These SAS/SATA ports are hooked up to a LSI SAS 3008 PCI Express 3.0, 8-port, 12Gb/s SAS and SATA I/O controller and LSI 3x24R Expander that enabled the use of SAS or SATA SSDs. The Z87 contains 6 Intel SATA ports along with 16 SAS/SATA ports. Our report of the ASRock Z87 Extreme11/ac (pictured above), before the Z97, most definitely had to be ASRock’s shining moment, well, at least up until the most recent world record. In this above picture, we are looking at the Extreme 6 with both the Samsung XP941 (x4) and Plextor M6e M.2 (x2) SSDs installed.
The success of that board was due in part to the fact that it was the only motherboard in that round capable of providing full performance to the Samsung XP941 M.2 SSD, the combination of the Extreme6 and XP941 becoming a very popular pairing. While it just may be some time before we see M.2 SSDs taking advantage of the PCIe 3.0 interface, this most definitely speaks to innovation. Our report of the ASRock Z97 Extreme 6 (above) displayed the first motherboard in the world to host a PCIe 3.0 X4 M.2 connector, labeled the Ultra M.2, capable of up to 32GB/s transfer speeds, and then also a PCIe 2.0 X4 M.2 connector as well. Although we wouldn’t dare suggest that our thoughts had any influence whatsoever, ASRock’s line of boards today speak to things wer had dreamt of and last rounds Z97 Extreme6 was a great example of that. In fact, there was a point some time ago that we expressed our storage thoughts pretty loudly to several manufacturers, ASRock seemingly the only to take hold of our ideas in detail and create a line of communication that is a great working relationship today. Telling this story isn’t really fair without taking a quick look how ASRock got to this point, and their last three motherboard releases were shining examples of this. Today, we have that board in hand, it is playing host to a Intel 5960X (Haswell-E) CPU, we are running it at 4.5 Ghz with our Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4 memory pushed just a bit to 2666Mhz, and our base drive is the Intel P3700 800GB NVMe SSD running at above 2GB/s data speeds. 3 in the motherboard race, yet today could easily be justified as the top dog. The release of the X99 OC Formula is quite an accomplishment for ASRock, a company who some time ago might be lucky to be ranked No. This is a bold statement in the world of motherboard wars and perhaps a challenge by ASRock, to Gigabyte and Asus, to match that! But then again, maybe Nick figured he had something to prove if he was going to put his signature on this board… Nick Shih of ASRock did that with the new ASRock X99 OC Formula recently by overclocking the latest Intel i7-5960X chip to a previously unheard of 6620.73 MHz. 7.1 Ch audio is provided by a RealTek ALC1150 Codec.If you are going to introduce a new motherboard to the world, perhaps the best marketing feat one could achieve would be to set a new overclocking world record for that board close to the time of its release. The latter is controlled by an Intel Gbe LAN Chip for 10/100/1000 fast internet acces.
The back I/O panel sports a PS2 connector, two USB2.0 ports (black), eight USB3.0 ports, two HDMI (in/out) ports, one optical SPDIF Out port and a RJ45 LAN Port. Six of them are steered by the Intel Z87 chipset, the remaining four are handled by the ASMedia ASM1061 chipset.
Sadly the barbs are not exchangeable.Ī total of 10 SATA3 6Gb/s connectors are ready to feed your storage desires.
Secondly the option is present to integrate this heatsink into a watercooled loop. ASRock is the only one to include a small fan on the PWM heatsink. The socket is really clean, thus easy to insulate. For the voltage regulation ASRock utilises a 12 Power Phase Design made out of Premium Alloy Chokes (PAC) and Dual-Stack MOSFETs (DSM). The board is build on an 8 layer black PCB. With the applied coating this risk is seriously reduced.ĪSRock's serious business with this board is also reflected by it's 5 year Solid as a rock warranty (this of course under normal operating conditions :P) During extreme overclocking benching sessions with liquid nitrogen or sortlikes, there will always be the risk of condensation, making your setup unstable and in worst case scenerio even could kill some hardware. What makes this board so interesting for the community? One reason to purchase this board could be the Conformal Coating, which is applied to each Z87OC Formula board on the top and backside. The Formula has got an embedded PLX 8605 chip so Quad SLi is supported right out of the box. Take note that the mATX Formula picture is not actual size versus it's bigger brother. There's also a mATX model called the Z87M OC Formula. The Z87-OC Formula is ASRock's high end EATX format offering for the overclocking enthusiast.