The B365 chipset motherboard, I have no idea why Intel needs to release the B365 but whatever it is there are new boards that uses this chip and the ASRock B365M Phantom Gaming 4 is one and it’s certainly a beautiful board.
The first thing you’ll notice are the cut edges, it’s nice but I feel that they could do it better like say have the edges cut on areas that aren’t where the screws are suppose to be. As of now it looks unsightly and the board now lacks key screws to hold it firmly unless you don’t mind the screw holding one tiny area.
The ASRock B365M Phantom Gaming 4 is a simple board, the heatsink covers only one side of the board and the 8-phase power design is pretty much exposed. One thing I like is that it comes with 8-pin power connector instead of just 4, meaning it’s prepared to deliver power to higher end processors. The product page does mention support of 95w processor models.
Going to the other side where the DIMM slots are you’ll see that there’s the Phantom Gaming text, the text will light up upon power on. Speaking of DIMM slots, the memory speed for this board is limited up to 2666. Having my XPG D41 DDR4 3200Mhz placed on it, I was able to select only the 2nd XMP that’s at 2666.
Here’s what the board looks like when powered on, which is pretty neat for a low-end board.
On the lower corner you see 4 forward facing SATA ports, 2 other SATA ports towards the edges, it supports USB 3.0 front header and also a forward facing RGB connection header.
The ASRock B365M Phantom Gaming 4 comes with dual M.2 SSD support with one of them having the M.2 armor, the M.2 Armor slot is for 2280 sized devices while the one under the PCI-E slot is of 22110. The board even supports AMD Crossfire setup with the configuration being at the less optimal x16 / x4 speed.
Lastly here are the rear I/O connection available.
– 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
– 1 x HDMI Port
– 1 x DisplayPort 1.2
– 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
– 2 x USB 2.0 Ports (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C Port (Supports ESD Protection)
– 4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Ports (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
– HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone (Gold Audio Jacks)
One thing I’d like to commend ASRock is that they’ve provided a padded I/O panel which I think great.
Below are the screenshots from the UEFI.
The Verdict
Design flaws aside I think this is a great board for those who don’t look at CPU tweaking, retailing at just RM 440 the ASRock B365M Phantom Gaming 4 deserves a silver badge.
Click here to visit the official product page.