Every motherboard manufacturer makes big claims about reliability, but ASRock now backs those claims with a five-year warranty. The last two years of that warranty might not be a big deal to anyone who switches platforms after a couple of architectural evolutions, but the potential cost implications to a motherboard maker could still be huge unless the board meets its reliability expectations.
The I/O panel features HDMI pass-through for a second device, enabling monitor sharing, along with a CLR_CMOS button and eight USB 3.0 ports. HDMI pass-through is also available on ASRock's cheaper boards though, so we need to look inside to see what makes the Z87 OC Formula special.
Support for four-way graphics arrays would really be a standout feature if it were real. Instead, ASRock connects three of those slots in the CPU-supported x8-x4-x4 configuration. The top slot drops to 8x when the middle one is filled, and the middle slot drops to four lanes when the third slot is filled. The fourth slot is an orphan, attached to four of the Z87 Express PCH's lanes.
You might expect that a x4 slot and three x1 links (including mini-PCIe) would only leave room for one add-in device controller, since the PCH only offers eight second-gen lanes. ASRock gets around this with a moderately-priced PLX PEX8608 eight-lane PCIe 2.0 switch, circumventing most of the lane-sharing issues found on mid-priced motherboards. It enables two additional SATA 6Gb/s and an extra USB 3.0 controller with all slots enabled, and likely contributes around $15 to the board’s $295 price tag.
The mini-PCIe slot is where we’d find a wireless controller on the –AC version of this board. We could probably find something else to put there (a wireless controller of our own, perhaps). The slot makes good use of the space between PCIe x16 slots, which would otherwise be completely consumed by the cooling system of a typical high-end graphics card.

The Z87 OC Formula include ten internal SATA cables, a couple of drive power adapters, a flexible SLI bridge, Gelid thermal paste, and ASRock’s special USB 3.0 bay adapter with integrated 2.5” drive tray. In fact, ASRock is so proud of its installation kit that most of these items come packed in a velvet bag.
- Four Z87 Express Motherboards Under $300, Reviewed
- ASRock Z87 OC Formula
- Z87 OC Formula Special Features
- Z87 OC Formula Software
- Z87 OC Formula Firmware
- Asus Maximus VI Formula
- Maximus VI Formula Special Features
- Maximus VI Formula Software
- Maximus VI Formula Firmware
- Gigabyte Z87X-UD5H
- Z87X-UD5H Software
- Z87X-UD5H Firmware
- MSI Z87 MPower Max
- Z87 MPower Max Special Features
- Z87 MPower Max Firmware
- Test Settings And Benchmarks
- Results: Synthetic Benchmarks
- Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: File Compression
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking
- Picking The Best Z87 Motherboard Under $300


Always favoring Asus, ASRock and Gigabyte ~
No matter how less differences between each board ~
MSI Motherboard , the reviewer never have comment ~
I am a MSI brand fans , I admitted it , but the reviewer seems like ignored MSI's afford.
Always favoring Asus, ASRock and Gigabyte ~
No matter how less differences between each board ~
MSI Motherboard , the reviewer never have comment ~
I am a MSI brand fans , I admitted it , but the reviewer seems like ignored MSI's afford.
Always favoring Asus, ASRock and Gigabyte ~
No matter how less differences between each board ~
MSI Motherboard , the reviewer never have comment ~
I am a MSI brand fans , I admitted it , but the reviewer seems like ignored MSI's afford.
After working in retail for a while you tend to see trends with motherboard manufactures. From what I have seen, Asus tends to have the overall most stable quality with the least amount of issues and very decent support for BIOS updates for newer CPU support beyond most.
ASRock has upped their game in recent years and has put more quality into their boards but they also have a lot of features much like Asus since they were once a part of ASUSTek and separated although Asus did put in a bid to buy them back but I haven't seen any word from them.
Gigabyte is a hit or miss. Their high end seems very good but their low end sometimes lacks.
Then there is MSI. I am not a fan of MSI. The TwinFRZR branded GPUs had a lot of issues, mainly the fans going out very fast. But I think there are two components that kill them for me the most. One was the massive heat issues their X58 boards had with the chipsets on a large number of their boards. We had a X58m from MSI that was idling at 58-60c for the chipset in BIOS doing nothing and we RMAed it. Came back with the same problem. Due to this heat most of the MSI X58 builds we did would lose SATA and come back sometimes on reboot. Had one customers machine that we went from a ATX X58 to a X58M and finally swapped them to an Asus which the chipset idled around 35c which is normal.
The second for me was the BIOS updates on a lot of their boards. Now I can't say on their high end but recently MSI stopped allowing you to update through the BIOS and instead only offered a Windows based app to update and that is just bad. If you bought a MSI with a CPU and it didn't support it, rather then being able to drop an older CPU in and flash it, you have to do an entire build including Windows installation to do it which is a waste of time. USB via BIOS is the best method and now Asus even has the ability to do it sans CPU so if you bought a CPU that needs a BIOS update, no biggie.
That's what I see of the brands. I tend to stick to Asus as they have always worked for me but I have experienced a lot and the article is fine. Its looks at the important features, as the majority of the software is not needed anyways and just bloat, and grades it from that.
What I want to know is why a ROG Asus board has RealTek sound instead of Asus own sound. RealTek is fine for those who don't care but for real sound Asus/Creative offer way better solutions. Then again it is appealing to overclockers mostly.
Always favoring Asus, ASRock and Gigabyte ~
No matter how less differences between each board ~
MSI Motherboard , the reviewer never have comment ~
I am a MSI brand fans , I admitted it , but the reviewer seems like ignored MSI's afford.
After working in retail for a while you tend to see trends with motherboard manufactures. From what I have seen, Asus tends to have the overall most stable quality with the least amount of issues and very decent support for BIOS updates for newer CPU support beyond most.
ASRock has upped their game in recent years and has put more quality into their boards but they also have a lot of features much like Asus since they were once a part of ASUSTek and separated although Asus did put in a bid to buy them back but I haven't seen any word from them.
Gigabyte is a hit or miss. Their high end seems very good but their low end sometimes lacks.
Then there is MSI. I am not a fan of MSI. The TwinFRZR branded GPUs had a lot of issues, mainly the fans going out very fast. But I think there are two components that kill them for me the most. One was the massive heat issues their X58 boards had with the chipsets on a large number of their boards. We had a X58m from MSI that was idling at 58-60c for the chipset in BIOS doing nothing and we RMAed it. Came back with the same problem. Due to this heat most of the MSI X58 builds we did would lose SATA and come back sometimes on reboot. Had one customers machine that we went from a ATX X58 to a X58M and finally swapped them to an Asus which the chipset idled around 35c which is normal.
The second for me was the BIOS updates on a lot of their boards. Now I can't say on their high end but recently MSI stopped allowing you to update through the BIOS and instead only offered a Windows based app to update and that is just bad. If you bought a MSI with a CPU and it didn't support it, rather then being able to drop an older CPU in and flash it, you have to do an entire build including Windows installation to do it which is a waste of time. USB via BIOS is the best method and now Asus even has the ability to do it sans CPU so if you bought a CPU that needs a BIOS update, no biggie.
That's what I see of the brands. I tend to stick to Asus as they have always worked for me but I have experienced a lot and the article is fine. Its looks at the important features, as the majority of the software is not needed anyways and just bloat, and grades it from that.
What I want to know is why a ROG Asus board has RealTek sound instead of Asus own sound. RealTek is fine for those who don't care but for real sound Asus/Creative offer way better solutions. Then again it is appealing to overclockers mostly.
Actually myself currently using MSI P45 Platinum, I dont know their new product quality, but my current motherboard work for me for 5-6 years 24 hours operation still running well ~
Even without driver on windows 8 still working well after used windows 8 for sometime ~
I am going to upgrade this to Z87 Mpower in next year ~
Btw my current build by my brother ~
I going to build another setup based on MSI Z87 Mpower ~
My Brother can flash the BIOS well with MSI Live Update ~
It work well ~
Now my setup running stable with latest BIOS ~
Always favoring Asus, ASRock and Gigabyte ~
No matter how less differences between each board ~
MSI Motherboard , the reviewer never have comment ~
I am a MSI brand fans , I admitted it , but the reviewer seems like ignored MSI's afford.
Thanks for correcting me ~
I also didnt read well the review ~
Btw I really proud of being a MSI user ~
Btw I really proud of being a MSI user ~
Following is % of 5 Stars/% of 1 Star / # of Reviews on Newegg for each board:
ASUS MAXIMUS VI FORMULA: 59%/9%/22 Reviews
ASRock Z87 OC Formula: 75%/25%/4 Reviews (not enough reviews to make a determination)
MSI Z87 MPOWER Max: 60%/8%/25 Reviews
GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD5H: 53%/32%/19 Reviews
Both the Asus and MSI boards have great feedback scores. The 1-Star % rating tends to be in the low-to-mid teens for motherboards, so these two are showing favorably. The jury is still out on the ASRock, as more reviews are needed to draw a conclusion. I'd question a Gigabyte purchase at this point due to what looks to be higher than normal quality issues.
Following is % of 5 Stars/% of 1 Star / # of Reviews on Newegg for each board:
ASUS MAXIMUS VI FORMULA: 59%/9%/22 Reviews
ASRock Z87 OC Formula: 75%/25%/4 Reviews (not enough reviews to make a determination)
MSI Z87 MPOWER Max: 60%/8%/25 Reviews
GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD5H: 53%/32%/19 Reviews
Both the Asus and MSI boards have great feedback scores. The 1-Star % rating tends to be in the low-to-mid teens for motherboards, so these two are showing favorably. The jury is still out on the ASRock, as more reviews are needed to draw a conclusion. I'd question a Gigabyte purchase at this point due to what looks to be higher than normal quality issues.
I would not base my overall decision on newegg & Amazon reviews. I would rather trust professional reviews.
I want SATA Express AND USB 3.1.
I will build my new system AFTER above tech is available plus the 20 nm graphic cards plus the new Intel Broadwell cpu.
I know I have to be patient and wait, but I almost smell them.
That would be a sweet and fast system.