The Board - Layout

The ASRock Z170M OC Formula, mATX in size, features ASRock's usual OC Formula color scheme, black and yellow. Because most other OC-centric products are bigger, some parts have been fitted to the motherboard's backside, so some care must be taken when installing it.


The socket area at the front is fairly open and ready for most cooling solutions. Inside, the socket is fully populated, ready for high CPU clocks.


There are but two DIMM slots here on the ASRock Z170M OC Formula in order to aid in clocking DIMMs to the max, although this does limit how much memory you can have installed. However, since there are now 16 GB DIMMs available, you can still easily fit 32 GB of RAM to the board, which is more than enough for most uses. There are three x16 PCIe 3.0 expansion slots which split into x8/x8 or x8/x8/x4. There is also a 32 Gb/s M.2 slot between them.


The rear I/O panel is fitted with many USB ports; USB 3.1 Type-C is also included. There are also a clear CMOS switch and a PS/2 port at the back. Everything else is fairly standard for the platform, including the HDMI and DisplayPort plugs. SATA connectivity includes eight ports in total; six ports are provided by the Intel Z170 PCH and two additional ports are provided by an external ASMedia controller.


The board's bottom edge has the normal compliment of pin headers on the left, while on the right I found a POST code display, dual BIOSes, and a switch to choose which BIOS is in use. Out the factory, both BIOS chips feature the same BIOS.