show at all the overclocking
events.
Not forgetting as well that prior
to COMPUTEX; Team AU had
taken a swath of overclocking
records using this very same
SOC-Force. If that isn’t a
testament to the brilliance
and sheer dominance of the
product, nothing else
will be.
Before we continue to
swoon over it however,
it is important that we
highlight how equaly
impressive the selling
price of the motherboard is.
In the day where overclocking
products can command
prices upwards of $500, to
see a board retailing for $210
is alarming. The previous
Z87X-OC was $199, but
that board didn’t have a Killer
2200 NIC nor did it have the
kind of audio solution that is
found here. Those two things
alone are worth more than the
$10 price hike; however we
do believe that many would
pay substantially more for
the Z97X-SOC FORCE just for
the increased overclocking
headroom it allows.
As always, if you have
a lemon of a CPU there’s
really not anything any
motherboard can do about
it. You can go through tons
of BIOSs and spend hours
on it which will net you
50MHz at most between a
mediocre and an incredible
motherboard. You’re simply
out of luck with a sad CPU,
much like the 4790K we used
to test this motherboard
with. With that said, it doesn’t
mean the