At the launch of the Z690 chipset, ASRock didn’t reveal its flagship Aqua model, but now the company has finally announced not just one, but two Z690 Aqua models, one "regular" SKU and one OC SKU. The main difference between the two is that the OC SKU only has two DIMM slots, since as we know, DDR5 is extra finicky when it comes to running at high clock speeds and two DIMM boards allow for higher DRAM clock speeds, This also means that all the major board makers have now launched a two DIMM product geared towards overclockers.
The two boards are mostly identical in terms of features otherwise, but there are some minor differences that we’ll point out later. As expected, both boards feature a large, nicely integrated liquid cooling plate for the CPU and the 20 phase 105 A SPS VRM setup. ASRock has gone for a 12 layer PCB, not something you see in a lot of consumer motherboards and it’s unclear if it’ll bring any real benefits, but as this is a premium motherboard, it’s a nice touch. The heatsink of the top-most M.2 drive is home to a small OLED display, but ASRock hasn’t listed the size on its website.
