ASRock came into the market with a new small-sized overclocking-oriented mainboard. Entitled Z170M OC Formula, the model is designed in micro-ATX form-factor on the basis of Intel Z170 chipset. The latter is ready to cooperate with Intel Skylake CPUs for Socket LGA1151. The PCB offers a pair of DIMM slots for DDR4-4500 MHz RAM (up to 32 GB capacity).



ASRock Z170M OC Formula accommodates three PCIe 3.0 x16 expansion slots, enabling the creation of various graphics configurations (including Nvidia SLI & AMD CrossFireX). Storage subsystem is introduced by a pair of SATA Express ports (10 Gb/sec) as well as four SATA ports (6 Gb/sec) and one Ultra M.2 slot (32 Gb/sec).


This motherboard boasts a high-quality audio subsystem; it is based on Realtek ALC1150 controller, generating 7.1-channel sounding (Purity Sound 3). The 10-layer PCB comes with an integrated 14-phase power subsystem with dual-stack MOSFETs, premium choke coils, and solid-state capacitors Nichicon 12K Platinum. …

One can stop making wild guesses as far as AMD has voiced the official time frame of the beginning of low-end Ryzen models bulk sale. 6-core CPUs will come out in the 2nd quarter this year, and 4-core Ryzen 3 will be available in the second part of 2017.



Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 will possess the similar architecture as their higher-order counterparts. According to some resources, the only nuance is that in Ryzen 3 the SMT technology will be disabled, however, this device will cost less than $149. Ryzen 5 chips will come in at $175–259 (not much for 6 cores with SMT support).


The top-rank sample among 6-core AMD processors is AMD Ryzen 5 1600X offering the 3.6/4.0 GHz frequency rate. It will cost $259, which is only $15–20 more, than Intel Core i5-7600K. Simultaneously, according to pretests results, Ryzen 5 1600X will be 69% more effective in a multi-threaded context.

The market of computer components is growing rapidly. The developers of processors integrate in them elements of system logic, graphics core and other components that were recently placed on the motherboard in the form of individual chips. Motherboard manufacturers have begun to integrate their products with network and sound chips even earlier. All this allows making motherboards, and as a result, systems based on them more compact. The company Lian-Li have understood this tendency and provided the market with the entire line of compact hull designed for motherboard size Mini-ITX.



Consider the model Lian-Li PC-Q25:

— Hull Type — Mini-Tower;

— Dimensions in mm — 280 (H) x 199 (W) x 366 (D);

— Material – Aluminium;

— Weight, kg — 3.1;

— Color: Black / White;

— Form Factor — Mini-ITX/Mini-DTX;

— Devices 3.5 "/ 2.5" internal — 7/3;

— Supported number of expansion cards – 2;

— Fans 1x 140mm, 1x 120mm;


Delivery …