ASRock Z87 OC Formula/AC Review
by Ian Cutress on July 26, 2013 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- Haswell
- Z87
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our test bed:
Thank you to OCZ for providing us with 1250W Gold Power Supplies.
Thank you to G.Skill for providing us with memory kits including the 8GB 3000C12 kit.
Thank you to Corsair for providing us with an AX1200i PSU, Corsair H80i CLC and 16GB 2400C10 memory.
Thank you to ASUS for providing us with the AMD GPUs and some IO Testing kit.
Thank you to ECS for providing us with the NVIDIA GPUs.
Thank you to Rosewill for providing us with the 500W Platinum Power Supply for mITX testing, BlackHawk Ultra, and 1600W Hercules PSU for extreme dual CPU + quad GPU testing, and RK-9100 keyboards.
Thank you to ASRock for providing us with the 802.11ac wireless router for testing.
Test Setup
| Test Setup | |
| Processor |
Intel Core i7-4770K Retail 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 3.5 GHz (3.9 GHz Turbo) |
| Motherboards |
ASRock Z87 Extreme6/AC ASRock Z87 OC Formula/AC ASUS Z87-Pro Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming |
| Cooling |
Corsair H80i Thermalright TRUE Copper |
| Power Supply |
OCZ 1250W Gold ZX Series Corsair AX1200i Platinum PSU |
| Memory |
GSkill TridentX 4x4 GB DDR3-2400 10-12-12 Kit Corsair Vengeance Pro 2x8 GB DDR3 2400 10-12-12 Kit |
| Memory Settings | XMP (2400 10-12-12) |
| Video Cards |
ASUS HD7970 3GB ECS GTX 580 1536MB |
| Video Drivers |
Catalyst 13.1 NVIDIA Drivers 310.90 WHQL |
| Hard Drive | OCZ Vertex 3 256GB |
| Optical Drive | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| USB 2/3 Testing | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB with SATA->USB Adaptor |
| WiFi Testing | D-Link DIR-865L 802.11ac Dual Band Router |
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to the OCZ 1250W power supply, while in a dual 7970 GPU configuration. This power supply is Gold rated, and as I am in the UK on a 230-240 V supply, leads to ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, which is suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our test bed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.
Despite being a large motherboard, the Z87 OC Formula is relatively efficient in idle, which is often a common theme as we saw with the Z77 overclocking motherboards earlier in the year due to the high efficiency power delivery often used on these motherboards. In loaded scenarios, the OC Formula performs better than the Extreme6, but the other manufacturers have ASRock covered, if only by a few watts here and there.
Windows 7 POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we are now going to look at the POST Boot Time - this is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows 7 starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.) These results are subject to human error, so please allow +/- 1 second in these results.
The ASRock Z87 OC Formula/AC is clearly efficient at POST times, coming under 10 seconds and is currently the fastest Z87 motherboard we have tested.
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IanCutress - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
Out of my three 4770K CPUs I have had in, one fails to do 4.2 GHz at 1.4 volts, and the other two will do 4.6 GHz fairly easily and stable, but require a big voltage push for 4.7 GHz. Out of these two chips however, one was 6C cooler at 4.6 GHz OCCT load. Guess what - I'd kill that 4.2 GHz CPU before it hit 4.6 GHz. It's part of what is called 'the silicon lottery'.Please post your experiences of auto overclocking vs. manual on your CPUs, so we can provide a reference. What seems to have skipped over heads is that manufacturers are people too, and thus can design automatic overclock settings that are aggressive. ASRock are clearly being aggressive enough with automatic settings for my chips (luckily), and the wide variation in Haswell samples (4.2 GHz to 5.0 GHz air stable) makes it hard to compare different motherboards in terms of 24/7 overclocking - as these OC boards are built for sub-zero, anything air and water is essentially a stroll in the park.
If you have any suggestions rather than blanket statements, I would be amenable to listen to them.
Ian
ikjadoon - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
Hi, Ian! Sorry to bump old thread, but someone just told me to never trust Anandtech regarding OCs, so I was naturally curious about this mixup.Regarding your 4.2GHz @ 1.40V chip, what was your VRIN? Intel themselves recommended to keep it 0.4V above Vcore, so at least 1.80V in this case (as reported by one of Gigabyte's BIOS QA testers). Source: http://www.overclock.net/t/1401976/the-gigabyte-z8...
The same question applies to this review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7175/asrock-z87m-oc-...
The VRIN was at 1.650V which is too low for the 1.350V Vcore. Were you able to try a higher VRIN in the review of the mATX board?
ikjadoon - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
EDIT: sorry, got them confused. That question applies to THIS review, where your VRIN is too low. I have no idea what it was on that mATX board, though, but am definitely curious.Aikouka - Friday, July 26, 2013 - link
I thought that I would add that even my cheap Z87 Extreme4 has an on-board USB port, so it's not really something fancy that was added to this board. =PAlso, I'm rather disappointed that if they were going to make this available for water cooling that they went with built-in barbs. That's just lazy. ASUS seems to have it right with the Maximus VI Formula as it uses G1/4 threads. Unfortunately, it's not out yet, but it's supposed to release in a week or two (early August).
IanCutress - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
ASRock seem to have latched onto it as a useful feature. It is certainly a plus, I wonder what the uptake % is. My father just informed me that his version of Cubase still uses a USB verification dongle.This Guy - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
I haven't read a review anywhere with the HDMI-In actually working with discrete GPU's. For me it just makes my screen flash black.The Molex GPU power connector is positioned poorly. It's pointed flat against where most power supplys go. Granted, when used as an open air overclocking board this won't be a problem, but Asrock use this connector on many of their high end Z87 boards.
ThortonBe - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
Under the feature overview sections, I believe it should read "Purity Sound" as opposed to "Purity Audio".The LCD screen is a neat addition. I wonder how much it raised the B.O.M.
Gigaplex - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
"I rather like the ASRock BIOS"I hate it. My Linux server runs an ASRock board (A75M-HVS) booting via UEFI, but they released a newer firmware that breaks Linux UEFI booting. I emailed their tech support, and instead of getting an email back stating that Linux is unsupported, they just ignored me and I never heard from them. I had to roll back to the older firmware.
Montago - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Why didn't Asus use THIS colorscheme ???... WHYYYYYBlack & Yellow is awesome...
QChronoD - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Curious about the HDMI in and how useful it really is. Did you really not have a single other device in your house with HDMI output? Does it work with dual monitors? Can it only change one of the screens and not screw up your desktop?Is anyone else offering HDMI also? for less than $200+?