X-bit labs

Love at First Touch: ATI Radeon Xpress 3200 Review (page 9)

Category: Chipsets

by Alexey Stepin , Anton Shilov

[ 03/27/2006 | 02:34 PM ]

BIOS Settings

ASUS still uses the AMIBIOS microcode, so the BIOS Setup interface is different on mainboards from ASUS than from many other manufacturers that go with Award-Phoenix.

There’s a BIOS screen that tells you detailed info on the processor installed:

Like the A8N32-SLI Deluxe, this mainboard offers you control over all the main parameters:

• The clock generator frequency can be adjusted from 200 to 400MHz stepping 1MHz
• The CPU frequency multiplier can be set at 4x and higher
• The PCI Express frequency can be adjusted from 100 to 150MHz stepping 1MHz
• The HyperTransport frequency is adjusted within a range of 200-1000MHz stepping 200MHz
• The CPU voltage can be varied from 0.8 to 1.4V stepping 0.025V; and you can additionally increase this voltage by 0.1 or 0.2V
• The memory voltage can be set at 2.6V-3.2V stepping 0.05V
• You can increase the South bridge voltage by 0.1V
• The voltage on PCI Express and HyperTransport buses can be adjusted from 1.2 to 1.5V stepping 0.1V

The CPU voltage range is perhaps not too big and may limit your overclocking attempts, but you are likely to be satisfied with the available options unless you are into extreme overclocking experiments.

You can choose among the following memory frequencies: 100, 133, 166, 183, 200, 216, 233 and 250MHz. All the memory timings typical of AMD’s processors can be adjusted. Inexperienced users may go on in Auto mode in which all the settings are set up automatically, but the performance of the system may be not the highest possible.

The mainboard’s BIOS supports a number of exclusive technologies from ASUS, some of which are indeed very helpful. For example, Crashfree BIOS 2 allows to restore corrupted BIOS code using a special recovery disc. The CPU Parameter Recall feature makes it unnecessary to reset the CMOS chip when you’ve overclocked your system so much that it cannot start up.

AU NOS and PEG Link Mode technologies are meant for dynamic overclocking: the former controls the CPU clock-gen frequency and the latter automatically overclocks the PCI Express bus depending on the needs of the graphics subsystem.

AI Quiet adjusts the speed of the fans depending on the temperature, and AI Net 2 helps identify ruptures in network cables – this technology is supported by both the network controllers installed on the A8R32-MVP Deluxe.