Asrock Z97E-ITX/ac (LGA-1150) Motherboard Review

Software Overview

So the manufacturer’s point of difference is not only the components it uses, but also what it can offer the user during day to day use. ASRock, like others, offer many different programs for you to choose from once set up which can help to make your life a little easier. Usually these programs are useless, offering bloatware or some pretty pointless programs that you wouldn’t normally download. ASRock, however, has found that Chrome is widely downloaded, also a few games such as Ghost Recon Phantoms and some of its own software such as A-Tuning.

Along with the downloading shop side of things, any ASRock drivers you have installed will show up here, giving you a 2 click update system, pretty cool and something I liked.

Now, ASRock has given us A-Tuning. An in-house program designed with overclocking in mind. Also catering for more novice and intermediate users too. A simple home screen with 3 buttons, Performance (Overclocked), Standard and Power Saving. This is very similar to that of a set up on battery life for laptops, however not too useful for desktop users.

ASRock has given us access to the tools that’s contained within BIOS. OMG can only be modified here via password which is set up in BIOS. Good Night LED allows you to switch off the front panel LED’s during the night to give you a peaceful nights sleep while the PC is working. Disk health is also a useful tool, it allows you to see the health of any storage devices, which is very handy to determine possible lifespan or to diagnose hard drive errors. The rest of the tools are self-explanatory.

Here we have OC Tweaker. I found this very in-depth, but also very user-friendly. It takes most of the settings from the BIOS and puts them into the operating system. This method of overclocking is preferred by some to real-time stress test and overclock. This method isn’t recommended by enthusiasts however.