Here is something you don't see every day. A purple-themed motherboard. Like it or not, the Asrock Z790 LiveMixer is sure to get noticed. Outside of a handful of limited edition or customized boards, we can't think of a motherboard with a design as unique as the Z790 LiveMixer. But is the Z790 LiveMixer offering more than a (messy) paint job?

When it comes to checkboxes on motherboards, they usually look pretty far down at the bottom, but on this motherboard, they are at the top. You buy it because you like the way it looks, and at $259 USD / 280 GBP / 549 AUD, this board is affordable, but not entry-level, as ASRock has several less expensive Z790 motherboards and the B760 board will be released soon, LiveMixer has to offer more than unique aesthetics.

The Z790 can be considered an evolution of the Z690. In general, it features better power delivery to support Intel's 13th generation CPUs and is more likely to support faster memory speeds. While the memory controller is located on the CPU itself, the Z790 board uses a second-generation electrical design, and tips and tricks that board manufacturers have learned over the past 18 months or so have been incorporated into the Z790 design.

Apart from that, the Z790 has an increased number of PCIe 4.0 lanes and additional support for USB 3.2 Genx2 20Gbps ports. This means that a Z790 board can support up to five M.2 drives. Motherboard manufacturers can also use the extra lanes for high-bandwidth controllers. Some boards include Thunderbolt 4, USB4, or 10G LAN.

Is the ASRock Z790 LiveMixer a product worth spending your precious funds on considering such things?

I won't dwell a bit on the Z790 LiveMixer's appearance. The board has five M.2 slots. The primary PCIe 5.0 slot is cooled by a chunky purple heatsink (damn, I couldn't write two sentences without using the word "purple"). In fact, there are not one but two primary M.2 slots, one for PCIe 5.0 and the other for PCIe 4.0. This allows one or the other to be used while utilizing the primary heatsink, and allows the main PCIe slot to run PCIe 5.0 x16 if needed. Smart.

Two of the remaining three M.2 slots are cooled by separate heat sinks (purple), while the center one is not. There are four SATA ports for legacy drives.

The board has onboard RGB next to the SATA ports. One RGB header and three ARGB headers are provided if RGB is needed to match the purple motherboard. The board has a total of seven fan/pump headers to cool the system without having to rely on an external controller.

Another interesting feature is the built-in DisplayPort header. This is rare on consumer motherboards. This is for use with ASRock's side panel 13.3" IPS monitors (opens in new tab). While this is an interesting concept, and one that some users will certainly appreciate, it seems to have required almost unnecessary engineering effort and cost that could have been turned into Wi-Fi, a notable omission on the Z790 LiveMixer.

In an era of overly powerful VRM designs, the Z790 LiveMixer is a bit more grounded. That is not to say that it suffers. Still, it has a 14+1+1 phase, 60A stage. Not everyone needs to supply 1500W to their CPU. My test CPU, a Core i9 13900K (open in new tab), worked fine. The heatsink was quite chunky and had no problem handling the 13900K, which stayed warm but not hot to the touch. In other words, no sweat with any other 12th or 13th generation CPU.

From the name LiveMixer, one would have thought the board would be optimized for audio, but alas, the board only has basic ALC897 audio. Presumably, ASRock envisions buyers of this board to utilize the Ultra USB power port, which is intended to provide a stable USB connection to devices such as an external DAC.

Rear I/O is excellent, but as mentioned, Wi-Fi is noticeably missing. e-key slot is available to add Wi-Fi, but a USB dongle would work as well, and one wonders why ASRock would bother to include it. 2.5G Realtek LAN, DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 ports.

However, the board is loaded with USB ports, with 14 on the rear panel alone. There is one 3.2 Gen 2x2 port, up to four Gen 1 ports, and up to four 2.0 ports on the internal header. This is a very large number of USB ports.

System Performance

Gaming Performance

In most cases, unless there are major issues, most boards with the same CPU and chipset will perform very similarly to each other, almost always within the margin of error.

A Z790 board with a 13900K and 32GB of DDR5 will seemingly shake the very foundation of a gaming system, regardless of manufacturer.

I have largely abandoned CPU overclocking as a point of differentiation between boards; even with a 360mm AIO, it is not difficult to run a Core i9 13900K to 100°C.

Memory overclocking is a better metric; LiveMixer was able to run a set of G.Skill Trident Z5s at DDR5-6800. The hypothetical Z790 Aqua might be enlightening in that arena, albeit at five times the price.

Overall, LiveMixer feels a bit more sophisticated than what we saw on the pre-release ASRock Z790 motherboard and BIOS. The extra months of time seem to have paid off. Admittedly, we didn't have time to dig into the details of the BIOS, but the high level stuff works well. Booting is fast, too.

The ASRock Z790 LiveMixer is one of the more unusual boards I tested. It's not just the color, but also the likes and dislikes. Chris, don't get lost. I don't like the paint drips and the graffiti. I like the purple itself.

The inclusion of an eDP port is very unusual, but seems to have been costly, as ASRock opted for a cheap audio solution and omitted Wi-Fi altogether. However, if you want a board with lots of USB ports, flexible M.2 implementations, and perhaps most importantly, a design you like, this board will serve you well.

However, competition at this price point is stiff, and will undoubtedly get tougher as better B760 boards come along to compete with LiveMixer. They are worth a look. We admit, however, that they are not purple.

Computer motherboards are primarily function over form. While I understand that there is a market for such a looks-oriented board, the omission of Wi-Fi and the cheap audio solution kind of lead me to another option. That's not to say it's a bad product; if you're going to use LAN and a sound card or DAC, by all means get the Z790 LiveMixer. It will definitely be the talk of the town for those looking into your case.