<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;">The Z77 version of this board hit several important milestones in the motherboard market. At $230/$240 it overclocked well, provided a nice user experience, and came with overclocking features that competitive overclockers liked, all in that cheap price bracket. The Z87 attempts to go a bit further, and at an extra cost over the Z77 model ($328 vs. $230) it has to provide in that price bracket something special.&nbsp; ASRock are known for implementing some off-the-wall ideas, and for Z87 we get:</span></span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Conformal Coating</span>: Using a superhydrophobic coating on the motherboard, traces and IC joints are protected from moisture (although the slots where we connect other components are still susceptible).<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /> <span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HDMI-In</span>: By adding a HDMI-In port onto the motherboard, as we saw on the Z87 Extreme6/AC, we can sort of consolidate various elements of our entertainment center (PC, console, tablet, laptop) with one video cable going into the monitor rather than several.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /> <span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">802.11ac</span>: One of ASRock&rsquo;s big pushes is to engage the new high speed protocol. Several of the motherboards in ASRock&rsquo;s range come in both flavors with ~$20-30 price difference, but others such as the Z87E-ITX are in an AC flavor only.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /> <span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Purity Audio</span>: All motherboards $200 and up now use &lsquo;Purity Audio&rsquo;, which is ASRock&rsquo;s marketing term for their ALC1150 solution, using an EM shield for the codec, separating the audio traces into a separate layer on the PCB, and additional headphone amplifiers to support 600 ohm headphones.</span></span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;">With the high praise bestowed upon the Z77 OC Formula, other manufacturers raced to provide something similar at the $200-$240 price segment.&nbsp; There seems to be a lot of sales in that region, and ASRock have jumped the gun a little with this full sized ATX Z87 OC Formula/AC motherboard now at $328 (non-AC a little less), ASRock also created a micro-ATX version (the Z87M OC Formula) at $200, although it comes with fewer features than the full fat edition.</span></span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;">In terms of actual user experience and performance, ASRock are producing a well performing and easy to use platform from which to base the rest of their products (at least on the absolute performance and BIOS side &ndash; the software side still needs some polish beyond XFast).&nbsp; Using our new i7-4770K CPU we were able to push the motherboard to 4.6 GHz at 1.32 volts without any freezing issues in the BIOS (see the BIOS section).&nbsp; At stock the Z87 OC Formula implements MultiCore Turbo, giving good performance in CPU tasks &ndash; the XFast USB software provides more superb USB performance data as well.</span></span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;">I rather like the ASRock BIOS &ndash; it comes across as very easy to read, and the OC Formula has a long list of NickShih (their in-house overclocker) approved overclock profiles for users to attempt in order to get the best automatic overclock for the system. Using these automatic overclock options as a guide, our CPU sample was able to adapt at similar speeds but lower voltages &ndash; the ASRock profiles of course have to cater for all manner of voltage hungry CPUs. In terms of memory overclock, we were able to push our G.Skill DDR3-3000 memory kit above 3150 MHz, stable.</span></span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;">There are a few areas where ASRock need to improve.&nbsp; Firstly the jump in price will come as a bit of a shock &ndash; the $230 price point for the Z77 version of the OC Formula was perfect and Gigabyte are in a prime position to take up that market if the Z87M OC Formula (the micro-ATX version) does not capture the audience.&nbsp; At the new $328 price point, features like the superhydrophobic coating might seem like a gimmick, but I can see some extreme overclockers might be glad for this feature and would hope others follow (depending on the extra BOM [bill-of-materials] cost). The software from ASRock also needs a tweak &ndash; the new A-Tuning (called Formula Drive on OC Formula boards) is still a work-in-progress, and there are plenty of avenues through which to develop the software into something that can compete against the better software packages.</span></span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;">For most users looking at the Z87 OC Formula/AC, it might be worth just turning the head slightly to the micro-ATX version.&nbsp; At $130 cheaper it seems to offer an almost identical package (with slightly fewer controllers, no 802.11ac and no hydrophobic coating), ideal for single and dual GPU setups. That is, I fear, going to be the Z87 OC Formula&rsquo;s biggest challenge.</span></span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/7167/asrock-z87-oc-formulaac-review" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></span></p>