X-bit labs

ECS 755-A2 Socket754 Mainboard on SiS755 Chipset Review (page 6)

Category: Mainboards

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 02/21/2004 | 12:59 PM ]

Other BIOS Setup pages don’t offer any rich overclocking friendly options, either. Particularly, you cannot manually adjust the memory timings, at least with the BIOS version 1.0 from 01.02.2004. The user is only allowed to change the memory frequency, while the timings will be set up automatically according to the data from the SPD module.

Hardware monitoring options look limited, too. The BIOS Setup monitors two basic voltages, two temperatures and rotational speeds of two fans. The CD you receive with the mainboard contains no utility for monitoring from the Windows. Anyway, the popular Motherboard Monitor can monitor ECS 755-A2 well enough.

Of course, we couldn’t help trying this mainboard during practical overclocking. We took an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ processor, the most suitable candidate for the place in the socket of this mainboard. The CPU was cooled down by an ordinary air cooler, Thermaltake Silent Boost K8. Special overclocker memory OCZ PC4000 Gold Edition, guaranteed stable work at frequencies up to 500MHz. With this memory we could overclock our Athlon 64 3000+ without increasing the memory frequency divisor (it was 1/10 from the CPU clock-rate in our tests, or “DDR400” as the BIOS Setup has it). For the above-mentioned reasons, we couldn’t use SerialATA drives in the disk subsystem; we installed an ATA/100 drive instead (Western Digital Caviar WD400JB).

I didn’t have much hope for good overclocking results here as ECS 755-A2 doesn’t offer any special means of increasing the processor Vcore. The maximum FSB frequency, at which the system remained stable, was 216MHz. That is, our processor acquired only 8% of frequency (from 2GHz to 2.16GHz). The mainboard lost stability at further FSB-overclocking. The result is not good for this processor as we overclocked it to 226MHz FSB on other mainboards, which allowed adjusting the Vcore. Thus, this limitation alone – no Vcore adjustment – reduces the overclockability of the ECS 755-A2 by 40% compared to mainboards that allow changing the CPU voltage. So let me say it once again: ECS 755-A2 does not suit for overclocking.

Meanwhile, overclockers shouldn’t disregard this mainboard completely. It’s quite probable that some other methods work here. For example, ocworkbench.com posted a guide to volt-modding this mainboard so that you could increase the Vcore and Vmem on the hardware level. If you don’t feel like modding your ECS 755-A2 with a soldering iron, you may wait for milder software methods. At least, enthusiasts developed special overclocker BIOSes and various utilities for previous ECS mainboards on SiS chipsets. Let’s hope they will come up with something like that for the ECS 755-A2, too. However, this is a long-term perspective. Right now, only volt-modding can help you to achieve any impressive overclocking results on the ECS 755-A2.