Overclocking

Practical tests of the overclocking potential were performed on an open testbed built with Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 processor, Zalman CNPS9700 LED cooler, Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4 and of course Asus Commando mainboard revision 1.00G. We started with the very first BIOS version 0601 that was later updated to 0702 using EX Flash utility. We didn’t detect any significant differences between the two BIOS versions.

Our previous experience with mainboards for Intel Core processors reminded us of some difficulties we had at certain speeds, so we decided to start with 430MHz FSB. However, our concerns never came true, as Asus Commando started and loaded the OS without any problems up to 500MHz FSB. It even passed some tests, but of course, no guaranteed stability at this speed. Even when we reduced the processor frequency multiplier to 6x, the mainboard didn’t prove very reliable even at 495MHz FSB. Since the clock multiplier was reduced, the CPU couldn’t be the limiting factor here. I believe that the memory was also not the one to blame, because it worked just fine at this frequency even with 4-4-4-12 timings, although during the tests we increased them to 5-5-5-15. Moreover, when we replaced the memory with Corsair TWIN2X1024-8000UL of half the capacity, the results didn’t get any better. The mainboard regained stability at 490MHz FSB without reducing the clock frequency multiplier.

At 3.43GHz CPU speed the system would pass any tests including even the heavy Intel Thermal Analysis Tool.

The preliminary reports about the Asus Commando mainboard promised us extremely easy overclocking up to 570MHz FSB. Why couldn’t we achieve the same result? We have a few suppositions regarding this matter. Let’s start with the most pessimistic ones and move to the more hopeful:

1. The mainboard samples sent out to reviewers were specifically selected by the manufacturer. In this case all further efforts will be vain.
2. 570MHz FSB frequency is a “screenshot” frequency. The mainboard doesn’t run stably at this speed, but allows to register it. Only practical tests and broader Asus Commando overclocking statistics can prove or destroy this supposition.
3. The limitations come from the memory, CPU, cooler or PSU, we will try to replace all these components and rerun the tests.
4. We failed to find the best CPU Vcore, Vmem and Vchipset settings. We will continue our experiments.
5. The result depends on the particular mainboard sample. We were unlucky to get the one that didn’t go that far. You may be luckier.

However, I have to admit that most reports about unprecedented overclocking potential of the Asus Commando mainboard were based on forum postings. Now that the first reviews of this mainboard are coming out, the results turn out to be very close to what we’ve got in our lab. Anyway, we can hardly call stable work at 490MHz FSB unsuccessful result. There are much more examples of considerably lower results, including those obtained on Intel P965 based mainboards. This high frequency is not enough only for overclocking of one single processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300, and this CPU is known to be not the best overclocker’s choice.

We are well familiar with the potential of this CPU, it is exactly around 490MHz FSB. This is why during our test session we increased the processor Vcore, Vmem and Vchipset, manually adjusted the memory timings… In other words, w did everything the usual way. But still performed one additional experiment in the end. Absolutely all parameters affecting the operational stability of our system were set to Auto. The only thing we adjusted manually was the FSB speed: we set it to 490MHz. And the mainboard didn’t disappoint us: it started fine and worked stably. Luckily, Asus Commando mainboard is nothing like any of the mainboard we mentioned in the introduction to this article. It is extremely user-friendly.