X-bit labs

ASUS SK8N + AMD Opteron 144: Uniprocessor Workstation on AMD Opteron and NVIDIA nForce3 Professional (page 9)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 07/21/2003 | 05:53 PM ]

Having increased the processor Vcore up to 1.65V we managed to reach 218MHz FSB frequency without any stability losses. However, we couldn’t raise the FSB frequency any higher, because the system turned unstable and the tests run in the OS caused system freezing or BSOD. So, the maximum frequency we managed to squeeze out of our Opteron 244 was 1962MHz.

This result can hardly be called impressive. However, it is pretty logical. Opteron 244 is the top processor model so far, so that further frequency increase is certainly limited by some AMD’s problems connected with the implementation of SOI technology. That is why the today’s Opteron processors are very unlikely to be overclocked to 2GHz. At the same time, we should give proper credit to ASUS and we should admit that ASUS SK8N is the only mainboard, which allows overclocking AMD Opteron processors, and it copes with this task pretty well, I should say.

Also I would like to draw your attention to the monitoring options offered by ASUS SK8N. This mainboard allows not only checking the temperature with the help of the built-in processor diode. It also measures the temperature inside the system case, tracks rotation speeds of three fans and controls major voltages produced by the PSU. Moreover, the mainboard supports ASUS Q-Fan technology reducing the noise level by slowing down the processor fan rotation speed depending on the CPU temperature. As you can see on the screenshot below, ASUS SK8N supports three-level Q-Fan. Moreover, you can manually adjust those critical temperatures, when the cooler shifts from one mode to another.

BIOS Setup of ASUS SK8N helps to manage the memory controller built into AMD Opteron processor. There is a special page with all settings necessary for that. Here you can adjust the memory frequency (DDR333/DDR266/DDR200), enable banks alternation and set the key timings of the memory subsystem. You can also disable ECC, although this will not eliminate the necessity to use Registered memory modules.