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On the main screen, we see that the current version is P1.61. What is interesting is that this version does not appear on ASRock's page for the board; there is a jump from 1.50 to 1.90. I did not apply an update, preferring to let sleeping dogs lie when it comes to otherwise-functioning boards, unless there is something obvious or particularly valuable to be gained.
I found the Pentium's RAM speed actually depends on the mboard. On H chipsets it won't go above 1400. However I've dropped my G3258 into a Z board and 1600 and higher were available. Why anyone would put a Pentium in a Z board for daily use is beyond me. I only did it to check my Pentium's silicon ceiling.16388990 said:The G3258 cannot run the RAM at DDR3-1600; DDR3-1400 is indeed as fast as it gets.
A higher setting than 4.2 is available, but 4.4 appears in a hazardous-looking red font. Being somewhat risk-averse, I just left it at 4.2. Eric Van der Linden is looking at the "Z" overclocking boards, and is pushing higher clocks.
If you want more than 16GB, you'll need four DIMM slots. Or, you get to start with 2x4GB and add another 2x4GB later to get 16GB without having to discard your prior RAM.
If you want to overclock a "K" chip, this won't be the board you buy. Otherwise, it is very hard to beat this one if you might want any of its other features, like RAID.
I did notice that one chart got entered as "Haven" rather than "Heaven."
This is actually a combination of CPU and mboard. A G3258 in a Z board doesn't limit the RAM frequency.16390910 said:Readers should keep in mind that when using a Haswell/Haswell-R CPU that doesn't have a limited IMC (i.e. the G3258's 1333 limitation), Intel XMP 1.2 and 1.3 are fully supported
You're forgetting that overclocking is a mix of hardware and software. This board looks to have the same hardware as the Z97M Pro4, but the Z board has a lot more settings available in the UEFI. Yes, the H97 can probably get a decent everyday OC, but if you want to fine tune everything, you want a Z board's better UEFI.16390910 said:Lastly, while this 4- or 4+1-phase power delivery design certainly won't allow "to the gills" K-series overclocking high-end 12-phase designs are capable of delivering, it is capable of overclocking those CPUs. Stating that it's not "the board to buy" for K-series overclocking is an oversimplified blanket claim, while a line like "has the ability to overclock the unlocked Pentium G3258" is a very limiting claim. Writing like that is bit too muddy and lacking specified details I expect within a review here.
I didn't take it that Joe was trying to lead readers to think this board can't take a K chip. Indeed the final verdict says this board can likely fulfill all your needs and then some, so long as you're not trying to overclock to the gills. That is quite true. Mild to moderate overclocking would likely be just fine.16391584 said:I didn't forget it's a mix at all. Even the "dud" 4670K and 4690K CPUs will typically hit ~4.2GHz at 1.2V on just about any Z87 or Z97 board, while the choice ones can hit 4.5 to 4.6 GHz at the exact same voltage on the exact same motherboard the dud couldn't. These 84/88W CPUs are fully-supported by the initial BIOS/UEFI release of this H97M-Pro4 board. Even the 95W Xeon E1285v4 Broadwell is supported with an update. The chokes and MOSFETs under the heatsink could be different than the Z97M-Pro4, but the rest of the circuitry is identical, so...
If Joe wants to send me the board, I'd be happy to try this. Indeed, this was one of the nagging thoughts I had while reviewing the Z Pro4. Why would someone spend more on this that the H97? The only answer I could come with is the better UEFI and more settings. Soderstrom also reports that some lower-level boards ( and you're perfectly right that while I expect the VRM to be identical between these two, I'm not certain ) have problems running a 4790K at stock clocks due to power management limitations. I'd like to prove if that's the case or not.16391584 said:Yeah. I also want to see proof K-series overclocking on this board is truly as limited as the author surely desires to lead readers to believe.
Whoops, sorry about that. I had both tabs open at the time and must have copied the wrong one.16391584 said:P.S. You linked the H97M-Pro4 article, not the Z97M-Pro4 one. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asrock-z97m-pro4-motherboard,4180.html
...Pros: 4 DIMM slots...
Would I actually want four slots for a dual channel architecture?
