ASRock Z77 OC Formula - Intel Z77 Chipset Goes High-End

Temperature & Power Consumption

Temperature

The active cooling of the VRM heatsink of the ASRock Z77 OC Formula failed to prove its worth during our temperature tests. We expected it to be lower than the boards without any cooling fans at their VRM heatsinks. Sure it came out as one of the lowest in our comparison, but a 0.5 degree Celsius improvement wasn't what we were expecting when comparing against the MSI Z77 MPower. It's chipset heatsink was rather warm as well, though nothing unusual judging by our comparisons.

Our take is that the ASRock Z77 OC Formula was made to be paired with a water cooling setup, hence the heatsink design isn't the most efficient when you consider a pure air-cooled setup like what we've used it for.

Power Consumption

The ASRock Z77 OC Formula is rather energy-efficient; in fact, compared to the rest of the regular high-end Intel Z77 boards, it is actually came in third overall during our load test.