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DFI LANParty UT ICFX3200-T2R/G Mainboard on ATI RD600 Chipset Review (page 9)

Category: Mainboards

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 01/31/2007 | 07:47 PM ]

BIOS

DFI mainboards are known among computer users for their outstanding overclocking-friendly features. And these features are granted by the smart product design and thorough BIOS programming, which is done at DFI by some of the industry’s best engineers. From this prospective the BIOS of DFI LANParty UT ICFX3200-T2R/G mainboard can be described as a work of art. I am absolutely sure that we haven’t seen anything like that before: BIOS Setup of this mainboard can truly impress even experienced overclockers. It seems that it takes into account all the parameters that may have even the smallest influence on the overclocking potential and performance.

Well, let’s not hold back the discussion of these parameters. Everything that has to do with overclocking has been put into a special section of the BIOS called Genie BIOS Setup.

This section contains two subsections: Performance Options and Northbridge ASIC CFG. You can adjust the memory and system bus frequencies in the Performance Options page:

The FSB frequency in this case can vary from 0 to 511MHz, and the setting for the front side bus strap can be adjusted manually. Note that although 511MHz may not strike you as a really high maximum for the FSB frequency range, the important thing is that it is a working frequency on DFI LANParty UT ICFX3200-T2R/G, unlike many other mainboards out there.

The memory frequency can be adjusted either synchronously (with the FSB:DRAM coefficients set to 2:1, 8:5, 4:3, 1:1, 4:5, 2:3, 2:1), or fully asynchronously with a 3MHz increment. As you know, Nvidia nForce 680i SLI based mainboards have a lot of different dividers to set the memory frequency and their BIOS Setup automatically selects the one that will provide the closest memory frequency value. ATI RD600 however, can clock the memory fully asynchronously. You can set the memory frequency at any value between 133MHz and 658MHz.