The ASRock Z590 OC Formula Review: An Iconic Brand Revival
by Gavin Bonshor on September 10, 2021 9:00 AM ESTBoard Features
The ASRock Z590 OC Formula is an enthusiast-grade E-ATX motherboard primarily designed for extreme overclockers to push the boundaries of Intel's Rocket Lake and break world records. Although there are plenty of overclocking features such as an LN2 mode, specific LN2 overclocking profiles provided by Nick Shih, and others for gamers to use if they have an appropriate setup. The OC Formula has two memory slots with support for up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory, with advertised supported speeds of up to DDR4-6000 (OC).
ASRock includes plenty of PCIe 4.0 support including two full-length slots operating at x16 and x8/x8, with a third full-length slot electronically locked down to PCIe 3.0 x4, and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots. For storage, the OC Formula has three M.2 slots, including one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 and two PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots with both of these including support for SATA-based drives. Other storage options include eight SATA ports in total, with six of these coming from the chipset with RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 support, while the other two are powered by an ASMedia ASM1061 SATA controller.
Cooling options include eight 4-pin fan headers with one dedicated to a CPU fan, one for an optional CPU or water pump, with six headers designated to chassis fans. Users can also use the six 4-pin chassis fan headers for water pumps if they wish to do so.
| ASRock Z590 OC Formula WIFI EA-TX Motherboard | |||
| Warranty Period | 3 Years | ||
| Product Page | Link | ||
| Price | $550 | ||
| Size | E-ATX | ||
| CPU Interface | LGA1200 | ||
| Chipset | Intel Z590 | ||
| Memory Slots (DDR4) | Two DDR4 Supporting 64 GB Dual-Channel Up to DDR4-6000 |
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| Video Outputs | N/A | ||
| Network Connectivity | Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE Intel I219-V 1 GbE Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E |
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| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC1220A ESS Sabre 9218 DAC (Front Panel) |
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| PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 2 x PCIe 4.0 (x16, x8/x8) | ||
| PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH) | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 2 x PCIe 2.0 x1 |
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| Onboard SATA | Six, RAID 0/1/5/10 (Z590) Two (ASMedia ASM1061 |
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| Onboard M.2 | 1 x PCIe 4.0 x4 2 x PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA |
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| Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps) | N/A | ||
| USB 3.2 (20 Gbps) | 1 x USB Type-C (Front panel) | ||
| USB 3.2 (10 Gbps) | 3 x USB Type-A (Rear panel) 1 x USB Type-C (Rear panel |
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| USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) | 4 x USB Type-A (Rear panel) 4 x USB Type-A (Two headers) |
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| USB 2.0 | 4 x USB Type-A (Two headers) | ||
| Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin Motherboard 2 x 8-pin CPU |
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| Fan Headers | 1 x 4-pin CPU 1 x 4-pin CPU/Water Pump 6 x 4-pin Chassis |
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| IO Panel | 2 x Antenna Ports (Intel) 1 x PS/2 keyboard port 1 x PS/2 mouse port 1 x USB 3.2 G2 Type-C 3 x USB 3.2 G2 Type-A 4 x USB 3.2 G1 Type-A 2 x RJ45 (Intel) 5 x 3.5 mm audio jacks (Realtek) 1 x S/PDIF Optical output (Realtek) 1 x BIOS Flashback button 1 x BIOS Selection switch 1 x Clear CMOS button |
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ASRock includes an internal header for users looking to add Thunderbolt 4, while a combination of front panel headers and rear panel USB offers plenty of variation. The OC Formula does include USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C support via a front panel header, while on the rear it includes one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, three USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports. Also on the rear panel is pair of PS/2 peripheral ports for legacy mice and keyboards, while a clear CMOS button, a BIOS Flashback button, and a dual BIOS selector switch is also present.
Focusing on networking support, ASRock includes two Ethernet ports with one being controlled by an Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controller, with the other being powered by an Intel I219-V Gigabit controller. For wireless connectivity, there's Intel's latest AX210 Wi-Fi 6E CNVI which also allows users to connect BT 5.2 devices.
Test Bed
With some of the nuances with Intel's Rocket Lake processors, our policy is to see if the system gives an automatic option to increase the power limits of the processor. If it does, we select the liquid cooling option. If it does not, we do not change the defaults. Adaptive Boost Technology is disabled by default.
| Test Setup | |||
| Processor | Intel Core i9-11900K, 125 W, $374 8 Cores, 16 Threads 3.5 GHz (5.3 GHz Turbo) |
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| Motherboard | ASRock Z590 OC Formula (BIOS 1.40) | ||
| Cooling | Corsair iCue H150i Elite Capellix 360 mm AIO | ||
| Power Supply | Corsair HX850 80Plus Platinum 850 W | ||
| Memory | G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 CL 14-14-14-34 2T (2 x 8 GB) | ||
| Video Card | MSI GTX 1080 (1178/1279 Boost) | ||
| Hard Drive | Crucial MX300 1TB | ||
| Case | Corsair Crystal 680X | ||
| Operating System | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit: Build 20H2 | ||
We must also thank the following:
| Hardware Providers for CPU and Motherboard Reviews | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
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| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Noctua Coolers |
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20 Comments
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Oxford Guy - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
'ASRock's in-house overclocker'Salesman.
Midland_Dog - Saturday, September 11, 2021 - link
yeah no, hes there k|ngp|n the marketing comes with the scores.fatal1ty was more marketing, just used to win games so we will buy his name lmao. to be fair the fatal1ty killer z97x was an awesome board, very very good at ddr3 oc
MDD1963 - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
At least we are not reviewing Z590 mainboards only 1 month from Z690 launch! (it's a full 2.5 months away yet!) :)Slash3 - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
That would be the EVGA Z590 Dark review.Midland_Dog - Saturday, September 11, 2021 - link
i appreciate the effort, but this review is quite misguided in a number of ways1) you didnt get 5.3ghz stable, it scored lower than default UEFI settings
2) any board with a decent vrm will hit the same all core OC
3) this board is for memory overclocking, theres no doing an OC segment unless you are going to show just how good it is at 1DPC with Samsung B-Die
now im not a fan of pointless criticism, so im going to try and make this constructive, test this tier of board with a known cpu at its known frequency (5.2ghz for your 11900k sample, it negatively scaled at 5.3ghz, hence a regression and instability) and then from there use a single kit of high binned B-Die to compare the boards. Going from DJR (maxed out) to B-Die (maxed out) is usually a bigger gain than an all core OC
regards, Midland_Dog
defaultluser - Monday, September 13, 2021 - link
Yeah, her number o f subbrands under Asrock right now is an absolute mind-boggling 9! While most of the cheapest enthusiast boards they sell will get you similar performance.This entire gimmick of high-end boards like this is so you can pretend you're going to be a Great Online Influencer (when there's already a saturated lineup out there with it's names plastered to products like these.)
If anything, think half the sub-brands for every major motherboard brand could die overnight, and board sales numbers would continue unabated - this is just an excuse to triple the price some idiot will pay for a motherboard
Midland_Dog - Thursday, September 16, 2021 - link
if you think you are going to run 4000mhz + with cr1 on a 2dpc board you are mistaken. my z390 strix can do 3600mhz MAX with cr1, barely does 4000mhz. this board will happily do 5000mhz cr1 if you know what you are doing, so no, unless its an ITX board it wont oc nearly as well as this. like your talking a solid 15-20GB/s left on the table at 2dpcLinustechtips12 - Thursday, September 16, 2021 - link
I'm gonna be honest the actual design for the board would make an amazing cyberpunk 2077 theme setup.Zayne10 - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
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