Connectors and I/O

Totally ASRock equipped the OC Formula with no less then ten angled SATA ports. This is enough for any office setup, gaming system or overclocking setup. You'll also find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons in the top right corner of the board. There is even a debug display. Furthermore in this area of the board there are voltage read out points as well as ASRocks Rapid-OC buttons which allow an overclocker to change the multiplyer, BLCK as well as voltages on the fly.
Another improvement over the predecessor can be found when looking at the audio solution on this board. In this case there is a new Realtek ALC1150 chip with an EMI shielding cap on top of it. Furthermore this chip has been isolated from the rest of the board to reduce unwanted noise. Additionally there is a high quality headphone amplifier, which is capable of driving headphones and headsets with impedances of up to 600 ohm.

 

Totally you'll find eight fan header on the OC Formula which is more than enough, to provide a well equipped high-end or overclocking-system with fresh air. The fan headers are located around the CPU socket as spread over the motherboard.

  

Looking at the external connectors directly at the back-panel ASRock equipped the OC Formula with eight USB 3.0/2.0 ports, two USB 2.0/1.1 ports, one gigabit ethernet port, an HDMI connector as well as an optical out and an analogue audio panel. Additionally there is a PS/2 connector and a BIOS reset switch.