Asrock Z390 ITX/AC vs ITX/AC Phantom Gaming - major socket spacing difference

DoubleTap

2[H]4U
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Dec 16, 2010
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I run the Z390 Phantom board - first in an MATX case with a Noctua DH-15S, now in an Ncase M1 with a Noctua C14 (original, not S) - it's been great.

I'm trying to upgrade my 16yr olds PC and got him a 9600K, RTX2060 Super and the Asrock Z390 ITX/AC (non Phantom)

Plan was to reuse the really nice Silverstone RL08 MATX case, my DH15S, etc

Well, it turns out that the boards are a lot different and the socket is so off center in the non Phantom board that the DH15S cooler won't fit because it goes outside of the motherboard boundary and hits the top of the (inverted design) case.

I ordered the 120MM Noctua from Amazon, but WTF was Asrock thinking here?

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VRM cooling for non-phantom is anemic as well. Don't even bother try upgrading to 9900k. ASRock is making some weird design decisions.
 
VRM cooling for non-phantom is anemic as well. Don't even bother try upgrading to 9900k. ASRock is making some weird design decisions.

I almost never do an in socket upgrade because there is always a family member to pass the system down to as - is.

These are a pretty affordable ITX Z390 board - my eldest has one with an 8700K running at stock speeds just fine with a very basic cooler so this issue didn't come up...
 
Well, I ordered a Noctua UH 12A and it BARELY FITS. The heatsink is basically touching the psu shroud (inverted layout).

Also, the Asrock board won't post and there are no other matx/itx Z390 boards available on Amazon for like 7-10 days.

I'm thinking I should just RMA the 9600K and this Asrock board - order a Z490 board and a new CPU and give my current system to my kid.

Win-Win :D
 
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