14 DAY TRIAL // We dare say that after being subjected to the mind-bending attributes of the 40-Phase Z77 Wolverine and ASUS' Zeus dual-GPU motherboard, a mainboard that is high-end but without weird gimmicks is almost a relief.
ASRock is the company providing us with that relief. One of the products on display at its Computex 2012 booth in Taipei, Taiwan, is the Z77 OC Formula.
Being equipped with the Z77 chipset, it is obviously supposed to act as a basis for building a PC involving an Intel Ivy Bridge, 22nm CPU (central processing unit).
It even has the full range of features that overclockers will love, such as a strong VRM circuitry and active cooling on the CPU VRM area.
Speaking of VRM, ASRock decided on a 12+4 phase DigitPower design, with high-current chokes, durable MOSFTEs (even more so thanks to the aforementioned cooler) and tantalum capacitors.
That said, the company made sure there were enough expansion slots too, in case owners wanted to set loose in terms of graphics.
Two PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots are present (x8/x8 mode), along with a PCI Express 2.0 x16 (x4) slot and two PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots.
Moving on, ASRock decided four DDR3 memory slots were sufficient for the Z77 OC Formula, so while G.Skill's 3 GHz kit will work here, the 96 GB one definitely won't.
The spec sheet continues with storage options, and prospective buyers shouldn't find a reason for disappointment. ASRock outfitted the platform with six SATA III ports (SATA 6.0 Gbps) and four SATA II ports (SATA 3.0 Gbps).
As for connectivity and I/O, the product features 8-channel HD audio, HDMI output (no other display connectors exist) and Gigabit Ethernet.
We have no price or availability date to impart, but we are certain quite a bit of money will have to change hands when making this purchase. Setting aside what we have specified so far, ASRock also tossed in consolidated voltage measurement points, UEFI BIOS, Xfast 555 and a dehumidifier.