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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.
wow that is awesome, looks stunning too!
This board looks great – good price point too, which I always like with ASROCK. plenty of detail luke, thanks for review
I just ordered one, hard to find here though, they need to work on their distribution
They are always well priced, they dont seem any worse than MSI, GB or ASUS either in my own tests, but it all depends on what board you get I guess.
Not the Formula I am looking forward to but I might go with this after trying out Asrock’s Fatal1ty Z77 and loving it. Not to mention that 9.5 rating.
That fan though >.<
It's forcing me to wait for the other Formula (VI) before I can decide.
Thanks for the review ^^
Got the ac version of this from Overclockers abour four weeks ago. Just waiting on my custom cable extensions to arrive from Pexon to get my build started. If it is half as good as my X79Extreme11 in my main rig it will be epic
Hi Luke,… was wondering. Is the PLX8605 embedded on the Z87 OC Formula AC driven from the CPU? or is it driven from the extra PCIe lanes provided by the Z87 Chipset? (I’m guessing from the lane configurations that it is the Z87? which would mean you could operate 2-way SLI without any latency?……) Thanks for any help you can provide.