ASRock Z87 OC Formula Motherboard Review

1. Introduction2. ASRock Z87 OC Formula: Packaging and Bundle3. ASRock Z87 OC Formula: Board Layout and Features4. ASRock Z87 OC Formula: BIOS5. ASRock Z87 OC Formula: Overclocking6. Testing Methodology7. System: PCMark 88. System: 3DMark 119. System: 3DMark10. System: Unigine Heaven Benchmark11. Processor: SiSoft Sandra12. Processor: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit13. Processor: Super Pi14. Processor: MKV HD Performance15. Processor: Media Encoding - MediaEspresso16. Processor: Media Encoding - HandBrake17. Motherboard: SATA Performance18. Motherboard: USB 3.0 Performance19. Gaming: Battlefield 320. Gaming: Sleeping Dogs21. Gaming: Metro 203322. Technical: Power Consumption23. Closing Thoughts24. View All Pages

Built for hardened overclockers, does ASRock's Z87 OC Formula have what it takes to compete with the likes of MSI's Z87 XPower and Asus' Maximus VI Extreme?

Utilising an E-ATX form factor and packed with overclocking-geared enhancements, ASRock's Z87 OC Formula represents the company's motherboard designed specifically for hardened tweakers and enthused benchmarkers. With a price tag that is over £50 less than some competing brands' flagship products, the Z87 OC Formula could be a hit with overclockers to whom money is harder to come by.

Featuring an actively-cooled CPU power delivery system, the capacity for four graphics cards, and an onboard monitoring kit, is ASRock's set of overclocker-orientated features enough for the Z87 OC Formula to shine amongst the competition?

Features:

• OC Formula Power Kit
• OC Formula Connector Kit
• OC Formula Cooling Kit
• OC Formula Monitor Kit
• A-Style : Home Cloud, Conformal Coating, Purity Sound™, HDMI-In
• Supports Nick Shih's OC Profile, Formula Drive, FAN-Tastic Tuning
• Supports Fine-Tuning V-Controller, Interactive UEFI, Timing Configurator, USB Key
• Supports Rapid OC, PCIe ON/OFF, V-Probe
• Free Bundle : 1 x Front USB 3.0 Panel with 2.5″ HDD/SSD Rack, 10 x OC Stands

ASRock's Z87 OC Formula is shipped in black and silver packaging that features an image showing resemblances between the motherboard and a Lamborghini sports car.

Two usage manuals, an ASRock Home Cloud guide, a driver disk, and an ASRock OC Formula sticker form the supplied documentation.

ASRock groups the physical accessories into a high-quality draw-string bag that features OC Formula branding.

A solid bundle is supplied with the OC Formula. Ten OC stands are a unique addition that we saw on ASRock's Z77 version of the motherboard. They allow an overclocker to stand the board on a flat surface, rather than rely on a test bench on the packaging.

Gelid's GC-Extreme thermal compound is another worthwhile addition to the bundle.

A 5.25″ bay adapter can be used to provide another two USB 3.0 ports to the front of a chassis. A 2.5″ drive can also be installed in the bay.

Alternatively, the internal USB 3.0 connection can be used to provide an extra two ports via a PCI slot adapter.

The bundle consists of:

• 10x latching SATA cables.
• 2 molex to SAT power adapters.
• 1x flexible SLI bridge.
• 1x tube of Gelid Solutions GC-Extreme thermal paste.
• 10x OC stands.
• 1 x Front USB 3.0 Panel with 2.5″ HDD/SSD Rack
• 4 x HDD Screws (for use with USB 3.0 Panel)
• 6 x Chassis Screws (for use with USB 3.0 Panel)
• 1 x Rear USB 3.0 Bracket
• 1x IO shield.

Featuring the bright yellow and dark black colour scheme that made ASRock's OC Formula series of motherboards well-known on the Z77 platform, the Z87 version is an undoubtedly eye-catching product. Although we wouldn't say that the design is as attractive as that of MSI's Z87 XPower, or Asus' Maximus VI Extreme, the OC Formula's appearance is still very likeable.

Conforming to the Extended-ATX form factor, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula is designed for use on test benches (or the bundled OC stands) or large cases that can accommodate the board's wider dimensions, such as our NZXT Phantom 630.

Four alternating black and yellow, single-latch DIMM slots can house up to 32GB of DDR3 memory operating at frequencies of over 3000MHz. We will be putting the high-speed memory support claim to the test with a 3000MHz kit from Avexir.

An addition that we have seen become increasingly popular amongst many of ASRock's Z87 motherboards, the Z87 OC Formula is equipped with an internally-mounted USB port. Going one further than many of its alternative products, ASRock gives the port USB 3.0 functionality, rather than the slower, previous-generation interface that is found on many other motherboards.

A pair of outwards-facing internal USB 3.0 headers is found in the usual position that gives easy access for front panel chassis cables. We would typically criticise a board manufacturer for giving both headers the outwards-facing orientation, but given the likelihood that the Z87 OC Formula will be used on test bench, not a chassis, this isn't nearly as big of a complaint.

Neighbouring the USB 3.0 headers are three switches that operate the PCI-E x16 lane operation, LN2 mode, and slow boot. The lane switch is convenient for extreme cooling users as they can easily disable the function of a problematic graphics card rather than tear apart the entire cooling loop. LN2 and slow boot modes are designed specifically for high-frequency overclocking with extreme cooling.

Towards the top-right corner of the Z87 OC Formula, users will find the onboard overclocking tools. The system consists of plus, minus, and menu buttons, as well as two sets of voltage reading points (called V-Probe) and the CHiL controller. Overclocking frequency is adjusted by the plus and minus buttons, while the ‘Menu' version allows users to change what is displayed on the status OLED.

ASRock's Z87 OC Formula motherboard features an actively-cooled, hybrid VRM heatsink that is designed for air- or water-cooling systems. Called Twin-Power Cooling, the heatsink uses a small 3-pin fan to blow air over the structure. I usually frown upon use of a VRM heatsink fan when it isn't entirely necessary as they tend to be very loud. Thankfully, ASRock's implementation is acceptably quiet when operating in the standard speed mode; we couldn't hear it above the Corsair H100i's fans which were spinning at a low RPM.

At the time of writing, we are waiting for confirmation from ASRock as to the exact diameter of the watercooling barbs. A quick measurement indicates that the pipes' internal diameters are one-quarter inch (0.25″ or 1/4″), but we will update this article with verification from ASRock before confirming the compatibility.

Twelve power phases feed an LGA 1150 CPU installed in the Z87 OC Formula motherboard. ASRock's OC Formula power kit consists of Dual-stack MOSFETs, multiple filter caps (MFC), premium alloy chokes, and a digital controller. The CPU socket itself features 15 micron gold fingers.

Both of the Z87 OC Formula's Hi-Density 8-pin CPU power connectors are found in their typical location near the VRM heatsink. Two CPU fan headers, one 4-pin and one 3-pin, are found above the DIMM slots and upper edge of the MOSFET heatsink.

Four PCI-E x16-length slots give quad-VGA capabilities to the Z87 OC Formula. Due to the lack of a PLX PEX8747 (or equivalent) PCI-E 3.0 lane switch, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula is only able to support three cards at Gen 3 speeds. When a three-way graphics configuration is installed, sixteen PCI-E Gen 3 lanes from the processor will be split as x8/x4/x4.

Due to the fact that a maximum of two slots can operate at x8 bandwidth, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula only officially supports 2-way (two cards) or quad-SLI (two dual-GPU cards). The flexibility given by AMD's CrossFire support allows the board to support all configurations up to 4-way.

The bottom x16-length slot is limited to PCI-E 2.0 x4 bandwidth, hence 4-way CrossFire isn't really an unhampered possibility. Number crunching users, on the other hand, will very much appreciate the fourth x16-length slot. The lanes are shared out by a PLX PEX8605 switch, hence using the slot will force one of the internal USB 3.0 headers to operate at USB 2.0 bandwidth.

Two PCI-E x1 slots are also present on the Z87 OC Formula, as well as a mini PCI-E port that houses a WiFi card on the /AC variant. The lowest PCI-E x1 slot shares its bandwidth with the mini PCI-E connection.

Front panel connections are found in their usual locations. A downwards-facing molex connector is used to provide power to multi-VGA configurations and, due to its orientation, shouldn't affect cable management in a chassis environment.

A low-profile heatsink is used to cool the Z87 chipset. Power and reset buttons are positioned close to the pair of BIOS chips.

One of the Z87 OC Formula's key features is its status OLED. The screen can be used to display POST and boot information, as well as temperatures and voltages. Pressing the onboard ‘Menu' button located near the DIMM slots changes the information displayed on the screen.

The ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard features ten SATA 6Gb/s ports in a right-angled orientation. Six ports on the right operate from the Z87 chipset, while the four on the left operate from ASMedia ASM1061 controllers.

A small marking of some sort would have been useful in distinguishing between the native and add-on ports.

Beneath the ASRock Purity Sound casing is a Realtek ALC1150 audio chip. The isolated circuit also combines a pair of operational amplifiers – Texas Instruments’ NE5532 – which feature a 115 dB signal-to-noise ratio, making the Z87 OC Formula motherboard’s audio configuration excellent for use with high-quality analogue equipment.

The system is superior to that of Asus' Maximus VI Extreme, and similar to what MSI equips its Z87 XPower with.

Four of the rear USB 3.0 ports operate from the Z87 chipset, while the other quartet operates from Etron's EJ188H. Gigabit Ethernet is provided by an Intel I217V controller.

An HDMI input allows users to connect their games console or other devices to the ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard, which then outputs the signal to a single monitor. This eliminates the requirement of constant input switching for users whose monitor has a single HDMI port. The computer doesn't have to be powered on for the external HDMI device to function either; the Z87 OC Formula will act as a HDMI pass-through device.

Motherboard rear ports:

• – 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
• – 1 x HDMI-Out Port
• – 1 x HDMI-In Port
• – 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
• – 2 x USB 2.0 Ports
• – 4 x USB 3.0 Ports (Intel Z87)
• – 4 x USB 3.0 Ports (Etron EJ188H)
• – 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
• – 1 x Clear CMOS Button
• – HD Audio Jack: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone

ASRock does an excellent job in evenly distributing the eight fan headers around the Z87 OC Formula motherboard. Being extremely picky, I would have preferred the fan header above the SATA ports to be positioned further up the motherboard (making it easier to use with our Corsair H100), although I'm sure that an equal number of people will prefer its current location.

The MOSFET heatsink's fan is given its own 3-pin header that can be controlled from the BIOS thanks to the Nuvoton NCT6776D controller.

ASRock protects its Z87 OC Formula motherboard with the company's Conformal Coating. The coating protects the motherboard from being damaged by conductive liquids, dust, extreme temperatures, and corrosion.

Although very difficult to picture, the coating is more prominent in some areas of the motherboard than others. ASRock also covers many of the board's chips with the coating to prevent conductive liquids causing damage via that route.

I think that the Conformal Coating is a very good motherboard feature and one that has great potential amongst the extreme cooling crowd.

Firstly, we are pleased to report that our Leetgion Hellion mouse worked to its usual standard in the ASRock Z87 OC Formula 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' section displays current system information and allows a user to choose the page that is displayed upon entry to the BIOS.

Standard multiplier-increasing modes that overclock processor frequency are found on the Z87 OC Formula. Those simplistic settings are accompanied by more advanced profiles that are specifically customised by professional overclocker Nick Shih.

ASRock gives experienced overclockers plenty of flexibility in its OC Tweaker section of the Z87 OC Formula's UEFI BIOS. Specific voltage and power control settings are very easy to access and manipulate.

Slots to save up to ten overclocking profiles are present in the Z87 OC Formula's UEFI BIOS. This is a great move by ASRock as we have continuously criticised the company's insistence on only giving users three profile spaces. Hopefully ASRock will continue to provide an appropriate number of overclocking profile slots on all of its future motherboards.

ASRock's UEFI BIOS also includes heavily-tweaked profiles that permit for memory overclocking. The maximum memory multiplier is 30x, which can be used to obtain frequencies as high as 4000MHz with a 100MHz base clock and 100:133 BCLK:DRAM ratio.

Specific settings which include PCI-E link speeds can be accessed via the Advanced section.

ASRock's usual set of UEFI BIOS tools is found in the Z87 OC Formula's interface. The system browser can be used to display the currently connected hardware and devices, although it isn't without its flaws; we didn't connect anything to the COM header.

A very long list of voltages, fan speeds, and component temperatures is displayed in the HW Monitor section. The large number of temperature readings may assist high-voltage overclocking efforts.

Fan speed profiles and settings can be tweaked towards the bottom of the HW Monitor page. The typical ‘standard', ‘silent', and ‘turbo' modes can be applied, as well as a custom profile that provides a good degree of flexibility in regards to the CPU temperature against fan speed graph.

Even more so than many of ASRock's previous implementations, the Z87 OC Formula's BIOS features plenty of user-adjustable parameters and settings. The overclocker-intended foundation of the board is clear. While the Z87 OC Formula motherboard's BIOS gives users access to a large number of adjustable settings, it isn't quite as in-depth as the system that Asus gives its Maximus VI Extreme motherboard.

As has been the case with many of ASRock's previous UEFI implementations, the interface lacks attractiveness, although this is much less of a problem to a target audience consisting of serious overclockers who value function over form.

Automatic CPU Overclocking:

Using ASRock's built-in turbo profiles, we had no problems taking our 4770K chip straight to 4.4GHz. ASRock's profile sets a CPU VCore of 1.300V and a CPU Cache setting of 39x at 1.270V. DRAM settings aren't adjusted which is very good as many motherboards will decrease the modules' frequency.

The automatic overclock validation at 4.4GHz can be found here.

We were actually able to boot into Windows using the 4.6GHz automatic overclocking profile and hold stability for a good amount of time – better than any other motherboard that we have tested could achieve. For 4.6GHz, the profile uses a 1.320V VCore and 1.300V CPU Cache voltage with 39x multiplier.

Manual CPU Overclocking:

To test the ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard’s CPU overclocking potential, we first increased the CPU VCore to 1.350V, Cache voltage to 1.300V, and CPU Input Voltage to 1.900V.

Load-line calibration was set at level 1 (to maintain a constant voltage), the CPU Cache multiplier was 39x, and power limits were set to 1000.

We had no problems pushing directly to our 4770K chip's known-stable limit of 4.5GHz. The ASRock Z87 OC Formula handled the overclock without any issues and with perfect stability.

Our 4.5GHz frequency validation can be viewed here.

To a certain amount of surprise from myself, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula was able to push our chip to 4.6GHz (as other Z87 motherboards have done) and keep it stable in Windows for a considerable amount of time. We weren't able to obtain perfect stability using our settings, but the Z87 OC Formula kept the chip operating at 4.6GHz for a substantially greater amount of time than any other Z87 motherboard I have tested with this processor.

We have no doubt that the ASRock Z87 OC Formula has the ability to take a potent chip to great overclocks, with the correct cooling. As of now, it is the best overclocking motherboard that we have tested due to the fact that it held our chip stable at 4.6GHz for the longest period of time, by a wide margin.

High-speed Memory Compatibility:

While a system’s maximum memory frequency may be heavily swayed by the CPU’s individual memory controller, the motherboard’s performance can also help to obtain higher speeds, especially when XMP settings are taken into account.

We switched to a 3000MHz set of Avexir Core Extreme Series memory to test the ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard’s support for high DRAM frequencies. These sticks feature an XMP profile for 3000MHz and are a great challenge for any Z87 motherboard to support.

After installing Avexir's 3000MHz memory modules, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard was able to POST and boot without issues. The system was perfectly stable with 3000Mhz memory and the slight base clock increase.

Our validation with the 3000MHz Avexir Core Extreme Series memory running at its XMP settings can be viewed here.

Memory Overclocking:

We wanted to see how potent the Z87 OC Formula motherboard was as a memory overclocker, so we applied some BIOS tweaks and checked how far we could push the 3000MHz kit. From our individual review of the Avexir Core Extreme Series 3000MHz memory kit, we know that the sticks are capable of booting at 3240MHz.

The tweaks applied included a 1.7015V DRAM voltage, various CPU voltage increases and setting changes for BCLK overclocking stability, and loosened memory timings at 14-15-15-40-2T.

Topping out at 3288MHz DRAM frequency with a 137MHz BCLK, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula was able to deliver the strongest memory overclocking performance of any board that have tested with this RAM kit. With Asus' Maximus VI Extreme, we couldn't get past 3240MHz DRAM frequency.

We aren't going to claim that this memory overclock was benchmark stable (a brief run of Super Pi gave a failed test), but it didn't give us a BSOD for our few minutes of screenshot gathering.

The validation with the ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard overclocking Avexir Core Extreme Series memory to 3288MHz can be found here.

To test the ASRock Z87 OC Formula, we paired it with an Intel Core i7 4770K processor and 8GB of 2133MHz memory from Patriot. We will be outlining the ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard's performance with the Core i7 4770K CPU at its stock frequency of 3.5GHz and when overclocked to 4.5GHz.

We will be comparing the ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard's performance to that of five other Z87 motherboards. All motherboards are partnered with identical hardware and software, so the results are directly comparable.

By default, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard forces the 4770K to a constant 3.9GHz. This will be displayed as the ‘stock’ setting. The board used a high CPU VCore of 1.280V at stock which had a clear impact on temperatures.

Motherboard Test System:

• Processor: Intel Core i7 4770K 3.50GHz.
• Memory: 8GB Patriot Viper Xtreme Division 2 2133MHz.
• Graphics Card: nVidia GTX 760 2GB.
• System Drive: 500GB Samsung 840 Series SSD.
• CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i.
• Case: NZXT Phantom 630.
• Power Supply: Seasonic Platinum 1000W.
• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

Compared Z87 Motherboard(s):

• ASRock Z87 OC Formula (BIOS 1.60 – newest).
  
• ASRock Z87 Extreme9/ac (BIOS v1.70).
• Asus Maximus VI Extreme (BIOS 0711).
• Asus Maximus VI Hero (BIOS 0711).
• Gigabyte Z87-D3HP (BIOS F4).
• MSI Z87 XPower (BIOS v1.0).

Settings:

• ASRock Z87 OC Formula BIOS v1.60.
• GeForce 320.49 VGA drivers.
• Intel 9.4.0.1017 chipset drivers.

Software Suite:

• 3DMark
• 3DMark 11
• PCMark 8
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0
• SiSoft Sandra 2013 SP4
• Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
• Super Pi
• VLC Media Player 2.0.7
• CyberLink Media Espresso 6.7
• HandBrake 0.9.9
• ATTO
• Battlefield 3
• Metro 2033
• Sleeping Dogs

PCMark 8 is the latest version in the popular series of PC benchmarking tools. Improving on previous releases, PCMark 8 includes battery life measurement tools and new tests using popular applications from Adobe and Microsoft. Whether you are looking for long battery life, or maximum power, PCMark 8 helps you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for your needs.

ASRock's Z87 OC Formula makes a strong start in PCMark8. It manages to take top position by beating out Asus' previous leader, the Maximus VI Hero.

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

A mediocre physics result put the stock-clocked Z87 OC Formula in the middle of the pack.

3DMark is Futuremark's latest benchmark. It can be used to benchmark and compare everything from mobile devices, such as smart phones, tablets and laptops, to high-end gaming systems. The benchmark is available for Windows, Windows RT Android and iOS.

With 3 separate tests, each of which is intended to be used alongside a specific classification of hardware, 3DMark is a very versatile benchmark. Ice Storm is intended to be used with mobile devices, Cloud Gate is good for use with laptops and home PCs, and Fire Strike can be used to push the performance of gaming PCs.

We used the ‘Fire Strike' benchmark which is designed to be used on gaming PCs. We opted for the Normal setting, NOT the Extreme mode.

As was the case with PCMark8, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula is able to steal top place from Asus' Maximus VI Hero. A strong graphics score can be thanked for the highest stock speed result.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

If it's a gaming system you're after, the Unigine Heaven benchmark gives an indication that the Z87 OC Formula could be a strong contender.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

A solid processor arithmetic score gives the reference-speed Z87 OC Formula second place behind Asus' Maximus VI Hero.

Memory bandwidth isn't a strength for the ASRock Z87 OC Formula. The overclocked configuration is sat in joint-last position, while the stock-clocked setup only manages fourth place at the 4770K's reference frequency. It's clear that Asus has a distinct memory bandwidth advantage with its ROG boards.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all – it’s completely free.

A strong Cinebench performance puts the Z87 OC Formula in first place amongst the stock speed configurations.

Super Pi is used by a huge audience, particularly to check stability when overclocking processors. If a system is able to calculate PI to the 2 millionth place after the decimal without mistake, it is considered to be stable in regards to RAM and CPU.

We used Super Pi's '32M' benchmark setting.

ASRock's Z87 OC Formula is one second off last place with its Super Pi 32M run. This result could be related to the lower memory bandwidth that the Z87 OC Formula showed, in comparison to some of its competitors.

The Matroska Media container is a very popular, open standard multimedia container which is usually found as .MKV files. It is a very popular format in enthusiast circles and can be played directly in VLC or Windows Media Player with suitable codecs installed.

We played our 1080P MKV rip of The Dark Knight using the latest version of VLC Media Player.

1080P MKV playback is a simple task for the Z87 OC Formula. ASRock's overclocking-geared motherboard takes second place amongst stock competitors by virtue of alphabetical order.

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.

Hardware acceleration is disabled to provide an accurate interpretation of the CPU performance.

Another strong performance is shown by the Z87 OC Formula, this time when converting video files using CyberLink's MediaEspresso.

HandBrake is a fantastic free program that can be used to convert video files to many common formats for portable devices. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

We used the latest V 0.9.9 version.

For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to MP4 format, using HandBrake's ‘Normal' profile, for playback on High-Resolution devices. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.

Video conversion clearly works very well on the Z87 OC Formula. The board manages to show another strong performance, taking top position in the process.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously.

Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

Our testing uses a Kingston HyperX 3K SSD.

Given that ASRock equips the Z87 OC Formula with a pair of ASMedia ASM1061 controllers, we know exactly what to expect from the SATA performance results.

The ASRock motherboard's native Z87 SATA 6Gb/s ports offer unrestricted performance for fast SSDs, while the ~400MB/s-capable ASMedia connections should be reserved for slower mechanical storage and optical drives.

With its emergence as the new standard for high-speed portable devices, USB 3.0 performance on a modern motherboard needs to be good to ensure that data transferral bottlenecks aren't created.

We tested USB 3.0 performance using an ADATA SP300 SSD connected to an Icy Box IB-223StU3 USB 3.0 enclosure (ASMedia ASM1051 controller). ATTO was the benchmark used.

Using ASRock's UASP-activating XFast USB software, the Z87 OC Formula offers average throughput that is identical to that of Asus' Maximus VI Hero.

According to EA, Battlefield 3 garnered 3 million pre-orders by the day of its release. It is unknown at present whether these figures are worldwide or just for the US. The pre-order total makes it “the biggest first-person shooter launch in EA history”, according to the publisher. The engine is beautiful on the PC and very demanding of the partnering hardware.

We used the game's demanding ‘Ultra' setting and a 1920 x 1080 resolution to push today's gaming hardware.

Battlefield 3 performs very well on the ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard. All of the top three boards are designed without a latency-increasing PLX PCI-E Gen 3 lane switch, hence their higher frame rates.

Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third instalment and a reboot of the True Crime series.
As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was cancelled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights.

Sleeping Dogs allows the Z87 OC Formula to show more of the same strong gaming performance. The ASRock board takes another top place by virtue of alphabetical order.

Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter video game with survival horror elements, based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The game is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above-ground.

We used the game's built-in benchmark set to ‘Very High' quality to offer an intense challenge for the gaming hardware while also making playable frame rates a possibility.

Metro 2033 concludes what has been a well-completed set of gaming benchmarks from ASRock's Z87 OC Formula motherboard. If you're the type of user who wants to squeeze every last frame from your system, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard is a great choice for doing so.

We measured the power consumption with the system resting at the Windows 7 desktop, representing idle values.

The power consumption of our entire test system is measured at the wall while loading only the CPU using Prime95's Small FFTs setting. The rest of the system's components were operating in their idle states, hence the increased power consumption values (in comparison to the idle figures) are largely related to the load on the CPU and motherboard power delivery components.

Our recordings show the power consumption at idle barely rising when going from stock to overclocked frequencies. There are two reasons that we would put this down to. One is due to the already-high ‘stock' VCore of 1.280V set by ASRock. The other is the tweaked fan profile for our overclocked configuration which could result in slightly reduced power consumption.

Load power consumption figures fall in line with what have seen on other Z87 motherboards, although given its lack of a PLX switch, the Z87 OC Formula's stock energy usage is high. This is due to the higher-than-average CPU power consumption forced by the 1.280V VCore.

With hardened overclockers firmly in its sights, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula is an excellent motherboard that delivered strong CPU overclocking performance and equally-impressive high-speed memory support. The wealth of features also makes it a perfectly usable and comprehensive board when extreme overclocking isn't the primary objective.

While every Z87 motherboard that we have tested has managed to take our 4770K to 4.6GHz, but without complete stability, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula is the first board that we have seen grasp the chip's 4600MHz speed for such a long period of time. After many minutes of Prime95, the same unstable outcome was presented from our 4.6GHz overclocking efforts, but ASRock's Z87 OC Formula had us feeling closer to stability than any other Z87 board we have tested with this particular Core i7.

By applying some minor tweaks, we have no doubt that ASRock's Z87 OC Formula could have been the first motherboard to garner stability for our chip at 4.6GHz. Booting stably into the automated 4.6GHz profile helped to reiterate our feeling. With this in mind, we strongly believe that, in the Z87 OC Formula, ASRock has created a motherboard with excellent overclocking potential.

Support for high-speed DRAM frequencies is another strength for the Z87 OC Formula. We actually had less trouble booting with Avexir's 3000MHz memory kit using the ASRock board than we did with Asus' Maximus VI Extreme. There was no need to install one DIMM, apply the XMP configuration and then install the other stick for dual channel operation. We simply installed both sticks into the Z87 OC Formula and the motherboard booted without any hesitation.

Managing to push a 3000MHz kit of Avexir memory to 3288MHz had us very impressed with the Z87 OC Formula. The highest frequency we could manage using Asus' Maximus VI Extreme motherboard was 3240MHz. To say we were impressed by not only the ASRock Z87 OC Formula's memory tweaking performance, but its entire overclocking capability, would be a sizeable understatement. There is no doubt that this motherboard has truly excellent overclocking potential.

A solid set of general usage features is found on the ASRock Z87 OC Formula, providing evidence that it isn't a board that can overclock but not do much else. Ten SATA ports, up to thirteen USB 3.0 connections, support for 4-way CrossFire, and a strong onboard audio system are some of the notable features. There's no 3- or 4-way SLI support though, so users wanting a trio or quartet of nVidia cards for gaming purposes will have to pay more for a PLX PEX8747-equipped board.

The overclocking-related features are also worthy of praise. ASRock's Conformal Coating is an excellent idea that allows overclockers to use extreme cooling without fearing for their board's safety. The onboard status OLED is another handy overclocking and monitoring tool.

The main likes that we took from ASRock's UEFI BIOS were the quantity of customisable parameters, and the appropriate number of overclocking profiles. While the latter should be an essential for any BIOS, many ASRock boards in the past have provided only three profiles, so it's good to see the company learning from its mistakes. The built-in professional overclock profiles from Nick Shih are another good addition. Despite those positive points, the interface still requires an appearance improvement.

At the time of writing, the Z87 OC Formula is priced at £259.99 from Overclockers UK, which is ironically the same as the WiFi-equipped /AC variant. It is £55-90 cheaper than Asus‘ and MSI‘ flagship competitors and readily trades blows with them in terms of features and frequency-boosting performance. One of the main features that it lacks is support for more than dual-card SLI.

If you're an overclocker who doesn't require high-speed PCI-Express links to four graphics cards, the ASRock Z87 OC Formula is an excellent choice. Its overclocking potential is very strong, the number of customisable parameters should please most tweakers, and many worthwhile general usage features are also present. The toughest competition comes from Asus' Maximus VI Formula, so our upcoming review of the ROG board will tell exactly how potent the Z87 OC Formula is.

Pros:

• Excellent overclocking potential.
• Exceptional memory overclocking capability.
• Good BIOS configurations.
• Status OLED is useful.
• Impressive feature set (ten SATA ports, thirteen USB 3.0, high-end audio system)
• Conformal Coating protection is useful.
• Actively-cooled VRM heatsink with watercooling compatibility.
• Four x16-length PCI-E slots.

Cons:

• High ‘stock' voltage by default – 1.280V.
• UEFI BIOS is not attractive.
• WiFi-equipped /AC version is the better buy (for an identical price at time of writing).

KitGuru says: The ASRock Z87 OC Formula is a well-priced, feature-heavy, high-performance motherboard that has a number of worthwhile tweaking features and excellent overclocking potential. Just make sure you go for the WiFi-equipped version at no extra cost.

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