Asrock Z87M Extreme4
Asrock seems to be on a roll with their Z87 mobos, having brought affordable o'cing to the masses as was seen with the previous Z87E-ITX. And they have done it again with thieir budget mATX model, the Z87M Extreme4.
For almost all endusers,
there is no real need for any up-market (read as expensive) mobos such as R-Oh-G N-Power Snigga OC-Farce Fatty Formula models to achieve truly usable real world overclocking performance.
Specs
ASRock > Z87M Extreme4
Likes
• 8 power phase
• Latest Realtek sound ALC1150
• Intel GLAN
• Impressive overclocking capability
At the same BIOS settings, it can achieve the same exact 4.5 GHz overclocks reached by the full ATX models using xvid4PSP as the real world full load stress test.
★ Asrock Z87M Extreme4 | i5-4670K | 8GB KVR1866 | NiCu HK 3.0-GTX360 | HD4600 iGPU | TT Smart 630W ★
Cinebench 11.5
WinRAR
7Zip
DPC Latency
xvid4PSP
Conclusion
For ambient cooling (air/water), the rate limiting step to Haswell overclocking is likely going to be the CPU thermally and not the mobo (unless IHS delidded). So unless you are an extreme cooler/bencher, most mid-range mobos are going to be more than adequate for your o'cing needs.
There is no benefit in forking out inordinate amt of $$$ for what Intel has already pre-ordained (and crippled) as their mid-range chipset cos you are going to be severely penalised by the law of diminishing returns.
Cost performance FTW!
