ASRock Z170M OC Formula (Intel LGA-1151)

[cadaveca]

ASRock is back in the overclocking game with a purpose-built Z170M OC Formula mATX motherboard ready to take your Skylake CPU and DDR4 memory to the absolute limit. Rated to support DDR4-4500+ and built with ASRock's Hyper OC Engine, this OC-centric Z170M OC Formula board has the highest rating for memory speeds on the market today.

Show full review

 

[Frogger]

All that Goodness for $200 is So tempting. This Dave

 

[cadaveca]

It's got the top spot for DDR4 speeds @ HWBot about a week ago...

http://www.techpowerup.com/223275/g...z-and-12-overclocking-records-in-8-benchmarks

 

[Assimilator]

"Also, to appease the masses who are critical of LAN controllers, there is an Intel I219V controller. No KillerNic chips here!"

Guilty as charged for being one of those masses, but I am glad ASRock are at least taking user feedback into account. And considering how good this board is overall, and its nice price, I can even forgive the not-too-intrusive LEDs.

 

[cadaveca]

The LEDs shut off as soon as POST is completed, so yeah, even that side of things is covered. Yet at the same time, ASRock has had many products with LEDs on them for many years now, and you've always been able to turn the LEDs off completely should they not be to your liking. I've heard all the complaints about all this lighting as of late from a lot of enthusiasts, but I also hear the "ohh"s and "ahh"s of "regular" gamers, so don't favor having them or not having them... they do have a use as a selling point or else it would not be every single brand that offers products with onboard LED lighting.

 

[dj-electric]

One does not simply hate ASRock. It's impossible

 

[lukart]

Having built a rig using their OC Formula I know what the editor fells, its beast of a motherboard, but this one in small form

 

[Caring1]

Great review as always, I love the look of these boards, and although I don't need one, I want one.

 

[Dethroy]

I don't care about visuals of internal components. But for those who do, replacing the yellow with grey/silver parts would make that product stand out that much more than it already does.

 

[TheLostSwede]

This isn't a GTX 1080 review...

 

[Caring1]

This isn't a GTX 1080 review...

What gave it away, was it the title?

 

[Farmer Boe]

Great review Dave. I've always admired the Asrock OC boards but haven't used one myself yet. The mATX for factor is my favorite so maybe this could be it!

 

[cadaveca]

Great review Dave. I've always admired the Asrock OC boards but haven't used one myself yet. The mATX for factor is my favorite so maybe this could be it!

Try it. If you want to overclock some ram, this board rocks, and can add in two VGAs for benching, rather than the 1 VGA some of the other good ram clocking boards can (cough, MSI). If you want to overclock and have a system that can maintain high clocks long-term, this board's ready.

 

[vega22]

no ocing on the oc mobo?

 

[cadaveca]

no ocing on the oc mobo?

Nope.

The board has already proven its capabilities on the official OC stage and does not need my results to prove its merit.

The proof of it's memory abilities is on the HWBot official rankings, and any OC'ing is very relative to the parts you have to go along with this board. What I might get doesn't matter, because it will be less than what's on HWBot.

You can find results from the "pros" here:

http://hwbot.org/hardware/motherboard/z170m_oc_formula/

Memory clock well over 5 GHz (almost 5.2 GHz):

http://hwbot.org/submission/3231609_splave_memory_clock_ddr4_sdram_2594.6_mhz

CPU clock over 7 GHz:

http://hwbot.org/submission/3093202_chi_kui_lam_cpu_frequency_core_i7_6700k_7025.66_mhz

 

[GC_PaNzerFIN]

Great work ASRock on this board! Their quality and offering has been varying a lot in recent years, but there is really nothing to complain with this one. Purpose built to do one thing, overclocking, but I wouldn't mind using it on my 24/7 main rig at all (if I wasn't one of those HEDT maniacs). I don't quite love the looks but hey, they did make an effort to make it a bit cleaner looking then some of their offerings in the past so no worries there either.

 

[vega22]

Nope.

The board has already proven its capabilities on the official OC stage and does not need my results to prove its merit.

The proof of it's memory abilities is on the HWBot official rankings, and any OC'ing is very relative to the parts you have to go along with this board. What I might get doesn't matter, because it will be less than what's on HWBot.

while not the reply i was hoping for i can only thank you for your honesty dave

personally i would love to know how it compared to other boards with none cherry picked parts and if it could eek out that little bit more from known hardware vs boards not at the top of the hwbot charts

mostly as i am interested to know how well it handles ambient clocking as nobody runs sub zero all day. i mean i think we all know other oc boards which do epic things when covered in ln2. but are nothing better than the mainstream without that added cooling the vrm gets from that.

none the less it is a great write up for the stock performance of all the aspects of the board

 

[cadaveca]

while not the reply i was hoping for i can only thank you for your honesty dave

personally i would love to know how it compared to other boards with none cherry picked parts and if it could eek out that little bit more from known hardware vs boards not at the top of the hwbot charts

mostly as i am interested to know how well it handles ambient clocking as nobody runs sub zero all day. i mean i think we all know other oc boards which do epic things when covered in ln2. but are nothing better than the mainstream without that added cooling the vrm gets from that.

none the less it is a great write up for the stock performance of all the aspects of the board

It'll still clock memory on ambient temps better than pretty much any other board because of the memory design. few boards will be able to match this one, as evidenced by the "official" support for DDR4-4500 this board carries. CPU clocking is not that big of a deal for any motherboard, but few other motherboards have 10-layer PCB to help with clocking.

I don't cover OC on motherboard reviews because it really ahs little to do with motherboard these days unless there is a problem with the board. In the past, board's CPU VRM mattered because some boards had design limits when pushing the wattage needed to clock a CPU, but with current Skylake chips being 65W CPU if not unlocked, and the unlocked "K" chips being 91W, we're talking about needing stable delivery of 125W-140W, or in the case of this board, 10W per VRM phase. That means that for most users, silicon limits will be the real problem, not board limits. Boards that have killer audio and decent M.2 performance like this one are pretty much guaranteed to OC well for 24/7 use.


Now, did I OC with this board? You bet. Is it better than most other boards I have? You bet. I wouldn't have written the review with as much enthusiasm and be wanting to give the board a 10/10 as I mentioned in the review if I found any problems with OC, since that's what this board is really about. However, ebcasue OC at daily temps isn't hard for 99% of boards, it is simply not reported directly in a review by way of graphs and screenshots. I mean, did you read the conclusion?

 

[vega22]

yea, i even reread it just to make sure

but i like numbers

i mean, i want to understand how good it must be to get an almost perfect score

 

[cadaveca]

yea, i even reread it just to make sure

but i like numbers

i mean, i want to understand how good it must be to get an almost perfect score

That'd just end up the same as the "stock" benchmarks, just scaled higher though. Board BIOS efficiency is there in the first place in the graphs already done, so why have the same data, twice?

I mean, I understand where you are coming from for sure. Don't get me wrong... But other sites simply run benchmarks and write a few words about a board within a few days of getting them. I actually use the board, in the way its intended to be used, and then report my thought and feelings about that experience, rather than just regurgitating marketing because I'm rushing to get reviews done to make money. Many of the products I review, I get samples at the same time as any other site does; but I put them to use before I'll post a review and make sure they do as they should. I could do a review in a couple of days if all I did was run benchmarks and then post the results.

 

[Dethroy]

That'd just end up the same as the "stock" benchmarks, just scaled higher though. Board BIOS efficiency is there in the first place in the graphs already done, so why have the same data, twice?

I mean, I understand where you are coming from for sure. Don't get me wrong... But other sites simply run benchmarks and write a few words about a board within a few days of getting them. I actually use the board, in the way its intended to be used, and then report my thought and feelings about that experience, rather than just regurgitating marketing because I'm rushing to get reviews done to make money. Many of the products I review, I get samples at the same time as any other site does; but I put them to use before I'll post a review and make sure they do as they should. I could do a review in a couple of days if all I did was run benchmarks and then post the results.

Wish more reviewers would do business like you

 

[vega22]

That'd just end up the same as the "stock" benchmarks, just scaled higher though. Board BIOS efficiency is there in the first place in the graphs already done, so why have the same data, twice?

I mean, I understand where you are coming from for sure. Don't get me wrong... But other sites simply run benchmarks and write a few words about a board within a few days of getting them. I actually use the board, in the way its intended to be used, and then report my thought and feelings about that experience, rather than just regurgitating marketing because I'm rushing to get reviews done to make money. Many of the products I review, I get samples at the same time as any other site does; but I put them to use before I'll post a review and make sure they do as they should. I could do a review in a couple of days if all I did was run benchmarks and then post the results.

do you really think the gains would be so linear?

that unknown is like a little voice in the back of my head, constantly asking, what if?

come on dave, the only reason i ask is because i know you do get fully acquainted with the hardware and why your reviews hold so much weight. it is why you're able to be of such great help on the forums when others encounter the quirks and niggles most boards can have at times too.

with or without oc results the review is still great dude, please don't think i mean anything else

 

[cadaveca]

do you really think the gains would be so linear?

In a board such as this, where tuning performance for benchmarking is the goal, yes, I do feel that way. In fact, I know that they are. The thing is though, those boards that score better in certain benchmarks... they fall off earlier. The AIDA memory bench shows it all. You can go back in my postings here on TPU about DDR4 since it came out in the public, and see me saying latency is important; not bandwidth... Then here we have a board that really seems to take that "mantra" to heart, and in turn it clocks memory in an ungodly way....

Then look at me saying since DDR2 days that I like to OC memory... This board is like my wet dream for DDR4 right now.

with or without oc results the review is still great dude, please don't think i mean anything else

Nah, you know I am too full of myself to think I've ever done a review the wrong way, eh? ROFL.

Seriously though, W1zz has told me that if I do something in a review, I must have facts, not opinion, to back it up. So I make sure I have facts to back up my opinions, and then I don't worry about what anyone might think. You can't keep everyone happy all the time. Believe me.. having four kids reminds me of that fact nearly every day.

 

[vega22]

This board is like my wet dream for DDR4 right now.

oh shit son!

that's mighty fine praise

that should be a quote on the box!!!!

 

[Steven B]

Nice review Dave!