ASRock Z77 OC Formula Pro Reviews

The ASRock Z77 OC Formula is a very good motherboard; it however is not the best that we have come into contact with. Given its $239.99 price point with Free Prime Shipping and its very rich enthusiast oriented feature set, we do very much like it. Quite frankly, it is the first ASRock motherboard that we have come into contact with that we would consider putting into our own builds. Just give it some air flow and it will do a good job for you.

Overall at $240 this board feels like a solid bit of kit. The main comparison should be to the $180 boards which we gave a Bronze Award back in July. Overall the ASRock looks nicer, has more features, better OC and fan controls, as well as great software and in-the box contents. As a reviewer I feel the price difference is easily justified. As a competitive overclocker, the ASRock has a lot of tools to progress into Ivy Bridge overclocking for the novice and veteran alike, and as a gamer some of those options will push the frames a little more than before. ASRock have achieved a product win, and the Z77 OC Formula is the board to kick start a board design revolution back at ASRock HQ. As a result, I have no qualms in offering the ASRock Z77 OC Formula the AnandTech Editors' Choice Silver award. The ASRock Z77 OC Formula is fun to play with, well designed in terms of hardware, BIOS and software, and is priced just right for single and dual GPU setups. I got great overclocks, and with better cooling much more would be possible. This is simply the best ASRock product I have ever tested.

When we started reviewing ASRock Z77 OC Formula mainboard, we weren’t prejudiced against it. ASRock mainboards are currently among the best in the market, but we were still somewhat alerted, to be honest. We have been witness to several situations when the manufacturer’s intention to stand out and load their product with everything at once (and more than the competition has) had a negative outcome. They would come up with a multi-functional model, but most of these features would be very difficult to work with, and some of them would be absolutely unnecessary for the majority of users being none other but a fantasy of the marketing folks. Luckily, this isn’t the case with ASRock Z77 OC Formula. When some users hear that it is a mainboard for overclocking and records, they may feel that it isn’t a good choice for them since they are not interested in setting records or overclocking their system, and may decide to look for something simpler. Wrong decision! ASRock Z77 OC Formula is not a specific or very niche product that will be of interest to very few professionals out there, but an absolutely normal mainboard with excellent functionality, rich accessories bundle and excellent electron components base. If at some point you decide to give it a shot in the overclocking community, you will have all the richest functionality at your fingertips. Yes, you will have to pay for superb additional features, but even though this mainboard is priced above average, the price is still quite reasonable. This board is fast, relatively energy-efficient, almost completely flawless and boasts a ton of indisputable advantages. If I were to describe this product with one phrase I would say: this is the mainboard I want for my system.

After recently looking at ASRock's Z77 Extreme 4 I found that ASRock had indeed improved its stock with a board that overclocked well and could be had for a remarkably low price point. You usually cannot get much better than that. ASRock's growing fan base is surely growing through the efforts to bring a good solid product to market. Stepping up a few notches in price point and feature set brings us to the Z77 OC Formula, ASRock's entry into the extreme overclocking market. Support and design work has been done on this board by ASRock's own in-house overclocking legend Nick Shih. Its feature set is decidedly slated towards a significantly upgraded PCB, power delivery system and the use of the Twin-Power cooling system to deliver upper end overclocking performance.

Ultimately, we think you'll achieve higher clocks with more ease on the Sabertooth. No doubt the features ASRock has included will be a boon to hardcore overclockers using exotic cooling solutions, such as liquid nitrogen. Indeed, records have been set with the Z77 OC Formula. But back in mainstream overclocking land, that's of little value. As an alternative to a £300 Asus RoG board, ASRock is undoubtedly onto something. But for us, Asus' Sabertooth still rules the roost.

So, what can I really say about the ASRock Z77 OC Formula? Really, not that much. The packaging is simply phenomenal, making an impact like no other. There are several unique features on the board itself, many of which will affect your system's ability to overclock. It comes at a very reasonable price considering its top-shelf design and added SATA ports. The software package is like no other and doesn't add much, if anything at all, to the price. One of these ASRock Z77 OC Formula boards even holds the world record for 3770K frequency. Other than those things, there's really not a lot that stands out. Honestly, what sits wrong with me are the colors used, which very few components will match. Call me a hipster if you will, but I like my rigs to match, and with the huge number of devices available on the market today, being able to pick color-matching parts should not be much of an issue. But with this board, it WILL be an issue. Do you pick gold? Or yellow? Or black?

The ASRock Z77 OC Formula is targeted to the sophisticated overclocking enthusiast, who wants to play with a system based on an “Ivy Bridge” CPU. The most important features of this motherboard are “under the hood.” The voltage regulator circuit, for example, uses a digital design (which is better than the hybrid design commonly used by ASRock), three different kinds of capacitors for better filtering, high-end MOSFETs, and supports liquid cooling solution. The board has an EPS12V and an ATX12V connector at the same time, allowing your CPU to pull more current from the power supply. The product uses an eight-layer printed circuit board, which is more expensive to manufacture but reduces electromagnetic interference (EMI). All of these features were added in order to increase the probability of a higher overclocking. The Z77 OC Formula is not shy on additional features. It has three PCI Express x16 slots (x16/x0/x4 or x8/x8/x4; the first two slots are 3.0 and the third slot is 2.0), six SATA-600 ports and eight USB 3.0 ports, and uses a PEX8605 switch chip to make sure the bandwidth won’t drop when you have several peripherals transferring data at the same time.