ASRock Z170 OC Formula Motherboard Review

In this review we will wrap up the “major” overclocking boards. We looked at the ASUS Maximus VIII Extreme and, more recently, the Gigabyte SOC Force. Both of which were pretty formidable motherboards in their own right. The last board is one of everyone’s favorites in the extreme overclocking community, the ASRock Z170 OC Formula. Like those mentioned above this board has, for generations, been noted by respected extreme overclockers as being one of the best for the job. Sadly, I won’t be using LN2 for this review, but we will beat on it none the less and come up with a good idea on how it stacks up anyway!

Specifications and Features

Below is the specifications table from the ASRock website for the OC Formula (OCF moving forward). Some notables from the list below include: 64GB memory capacity, DDR4 support up to 4400 MHz, 15μ gold content in both the DIMM slots, and support for ECC UDIMM memory modules (in non-ECC mode).

For the video side of things, the iGPU has dual graphics output (HDMI and DisplayPort) supported by two separate controllers. The OCF can run quad SLI and CFx as well. Unlike the SOC Force, it will need to be dual cards for NVIDIA four-way SLI. Otherwise, it’s dual cards for SLI. The reason for this? The second PCIe slot is connected to the PCH using four PCIe 3.0 lanes (and shares its bandwidth with an x1 slot). You will be able to run four-way CFx with an AMD-based system since they are able to run their GPUs using four lanes. Below is the lane breakdown:

• x16/x0/x0
• x8/x8/x0
• x8/x4/x4

The audio is handled by the popular ALC1150 CODEC with a 115dB S/N ratio differential amplifier. This drives 7.1 surround channels through premium Nichicon Fine Gold Series Audio Caps into a Texas Instruments TI NE5532 Premium Headset Amplifier (Supports up to 600 ohm headsets). Plenty of oomph and sound quality for most users. If you need to adjust the configuration of the setup, ASRock’s Purity Sound 3 software will help you out there.

The networking is handled by the latest Intel NIC, the Intel I219V.

Regarding storage, you see a total of ten SATA ports (three are SATAe). The bandwidth is shared between these and the three M.2 slots. This means if you use all the M.2 slots (fits up to 110mm M.2 cards), you will not have use of the Intel ports. Never fear! The other four ports are driven by an ASMedia controller so you will have SATA connectivity from it instead. Both the SATA ports and M.2 support RAID (0, 1, 5, 10).

Features

Getting into the ASRock marketing a bit, I scoured their main webpage for the OCF and picked out a few features (pictures from the webpage). First up, since this is an overclocking board, we will talk about its power delivery. As you likely noted in the specifications, you have an 18 phase VRM. This VRM consists of premium 60A power chokes which makes the saturation current “up to three time better” and will provide “enhanced and improved Vcore voltage to the motherboard.” Looking at the layout, it is broken down into a 12+4+1+1 for the VCC (VCore), VCCGT (iGPU), VCCSA (System Agent), and VCCIO (CPU IO). It uses International Rectifier’s PWM and several phase doubler chips to get power where it needs to go. For Z170 platform this is a very robust solution, even for the extreme overclockers.

Sticking around the VRM, ASRock uses Dual-Stack MOSFETs for delivering power to the CPU. This stacking MOSFETs method increases the die area lowering the Rds(on) which helps the power supply to the Vcore be more efficient.

I mentioned above the Nichicon 12K Platinum caps. Their claim to fame is a longer life of up to 12,000 hours (compared with 10,000 on typical caps) and provide more stability and reliability.

ASRock equips this board with what they call the OC Forumula Kit. The kit consists of hardware which allows for more efficient overclocking. These features include three different types of MFC caps, deliver enhanced and higher current to the CPU, and Digi power on the CPU and memory to handle current more smoothly and efficiently. The CPU 8 pin connector is said to reduce power loss by 23% and decreases the connector’s temperature by 22° Celsius, and finally the 8-Layer PCB to keep the motherboard cool.

As most know, BCLK overclocking has become a “thing” again on the Z170 platform. To get the most out of this, ASRock installed an additional external base clock generator. This will provide a “wider range of frequencies and more precise clock waveforms.” This helps overclockers have more control over their systems.

I did mention earlier about the three M.2 slots, but not really any details. All three slots will support the full PCIe 3.0 x4 bandwidth at 32 Gb/s. They also all support ASRock’s U.2 kit.

The last feature I would like to mention here is the USB 3.1 ports, both Type-C and Type-A. These ports will deliver the full 10 Gb/s bandwidth.

Please see the above link to ASRock’s website for more details!

	Premium 60A Power Choke Compared to traditional chokes, ASRock’s premium 60A power chokes effectively make the saturation current up to three times better, thus providing enhanced and improved Vcore voltage to the motherboard.
	Dual-Stack MOSFET for CPU Power Dual-Stack MOSFET (DSM) is another innovative MOSFETs design by ASRock. The silicon die area is increased by stacking two dies into one MOSFET. The larger the die area, the lower Rds(on). Compared to traditional discrete MOSFET, DSM with larger die area provides extreme lower Rds(on) 1.2 mΩ, so the power supply for the CPU Vcore is more efficient.
	Nichicon 12K Platinum Caps Supreme 12K platinum capacitors with lifespans of at least 12,000 hours. Compared to other counterparts on high-end motherboards that merely have lifespans of around 10,000 hours, ASRock applied Nichicon 12K Platinum Caps that offer 20% longer lifespans and provide more stability and reliability. * Tested under industry standard 105 degree Celsius ambient temperature.
	MFC Capacitors Three different kinds of capacitors that deliver enhanced and higher currents to the CPU. Digi Power Provides CPU Vcore and memory voltage more efficiently and smoothly. Connector Kits CPU 8 pin – Reduces 23% power loss and decreases the connector’s temperature by 22 degrees Celsius. PCIe and Memory slots – 15μ gold within the memory and PCIe x16 slots, thus providing better anti-oxidation protection. Cooling Kit 8 Layer PCB – Delivers lower temperature and better efficiency for overclocking.
	18 Power Phase Design The power phase design offers smooth power delivery to the CPU, unmatched overclocking capabilities, lower temperature for advanced gamers, and reinforced system stability for taking on all sorts of arduous computing tasks.
	IR® Digital PWM The onboard IR® Digital PWM controller delivers the most precise and stable power so that users may achieve optimal performance.
	Hyper BCLK Engine An additional external base clock generator which provides a wider range of frequencies and more precise clock waveforms. This helps overclockers to have more control over their systems.
	Triple Ultra M.2 32 Gb/s (PCIe Gen3 x4 & SATA3) The PCIe Gen3 x4 Ultra M.2 interface pushes data transfer speeds up to 32Gb/s. In addition, it also supports SATA3 6Gb/s M.2 modules, and is compatible with ASRock’s U.2 Kit for installing some of the world’s fastest U.2 PCIe Gen3 x4 SSDs.
	USB 3.1 10 Gb/s Type-A + C A pair of onboard Type-A and Type-C USB 3.1 connectors for delivering up to 10Gbps data transfer rates.

Retail Packaging and Accessories

Our first set of pictures will show us the retail packaging for the Z170 OCF. It looks pretty similar to the Z97 packaging, mostly black with yellow and gold trim, and featuring a large “OC” nomenclature dominating the front. Also on the front cover is the model of the board inside, as well as some of the components it supports. Opening up the box presents you with the accessories laying on top of a cardboard partition. The motherboard sits below it resting snug in form fitting foam while inside its anti-static bag. Last up is a picture of the included accessories:

• 1 x ASRock Flexible SLI Bridge Connector Cable
• Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield
• 4 x SATA Data Cables
• 1 x WiFi Module Bracket
• 2 x Screws for WiFi Module
• 3 x Screws for M.2 Sockets

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Meet the ASRock Z170 OC Formula

In our first look at the board, we see the familiar black and yellow/gold theme has continued on into its Z170 form. The black motherboard is adorned with an attractive black with yellow trim heatsink for the VRM area, a cover for the back I/O and audio sections, as well as a heatsink for the PCH. The DIMM slots are black and yellow (same color for each channel), and the PCIe x16 slots are yellow!

On the back side of the board, you can see the electrical breakdown of the PCIe slots at x16/x4/x8/x4. Another item of note is the location of the Nuvoton Super I/O chip. I can’t say I remember seeing one on the back before!

A Closer Look

Zipping in a bit closer on the board, we will start with looking at the audio area on the left hand side. Here, underneath the shroud, lives the Realtek ALC1150 chip which handles all the audio for the OCF. Poking up through the shroud are the Nichicon Fine Gold Series Audio Caps. Not pictured, also under the shroud, is where the Texas Instruments TI NE5532 Premium Headset Amplifier (supports up to 600 Ohm headphones) hides. Like most motherboards these days the audio section is isolated from the rest of the board, helping to minimize EMI.

The PCIe area is pretty busy here. First are the four full length x16 slots and two x1 slots. We talked about the lane breakdowns earlier, and it is listed in the specifications. Between them is where the three M.2 ports reside. They support up to 110mm drives.

The bottom right hand corner of the board, below the PCH heatsink, is where ASRock stashes their hardware overclocking features; PCIe DIP switches, Rapid OC, Slow Mode, and LN2 mode switches along with a direct to BIOS button. Below those are the buttons to adjust your BCLK, multiplier, and voltages. Of course we have the Power and Reset buttons as well as the debug LED. Last but not least, to the right and above those, is the dual BIOS switch (you can see the BIOS chip stickers above it).

Sliding over to the DIMM area, the upper right hand corner of the board, then looking at the bottom left of the image are two front panel USB 3.0 ports. Above them is a USB 3.0 Type-A port… a great feature, for a board which will likely find itself on top of a benching station, as its location makes it easier to get a USB drive in (instead of reaching around the back).

Looking around the socket area, we get a clear look at the VRM area showing off its whopping 18 phases, Nichicon caps, and 60A chokes. For an extreme overclocking board, it’s pretty busy around the socket with those caps there, but nothing we can’t get around. The power to the socket is handled by an 8-pin (required) and a 4-pin CPU connector (optional – for extreme overclocking).

Pictured next are the SATA connections. You can see in the picture below a total of eight SATA ports. Four of those SATA ports can be used as two SATA Express ports. Not pictured here are two more SATA ports and a SATAe port. There are also the three M.2 connections between the PCIe slots.

The rear I/O consists of the following:

• 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
• 1 x HDMI Port
• 1 x DisplayPort 1.2
• 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
• 2 x USB 2.0 Ports (Supports ESD Protection (ASRock Full Spike Protection))
• 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A Port (10 Gb/s) (ASMedia ASM1142) (Supports ESD Protection (ASRock Full Spike Protection))
• 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C Port (10 Gb/s) (ASMedia ASM1142) (Supports ESD Protection (ASRock Full Spike Protection))
• 4 x USB 3.0 Ports (Intel^® Z170) (Supports ESD Protection (ASRock Full Spike Protection))
• 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
• 1 x Clear CMOS Switch
• HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone

Below are pictures of the board with the heatsinks removed. The first picture shows off the 18 phase VRM using IR power bits, while the next picture confirms the heatsinks made good contact.

In the next slideshow are pictures of some of the IC’s used on this board.

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UEFI BIOS and Overclocking Software

In the slideshow below we see ASRock’s UEFI BIOS. They, like others, have an easy mode, as well as an “advanced” BIOS. Moving around the BIOS was smooth using the keyboard or mouse.

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Below are some screenshots of the OC Tweaker section. There are TONS of memory options in here among other things.

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Last up is ASRock’s Windows-based software, Formula Drive. In this software, you can overclock the BCLK and CPU multiplier using the OC Tweaker tab as well as changing several of the main voltages. You can also get a “State of the Union” in the System Information tab and change fan speeds under the FanTastic Tuning section.

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Performance and Benchmarking

Benchmarks used:

Memory Bandwidth and Throughput

• AIDA64
• MaxxMEM

CPU Rendering

• Cinebench R11.5 and R15
• PoV Ray R3.73

Single Threaded CPU Benchmark

• Super Pi 1M and 32M
• Pifast

Multi-Threaded CPU benchmarks

• WPrime 32M and 1024M
• 7Zip (Compression)
• Intel XTU

Motherboard Comparison

The graphs below put my results together against comparable boards. In this graph, I stuck with the overclocking-centric boards instead of mainstream or gaming boards, just to compare apples to apples. For the most part all results were pretty darn close together as we have come to expect. The results were all within around 1% or what I am calling a margin of error.

It was not until I hit Intel XTU, 7zip, and POV Ray when things got interesting. As you can see, there are significant differences between OC Formula and the rest of the boards. The OCF there should not be that far behind.

Fear not OC Formula users! I have a problem in the system somewhere I fear. I swapped out the same CPU into the ASUS MVIIIE I reviewed and the results were the same in those tests. The common denominator… the CPU, RAM, and the OS. Instead of delaying getting this published (the motherboard has been ruled out), I wanted to mention why I believe we are seeing the differences.

I worked on this problem quite a bit. I reinstalled W7… same results. In the end, I installed Windows 10 and things were back to normal. I am not sure what is going on with my W7 installation(s) on these benchmarks but they were fine in W10. This is not a board issue.

Screenshots of the benchmark results below:

Pushing the Limits

Below I pushed a bit more on the CPU, landing on 4.9 GHz. I did this both with multiplier only, and with using the BCLK. I reached 175 MHz without any tweaking. Much more above that and things start to get a bit wonky for me on the OCF. I can boot and bench at 200 MHz, however, I cannot seem to get the memory to work at its XMP speeds (3000 MHz) for whatever reason. I tried this on the latest BIOS (2.10) and the BIOS it shipped with (1.31d), both had the same results.

Thinking it was the processor giving me fits as above, I tried to hit 200 BCLK and 3000 MHz memory on a different board and had no problems getting there. I am not sure what I may have missed but I was unable to boot past 2666 MHz on the ram while the BCLK was sitting at 175 MHz. Taking a look at a couple of submissions at Hwbot, it seems this is isolated to my machine for whatever reason. I was able to push up on the memory I had with no problems. I ended up around 3400 MHz with some relaxed timings and a slight bump in voltage.

Conclusion

Looking back at my experience and the results leave me with pretty good impression of the board. It comes with three of M.2 slots, USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (Type-A and C), the Intel I-219V NIC, a very robust (if not overkill, in a good way) VRM area made for extreme overclocking, voltage read points and buttons to adjust the BCLK and multiplier on board, and many other useful features for both the gamer and extreme overclocker.

I didn’t really run into any issues with the board outside of the curious results with overclocking when using the BCLK and trying to up the memory speeds via multiplier. For whatever reason it just didn’t seem to like my setup. I also looked at Hwbot results for this board and found high BCLK and high memory speeds, so it appears I need to look in the mirror for why this is happening (to that end, I purchased different ram and will see if that is the issue – I will report back in the comments section).

Pricing on the ASRock Z170 OC Formula comes in at $227.99 at newegg.com. This is, by far, the least expensive of the overclocking boards out there (Gigabyte SOC Force -$380, ASUS MVIIIE -$485, and MSI XPower Gaming Titanium -$300). It may not have all the extras some of of those boards have, but it will get the same job done, without issue, and at a much cheaper price than comparable boards. Without further ado, this board is Overclockers.com approved!

– Joe Shields (Earthdog)