X-bit labs

Chipsets for Socket AM2 Platform: ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200 and Nvidia nForce 590 SLI (page 11)

Category: Chipsets

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 06/13/2006 | 10:44 AM ]

The software supplied by the chipset developers is also intended to make overclocking simpler. Both, ATI and Nvidia, offer special utilities for their chipsets that will make it easier to adjust the major system parameters, such as clock generator frequency, major voltages and memory latencies.

By ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200 this is ATI System Manager tool. Besides the rich overclocking options available from Windows, this software also offers hardware monitoring tools as well as intellectual fan rotation speed management system.

A similar utility has been developed by Nvidia for their nForce 500 chipset family. It is nTune 5.0, which you should already know if you have ever come across an Nvidia based mainboard. This time it has been advanced with a new interface and got free from a number of related issues. From the functional standpoint, nTune 5.0 offers practically the same things as ATI System Manager.

I would like to stress that nTune 5.0 boasts more user-friendly interface than ATI System Manager. Also Nvidia’s software features a built-in stability test and an automatic overclocking tool that should help first-time overclockers to get a nice start.