled processors are launched for this platform. The Aqua has three PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots, and a secret fourth they haven't listed in the specification sheet - this one says 'RKL_M2', implying extra storage capabilities for when Rocket Lake is announced. 

Other storage capability includes eight SATA ports, with six of these allowing for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays, while an ASMedia ASM1061 SATA controller controls the other two.

The Aqua is decked out in its aluminum armor, which as a very handly OLED screen which is built into the rear panel cover. This allows users to diagnose system issues, and keep track of certain elements such as fan speed, voltages, and even system and POST status. ASRock also doesn't go overkill with the integrated RGB and has three areas for users to customize, either in the firmware or with the ASRock Polychrome RGB software. Users can add even more RGB via two RGB LED, and two addressable RGB headers, for that extra bit of rainbow-inspired pizzazz.

Users looking to utilize the Aqua will need a custom water cooling loop, and our Corsair HydroX setup makes the Aqua as competitive as any other board in testing. The biggest win comes in DPC latency, with the lowest achieved latency of any Z490 model on test, with competitive performance in our computational and gaming benchmarks. Perhaps the cherry on the cake is in the power delivery thermal performance, whereas expected, the Aqua performs much better than other boards on test, with fantastic thermal dissipation properties due to the large and heavy monoblock.

ASRock includes a custom Aqua branded fittings pack (G1/4 to 14mm OD tubing).

In our overclocking tests, we didn't manage to push our Intel Core i7-10700K beyond stable clock speeds of an all-core 5.2 GHz, but this seems to be a silicon limitation and not a thermal one. In fact, with the monoblock and the Corsair HydroX loop with a 360 mm radiator, and this was the only board on which we haven't experienced any thermal throttling with the Aqua, while we have throttling at 5.2 GHz on every other board tested with the NZXT Z73 360 mm AIO cooler. When users change the firmware's CPU VCore, it automatically sets the LLC profile to level 1, which shows in our testing with tight VDroop control from the power delivery.

Big Boards for Big Wallets

While it is unlikely users will use a motherboard such as the Aqua with anything other than Intel's Core i9-10900K or Core i9-10850K, the initial outlay for both without any extra, including water cooling gear, is going to be at least $1800. You may ask what the big deal is, but the Z490 Aqua is a limited edition model with just 999 available to the general public. While adding storage, a graphics card, and other componentry such as PSU and chassis, it's not going to be a cheap system, but the Aqua is what it is, a premium motherboard which is stacked with features.

It should be noted that the ASRock Z490 Aqua is the flagship in its Z490 product stack and actually feels premium, which in contrast to the ASRock X570 Aqua, which is very similar to its own X570 Creator at nearly half the price. You won't find many boards with all the bells and whistles in the Z490 product stack with a monoblock. However, the GIGABYTE Z490 Aorus Xtreme WaterForce is another formidable option, although at a slightly more expensive price point with its $1299 price tag.

Users may ask if it is worth the hassle - for $1800 on a CPU and a motherboard, then a good X570 paired with the 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X is still a lot cheaper than this, and users will get double the cores. Ultimately this board seems to be focused for ASRock's partners rather than anything else - building pimped out systems to show off design ideas, hardware, and showcase at events (even if events aren't going on right now). For the bottomless pocket users too, OEMs are the places that will build these systems for retail. Casual builders need not bother looking at this price segment, if only gawp in wonder.

Nonetheless, the ASRock Z490 Aqua is a fine example of ASRock's engineering and desire to raise other vendors' stakes to compete within this small market segment. It's one of those models that either win you over at first sight, or not, but the added Aqua branded water cooling fittings in the accessories is a nice touch, which should have been present X570 Aqua's packaging. ASRock is known for trying some of the more esoteric ideas in motherboards, and iterating on the Aqua design is certainly an interesting route to go down.