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Firstly, we are pleased to report that our Leetgion Hellion mouse worked perfectly in the ASRock Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard's UEFI BIOS. This is a positive point as we have experienced problems when using certain mice in the UEFI BIOS of other motherboards in the past.
The main page of the BIOS provides basic information regarding the system.
The OC Tweaker page provides plenty of settings that can be manipulated when overclocking the system.
Using the auto settings of ASRock's Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard results in a VCore of 1.280V for the ‘stock' frequency of 3.9GHz (via forced Turbo). This is much higher than the usual stock voltage of the 4770K chip and had a clear impact on temperatures. Reducing the voltage to a stock 4770K level did not affect stability.
Lots of voltage, power, frequency, and multiplier configurations can be edited.
ASRock's Z87 Extreme9/ac provides good flexibility with DRAM settings, including dividers of up to 40x.
The Advanced page is used to configure the operation of onboard devices and controllers.
Many of ASRock's convenient features, such as Internet Flash and Easy Driver Installer, are found in the Tool section of the Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard's UEFI BIOS. A system browser is used to highlight some of the components attached to the board, although it features a mistake – we didn't connect a COM device.
Only three overclocking profiles can be saved on the Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard. This simply isn't enough; at least five should be provided. Hopefully ASRock will fix this with future motherboards or BIOS updates.
The H/W Monitor page provides temperature readouts and access to fan control parameters.
Boot devices are, unsurprisingly, configured in the Boot section.
We like the layout and amount of options provided by ASRock's Z87 Extreme9/ac BIOS. The main complaint we have is its aesthetic appeal. It is very functional, but it certainly isn't as attractive as the UEFI BIOS found on the majority of competing manufacturers' motherboards.
