ASRock Z170M OC Formula Motherboard Review | Tek Syndicate

Level1Techs
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Specs:

  • OC Formula Kit : Power / Connector / Cooling
  • Supports 6th Generation Intel® Core Processors (Socket 1151)
  • Digi Power, 14 Power Phase design
  • Supports Dual Channel DDR4 4500+(OC)
  • Hyper BCLK Engine Integrated
  • AMD Quad CrossFireX™, NVIDIA® Quad SLI™
  • 7.1 CH HD Audio (Realtek ALC1150 Audio Codec), Supports Purity Sound™ 3 & DTS Connect
  • 8 SATA3, 2 SATA Express, 1 Ultra M.2
  • 2 USB 3.1 10Gb/s (1 Type-A + 1 Type-C), 6 USB 3.0 (2 Front, 4 Rear), 6 USB 2.0 (4 Front, 2 Rear)
  • V-Probe, Rapid OC, PCIe ON/OFF, XMP Switch, Slow Mode Switch, LN2 Mode Switch
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://teksyndicate.com/videos/asrock-z170m-oc-formula-motherboard-review
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I don't have this board but I have the AsRock Z97 Extreme6 with a SM951 in the same M.2 position as that board has it. I also have a Gtx 980 Ti FTW edition that dumps heat right onto that drive. I never have seen it go higher than 62c, but I also have 3 intake fans and 2 exhaust in a fractal design arc r2, and 2 of the 3 intake, plus the 2 exhaust, ramp up with the graphics card as temperatures rise. I can see my graphics card hit 82c regularly while playing AAA games but the intake and exhaust is good enough that the M.2 doesn't get too hot. These drives can hit 110c while writing but if anything the downdraft of the FTW ACX 2.0 Cooler helps to combat this. I did try to put copper heat sinks on my drive but the heat sinks I bought did not fit under the massive cooler on my GFX card. If I got something a bit lower profile it may work but I haven't tried yet.

TLDR; If your intake and exhaust is moving a lot of air through the case it isn't really an issue to have a hot running M.2 in that slot even with a rather large volume of hot air being produced by a graphics card directly above it.

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The retro hype is getting out of control.
Mainboards without RGB LEDs...
What is this? 2014?

I would actually like to see the M.2 heat test. I would assume that even hot GPU air is still able to pick up some heat from the drive. I guess the worst case scenario would be a blower style card and bad airflow in the case.

1 Like
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Additional detailed VRM Information.

Main VRM.

  • PWM: IR35201 8+0 phase flex mode pwm, which in case of this particular board runs in 6+2 phase mode.
    4 Phases doubled to 8 pwm phases for VCC.
    2 phases doubled to 4 pwm phase for IGPU.
    6x IR3598 phase doublers / drivers.
    1 phase for VCCSA and 1 Phase for VCCio.

  • Mosfets: Texas instruments CSD87350Q5D Nexfet powerpacks.
    High-side and Low-side mosfet in a single package rated at 40A max output,
    and 25A output at 90% efficiency.

  • Inductors: 60A Blackwing chokes.

  • Capacitors: 12K sollid caps + Tantalum caps.

Memory VR.

  • PWM: UPi uP1674P 2 phases.
  • Mosfets: 2x Ti CSD87350Q5D same as cpu and igpu.

B-clock generator: IDT6v41542NLG.

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Great review by the way. ☺

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love my Z97M oc formula

almost went with 170 board but got 97 on the cheap