Z87-M8 Motherboard Firmware
| ASRock Z87-M8 O/C Settings | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Clock | 90-300 MHz (0.1 MHz) | DRAM Voltage | 1.05-2.40 V (5 mV) |
| CPU Multiplier | 8.0-120x (1x) | CAS Latency | 4-15 Cycles |
| DRAM Data Rates | 800-4000 (200/266.6 MHz) | tRCD | 3-20 Cycles |
| CPU Vcore | 0.80-2.00 V (1 mV) | tRP | 4-15 Cycles |
| PCH Voltage | 0.98-1.32 V (5 mV) | tRAS | 9-63 Cycles |
Thermal limits hampered my overclocking efforts. Theoretically, if there was an unlocked dual-core processor, we'd probably have more room to play. ASRock's Z87-M8 motherboard offers all of the settings most overclockers need to push either the limits of their CPU and DRAM or thermal limits of the entire system.
The easiest way to start overclocking on this ASRock board is to choose from a built-in profile that approximates your goal. From there, fine tune. I picked the 4.2 GHz profile and gradually dropped core voltage until I eliminated thermal throttling. Stability at 1.060 V necessitated a step back to 4.1 GHz.
Though the board supports XMP and manual voltage controls, our memory didn’t respond well to increased voltage. Unable to produce a DRAM overclock, I instead found added performance by decreasing timings from the stock 9-9-9-24 to 8-9-8-21.