With the Z77 OC Formula, ASRock dares to introduce their first motherboard which has been optimized towards extreme overclocking. This board has been developed under the lead of the well known overclocker NickShih who now works at ASRock as a product manager. During the past months NickShih has already proven that this board si very capable for extreme overclocking, setting several records.
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The OC Formula is ASRock's high end overclocking motherboard regarding Intels latest Z77 chipset. Therefore we're really curious what they've come up with from the layout and design as well as feature perspective.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Layout |
| Page 2 - Specs and Delivery | Page 5 - Connectors and I/O |
| Page 3 - Features | Page 6 - Conclusion |
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Specs and Delivery
| CPU | Intel Socket 1155 3rd/2nd Generation Core i7/i5/i3/Pentium/Celeron (22/32nm) |
| Chipset | Intel Z77 Express |
| Memory | Dual Channel 4 x DIMM, max. 32GB, DDR3 3000+(OC)/2800(OC)/2666(OC)/2400(OC)/2133(OC)/1866(OC)/1600/1333/1066 non-ECC, un-buffered memory, XMP 1.3 |
| Multi-GPU | NVIDIA 3-Way SLI AMD 3-Way CrossFireX LucidLogix Virtu MVP Technology |
| Slots | 2 x PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (PCIE2/PCIE4: single at x16 (PCIE2) / x8 (PCIE4) or dual at x8/x8 mode) 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (PCIE5: x4 mode) 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots |
| Audio | Supreme FX Audio Codec |
| Storage | 2 x SATA 6.0 Gbps (Intel) 4 x SATA 6.0 Gbps (Marvell SE9172) |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth v4.0 |
| Wireless | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n |
| LAN | 1 x Gigabit LAN Broadcom BCM57781 |
| I/O internal | |
| I/O Back Panel | |
| Forfactor | Extended-ATX (30.5cm x 26.7cm) |
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Layout |
| Page 2 - Specs and Delivery | Page 5 - Connectors and I/O |
| Page 3 - Features | Page 6 - Conclusion |
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Features
| 12 + 4 Phase Power Design | Since quite some time ASRock has been equipping its boards with digital power designs. With the OC Formula they are very proud about their quite complex solution which consists of Dual-Stack MOSFET's (DSM), three different filter caps (DIP solid caps, POSCAP's and MLCC's), as well as high quality alloy chokes. |
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| Gelid Solutions GC-Extreme Thermal Compound | Since this product mainly aims at extreme overclockers, NickShih tought about something quite special. He decided to bundle the board with Gelid's GC-Extreme thermal compound, since this is the best thermal grease you can get for extreme overclocking. | |
| NickShih's OC Profile | Unexperienced overclockers might be familiar with the circumstance, that it can take ages until you've found rock solid and stable settings you make you CPU run at a much higher frequency. At this point NickShih prepared five different profiles where the perfect settings are going to be loaded instantly and you don't need to carry anymore. Therefore it's piece of cake to clock your CPU to very high frequencies. | |
| Rapid OC | What you get with this feature are two buttons, which have been placed on the motherboard directly. Their purpose is to make overclocking even easier. In fact you can change the multiplyer, BCLK as well as VCore by simply pressing the plus or minus button |
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| Formula Drive | Standard these days is a nice and decent software for widows, using which, one can adjust different settings related to the board from within the operating system. In case of the OC Formula you can control the fans attached to the board, overclock your CPU, use OC DNA, IES or XFast RAM or you can also monitor temperatures on your board by reading ou the differen thermal sensors. | |
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Layout |
| Page 2 - Specs and Delivery | Page 5 - Connectors and I/O |
| Page 3 - Features | Page 6 - Conclusion |
Discuss this article in the forums
[pagebreak]
Layout
At a first glance the ASRock OC Formula leaves a very good impression with its harmonic design. The manfucaturer decided to go for a combination of black, yellow and gold, which suites nicely and in the end you get an aesthetic product. The layout itself is well thought and there is for example plenty of space around the CPU socket to install even todays largest CPU coolers. The fact that there are SATA connectors which have been angled by 90 degrees allow an easy installation of oversized graphics cards.
The ASRock OC Formula comes with a digital 12+4 phase power design. The CPU gets twelve phases and the memory gets a stable current supply from four individual phases. As we've already mentioned on the feature's page, ASRock decided to go for quite a complex power design where there are for example three different filtering stages to get smooth and highly constant voltages. Especially when it comes to extreme overclocking, the power design can be what tipped the scales in the end.
Totally you'll find four DIMM-slots on the OC Formula. Officially supported are DDR3 3000+(OC) / 2800(OC) / 2666(OC) / 2400(OC) / 2133(OC) / 1866(OC) / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 MHz. There is engough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which means that you wont encounter compatibility problems with big coolers even when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders. Also supported are Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 1.3.
On the OC Formula the southbridge as well as current converters got separate cooling blocks. In case of the southbridge there is a single block made from aluminium, which provides appropriate cooling. A closer look at the current converters shows that there are two individual blocks connected to one another by a watercooling channel. Furthermore ASRock decided to equip the power design coolers with a 40 millimeter fan. For extreme overclockers this is a nice addition, but if you should decide to put this board into a case and you expect low operating noise, then you'll be disappointed after at last half a year. Those small fans quite quickly show issues related to the bearing and they are also very sensitive to dust. In case of putting this board into an enclosure we recommend to unplug the fan.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Layout |
| Page 2 - Specs and Delivery | Page 5 - Connectors and I/O |
| Page 3 - Features | Page 6 - Conclusion |
Discuss this article in the forums
[pagebreak]
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.
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 six USB 3.0/2.0 ports, four USB 2.0/1.1 ports, one gigabit ethernet port, an HDMI connector as well as an optical out and an analogue audio panel. Furtheremore you'll also find a clear CMOS button.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Layout |
| Page 2 - Specs and Delivery | Page 5 - Connectors and I/O |
| Page 3 - Features | Page 6 - Conclusion |
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Conclusion
| Allgemein | + | - | |
| The first
impression the OC Formula from ASRock leaves, makes us want more.
We like the individual design of this board, which actually isn't that
easy to achieve anymore. Since ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and co finally found
out that people, especially in the western part of this world, prefer
simple and decent color designs, quite a lot of color combinations have
already been chosen. The OC Formula is a motherboard that really targets extreme overclockers, but nevertheless ASRock succeeded in crafting a product that is equally attractive to the guys handling LN2 or watercooling/aircooling setups. Both worlds will be able to squeeze maximum out of their systems using this board. |
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Design - PCI-Express 3.0 Slots - 6x SATA3 (6Gbps) |
- 40 millimeter fan to cool power design | |
| Layout | + | - | |
|
Basically the ASRock OC Formula's Layout has been very well thought. Once more practical are the angled SATA connectors as well as the power- and reset-buttons. There is also a debug display which is very useful in case you should have issues with a component in your system or the board itself. Even the placement of the PCI-Express x16 is well chosen. There is a total of three of these slots between two slots there are always two empty slots. We think this is a good number of PCI Express x16 slots for a overclocking/gaming motherboard altough most gamers will never use three graphics cards in their build. But still it leaves you with plenty of options if you want to plug in other expansion cards. Overclockers will also like the voltage readouts but basically this board is more suitable for overclockers than enthusiast gamers. |
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Angled SATA
connectors
- Power/Reset-Button onboard - Debug display - Space around the CPU socket - Voltage readouts - Watercooling - OC Buttons |
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Layout |
| Page 2 - Specs and Delivery | Page 5 - Connectors and I/O |
| Page 3 - Features | Page 6 - Conclusion |
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Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch