The Pentium G3258 Anniversary Edition is a gift from Intel
to overclockers, delivering astonishing raw frequency performance provided you
don’t mind getting your hands a little dirty. ASRock has come up with a rather
savvy marketing manoeuvre to capitalise on the excitement around the G3258, in
the form of the ASRock Z97 Anniversary motherboard. Like the CPU it’s named
after, this budget board packs a powerful wallop, but several rather large
corners had to be cut to lessen the blow to your wallet or purse.
The use of the Anniversary name suggests this motherboard
has a nifty feature or component that somehow makes it the perfect home for
Intel’s new bargain blazer, but upon closer examination there isn’t. It’s just
a just a damn good value, Z97-based motherboard. It’s quite amazing to see how
cheap this board is, as the Z97 is Intel’s latest performance chipset. Designed
to extract maximum performance out of the upcoming 5th Generation Core CPU (aka
Broadwell), Z97 is usually found in more expensive, premium motherboards around
the $180 to $250 price point, aimed at gamers or performance users. Backwards
compatible with today’s 4th Generation Core CPUs yet forwards compatible with
the long overdue Broadwell, it uses the Socket 1150 design, safe in the
knowledge that it should still be compatible with at least the next two
generations of Intel CPUs.
The Pentium G3258
Anniversary Edition is a gift from Intel to overclockers, delivering astonishing
raw frequency performance provided you don’t mind getting your hands a little
dirty.
So how has ASRock managed to slash the price of a Z97 board
so drastically? The answer is easy – there’s precious little else on this
motherboard other than Z97 chipset and its supporting components. Even the
physical size of the PCB board has been cut back, as it’s much thinner than
average ATX-sized products. Considering how small it is, ASRock has managed to
squeeze a healthy number of expansion slots onto the board, with a single PCI
3.0 x16 for a graphics card, alongside three PCIe 2.0 x1 slots and twin legacy
PCI slots. They’re rather cramped on this board, though, so expect a few to be
shut out of action when their neighbouring slots are occupied.
Strangely absent is one of the key features of the Z97
chipset, an M.2 slot, the exotic new connection type designed for ultra-fast
SSDs. For existing Z87-based motherboard owners, it’s the only reason to
upgrade right now, as the performance is otherwise identical between the new
and the old.
We’re a little surprised that ASRock cut this one defining
feature from the board, but in reality most users are still perfectly happy
with their SATA 3 SSDs, so it probably wouldn’t have got much use anyway.
For existing Z87-based motherboard owners, it’s the only
reason to upgrade right now, as the performance is otherwise identical between
the new and the old.
For existing
Z87-based motherboard owners, it’s the only reason to upgrade right now, as the
performance is otherwise identical between the new and the old.
Onboard audio is comprised of the absolute basics, in the
form of a Realtek ALC887 audio chip, without any of the EMF shielding or
proprietary amplification found on more expensive offerings. The power
circuitry is similarly simple, with a four-phase solution offering decent
performance provided you keep it away from all forms of extreme voltage
tweaking. Despite this simple power configuration, we managed a sterling 4.4GHz
frequency out of the G3258 CPU, which runs at a default speed of 3.2GHz. Best
of all, we achieved this soaring speed increase by using the board’s
preconfigured BIOS overclocking options. There was no messing around with
voltages, no disabling esoterically named monitoring features or complex
mathematics to figure out the right memory ratio. In BIOS, we selected an
automatic overclock speed of 4.4GHz, and rebooted the PC to 100% stability. It
doesn’t get any easier.
The pre-tweaked BIOS settings will be reason enough for
novices to pair this motherboard with Intel’s new wonder chip, giving them all
of the performance with none of the effort. The fact that it also delivers the
brand new Z97 chipset, along with forwards compatibility, makes the price quite
remarkable – we just wish they’d spent a few dollars more to include the M.2
connection. It might not have any fancy features that make this board specially
sculpted for the Pentium Anniversary, but the unique combination of chipset,
price and easy overclocking results in it being the perfect partner.
The fact that it
also delivers the brand new Z97 chipset, along with forwards compatibility,
makes the price quite remarkable – we just wish they’d spent a few dollars more
to include the M.2 connection.
