Review on X570 Phantom Gaming ITX TB3 Thunderbolt by Antonio Urbina

I have been using Asus P8H61-I R2.0 for a long time, paired with Intel i5-3470 and 16GB Kingston DDR3-10600. I started with a few hard drives and a very crappy Geforce GTS450. I ended up switching to SSDs and the GTX-1060. While it still did pretty well everything I asked of it, the new generation of hardware was too much of a temptation and I decided to update it. The main reason I chose this board was the built in Thunderbolt connection and the form factor. RGB is also a nice bonus. After setting everything up, I had no problems. Installing my Ryzen 7 3700x was a breeze. There isn't much room to "wiggle" but that's a given with any mITX board. I chose the Noctua NH-L9i chromax.Black which is one of the recommended coolers for this board and it fits perfectly. Make sure you install the CPU and cooler first! I was able to load the correct XMP profiles for a pair of HyperX Predator DDR4 3200MHz, my old SATA SSDs (which are now significantly faster considering they are now connected to SATA 3 ports instead of SATA 2 ports) and Plugging in my GTX-1060 Even Windows 10 starts with no hassle, just a few clicks in Device Manager due to missing drivers and "activation" complaints. Installed updated drivers, latest BIOS, fixed windows activation issues and have been camping happily ever since. Nothing is perfect of course, I have complaints about the manual that comes with it. The one I received didn't have a board layout, so it was difficult to identify the connectors. To top it off, the case header sits next to the USB 2.0 port, which is virtually identical. The board is completely black and has no text identifying the headings. I downloaded one of the manuals from the Asrock website which included a board layout diagram. Armed with this, I remembered how much I hated connecting individual pins to the connector. This is not the fault of the board, but the fault of chance. I would like Silverstone to fit the RVZ-02 with one of those "uniform" body caps. I've read some user reviews complaining about angled SATA connectors, which I thought might give me problems, but they really don't. etc. I think it will depend on the case and cables. I still need a Thunderbolt dock, NVMe drive, better monitor, different case and some water cooling to set everything up the way I want it set up, but as it is now it works fantastic. Everything works very quickly, and I didn't even play with overclocking. This board has been certified by Intel for Thunderbolt, I doubt this will be an issue. I have used Asrock boards in the past and have been very happy with their reliability and durability. I assume this one will continue.