amazon ASRock Z97 Pro4 reviews
Overclocking is a very fertile piece of land, giving it much higher performance than the default of many products. However, to exploit, users also need good hardware. Series 9 Intel witnessed a major revamp of motherboard vendors. A lot of good, beautiful, quality products launched at cheaper prices, helping users to get back to the OC movement is a must. Today I would like to introduce ASRock Z97 Pro4 – a cheap product but quality is not cheap.
Box smash & accessories
Beautiful cover On the box printed full information about components, technology is equipped for the product.
Design & Components
Compared to previous Pro4 Series motherboards, the Z97 Pro4 has a lot of design and layout changes. The first is the abandonment of the traditional black look is very unattractive. Instead, ASRock combines blue for heat dissipation and two memory slots. Water is black now – color is very popular with gamers and users – instead of less attractive brown.
Despite the low-end of the ASRock Z97, the Z97 Pro4 is fully equipped with a mosfet radiator and chipset. Two pieces of radiator are angular shape, as beautiful as the product range.
If you notice that ASRock has drawn experience from H97 Killer: cooled chipset radiator rejuvenated. As a result, this area has more space to set up, all SATA ports are rotated, convenient for wired & in-the-box access. This is the only Z97 motherboard that costs less than $ 200 to have all SATA ports turned horizontally.
In addition to changes in form, the ASRock 9 series is also equipped with a much more rigid Sapphire board. For Z97 dedicated overclocking this is very special meaning when carrying heavy heat sinks.
The most notable point is the Z97 Pro4 has up to six power phases – the most among the Z97 mains at the same price range. As for the power distribution mechanism of Haswell and Broadwell, six power phases work much better than Ivy. If using removable VGA can be comfortable OC is not afraid of power shortage. Also the presence of source filter choke is also a plus point.
The mosfet radiator is relatively thin. It is also difficult to ask anything more in this segment.
Two low-impedance mosfets control the power for each phase.
Right on the socket area there are 3 fan plugs, ready for the most heat dissipation.
Four RAM slots blending black-blue cool eyes, powered by two phases.
Although not equipped with the sound of the game as well as the sound filter is also dedicated Audio Nichicon. The Z97 Pro4’s sound chip is ALC892, which supports 7.1 audio.
The rear connection port area has up to 8 USB ports, free of peripherals. There are also 3 basic output ports and still port PS / 2 for anyone who likes to play mech-key.
Two radiators mosfet and chipset look pretty sharp.
New Bios Interface
The UEFI Bios interface of the Z97 Pro4 has been upgraded to a much more beautiful interface and, in particular, raised to Full HD, looks sharper. The point I have enjoyed so far in ASRock’s UEFI Bios is that the items are clearly separated by science, so tuning is easy to find. There are 7 main tabs:
where can you get a ASRock Z97 Pro4 online
ASRock ATX DDR3 1333 LGA 1150 Motherboards Z97 PRO4: Buy it now
ASRock Z97M PRO4 DDR3 1333 LGA 1150 mATX Motherboards: Buy it now
Overclock with existing profiles
Like most Z series motherboards, the Z97 Pro4 also has some overclocking profiles, including four levels: 4.0 GHz; 4.2 GHz; 4.4 GHz and 4.6 GHz. The advantage of these profiles is that they are stable but the voltage is often higher than necessary.
Continue to overclock further
Even higher OC is relatively easy, just select the available 4.6 GHz profile, increase the multiplier and find the appropriate voltage. The other settings needed profiles are always available (quite standard).
Raise to 4.7 GHz, 1.3 volts: run delicious, but this is the top for the Corsair H100i when the maximum temperature up to 98 degrees.
– Bonus added Super PI 4.8 GHz with voltage 1,335v. The game stops here.
Conclude
The ASRock Z97 Pro4 is a very good product. Main is fully equipped with the most basic user experience required in a Z97: delicious form, ATX size, full heat dissipation, enough power phases, good components, all SATA ports rotate There is an M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb / s port, multiple USB ports …
For OC capability, Z97 Pro4 controls Vdrop very well, not dropping any. At 4.7 GHz mosfet stress does not have the phenomenon of being hot, touch only warm warm. That means the 6 power phases of the Z97 Pro4 can exploit the full potential of the OC radiator less than $100. The only point except that BCLK received 99.94 MHz not 100.
Up until now, the Series 9 marked ASRock’s leap in design versus its past products. If you are not too hungry for gaming stuff like the Killer LAN, Sound ALC1150, the heat sink, SLI … then the Z97 Pro4 is worth the price.
Main manufacturers’ overclocker profiles are available for “lazy” users, including 4.0 GHz; 4.2 GHz; 4.4 GHz; 4.6 GHz. With these profiles overclocking does not require the user to be a pro, as long as you have a good heatsink.