ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer Motherboard Review

Automatic CPU Overclocking:

ASRock equips the Z87 Killer with a number of pre-configured CPU speed boost profiles. We aimed for stability with the 4.6GHz profile, but we were soon met by a BSOD after launching Windows.

Knowing our chip's realistic limit of around 4.5GHz, ASRock's 4.4GHz profile gave us perfect stability with controllable temperature levels.

Given that the profiles do little more than increase CPU voltages and the multiplier, our 2133MHz memory stayed operational at its rated frequency, not a reduced speed.

The automatic overclock validation can be found here. CPU-Z validator managed to destroy the link when we uploaded our manual overclocking result shortly after.

Manual CPU Overclocking:

To test the ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer motherboard’s CPU overclocking potential, we first increased the CPU VCore to 1.325V, Cache voltage to 1.275V, and CPU Input Voltage to 1.900V. We also applied the High BCLK Mode for Filter PLL frequency and enabled PLL overvoltage.

To maintain a stable overclock with voltage levels as close as possible to what we set, the CPU VCore offset had to be set to its minimum increment (+0.001V). Without applying this setting, VCore levels would spiral off past the danger region of 1.40V with temperatures following in voltage's footsteps towards equally worrying levels.

This is an irritating issue that will frustrate many users who are looking to boost their processor's frequency. When a user selects the ‘override' voltage option, they shouldn't be forced to tweak other settings in order to tame voltage levels. That defies the point of giving users the override option in the first place.

Load-line calibration remained disabled as the minor VCore offset ensured that a constant voltage fed the processor, irrelevant of loading conditions.

In a Windows environment, ASRock's Z87 Killer fed our 4770K with 2mV more than what we applied. This is a good level of accuracy and resulted in complete stability as well as tolerable temperatures with our Corsair H100i CPU cooler.

We pushed for 4.6GHz but could not achieve stability upon running Prime95. This mirrors the results that our 4770K showed on other Z87 motherboard that we have tested.

Our 4.5GHz validation can be viewed here.

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