by Doors4ever
05/01/2007 | 08:25 PM
I do not consider myself a person who would be very skeptical about everything new out there, although I have often noticed that I am being kind of conservative every now and then. For example, I am quite certain that at this time Nvidia chipsets are the best choice for AMD platform, while Intel chipsets are definitely the best choice for Intel platform. Of course, there are some exceptions to every rule. If, for instance, you have to put together a CrossFire system with two VGA cards and an AMD processor, you will need to go for an ATI/AMD chipset. The same way two graphics cards in SLI mode and Intel processor will require an Nvidia chipset. But these are very specific cases, which we do not have to take into account all the time.
I believe that healthy conservatism implies checking regularly if the assumptions are correct and if they correspond to the given moment of time. I am not used to taking someone else’s opinion for granted, so I do my best to check out things on my own, whenever possible, and my experience suggests that the combination of the AMD processor with an Nvidia chipset works best of all.
As for the mainboards on Nvidia chipsets for Intel platform, I have been pretty skeptical about this combination until recently. Some time ago we tested the whole bunch of mainboards on Nvidia nForce 4 SLI chipset (for details see our article called NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) Platform Review). The mainboards we tested were pretty interesting solutions, with good accessories bundles, and a number of great engineering and design solutions onboard, however, unfortunately, they couldn’t boast anything remarkable in terms of overclocking-friendly options. It was then that I got pretty convinced that Nvidia chipsets for Intel processors didn’t really offer anything special, and I didn’t even check out nForce 570 SLI and nForce 590 SLI based solutions at that time. It is only now when I was working on this article that I paid due attention to them.
After the launch of nForce 600 chipset family the situation turned completely different. We have already managed to get closely acquainted with the reference mainboard on Nvidia nForce 680i SLI and took a close look at Asus Striker Extreme on the same chipset. Moreover, we have also tested Asus P5N-E SLI and MSI P6N SLI Platinum on Nvidia nForce 650i SLI chipset. These solutions aren’t the killer ones, but they definitely look much more interesting than the mainboards on the previous generation chipsets. At least, the testers as well as users report that they really know to overclock CPUs.
Well, I suggest that we take a closer look at one of those mainboards to check things out on our own. Please meet abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi mainboard on Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset.
Each mainboard review starts lately with the praise for the manufacturer’s due attention to proper packaging. Contemporary top-of-the-line mainboards from Asus and Gigabyte are protected against damages not with the common antistatic plastic bag, but with sturdy plastic casing shaped as the mainboard, and all accessories are put into neat compact boxes. This is a very good tendency and we should once again give due credit for it to abit Company, because they were the first ones to introduce it to the market. As far as I remember, in early 2002 I came across Abit BD7 mainboard on Intel 845D chipset that was sitting in a transparent plastic casing. Of course, the new abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi is also packaged very nicely:
The dragon-like creature and the slogan on the box promise that there is a real monster inside. The reverse side of the box contains details on the mainboard’s peculiarities, listed one by one and accompanied with appropriate illustrations:
Two separate boxes with accessories include the following items:
The mainboard comes with abit AirPace Wi-Fi daughter card with PCI-E x1 interface and an antenna:
abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi mainboard boast a number of interesting peculiarities. Let’s dwell on each of them, and for your convenience we will start from the top of the PCB and go down to the bottom, according to the below provided layout scheme:
First thing worth pointing out is that they used only solid-state capacitors for this board. The board is equipped with five-phase digital processor voltage regulator circuitry and uses massive heatsinks for proper heat dissipation:
Noiseless Silent OTES cooling system is intended for passive work mode only. However, Nvidia chipsets are known to be pretty warm even when working in nominal mode, and especially during overclocking. You may need to install additional fans for chipset better cooling, so it was very nice to see that abit Company offered this possibility:
When I was checking out the mainboard’s accessories bundle I didn’t figure out at first what those two wire clips were intended for. The answer was in the mainboard user’s manual: the clips are intended to help you easily and quickly fasten a fan on top of the North Bridge heatsink without any additional tools.
abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi mainboard features three PCU-E x16 slots. Two of them, of black color, work at their full speed and are intended for two graphics cards working in SLI configuration. The third blue one runs at 8x speed and may be used for the physics accelerator. Since PCI-E x16 slots are placed at a certain distance from one another, the mainboard comes with two longer connector bridges:
The area around the chipset South Bridge is pretty tightly packed with different electronic components, as usual. You can see here an additional IEEE1394 controller, Power On and Reset buttons, POST-codes indicator and color coded front panel connectors.
For ergonomic and economical reasons the IDE and SATA connectors on the board are facing sideways:
The mainboard rear panel is designed in abit’s traditional manner: there are no COM or LPT ports there. It looks quite common: two PS/2 ports, four USB ports (another two are on the additional bracket that comes with the board), two RJ45 ports (Marvell 88E1116), two eSATA ports (Silicon Image SiI3132), audio jacks, including the optical ones (Realtek ALC888).
If you take a closer look at the rear panel you may notice a tiny lever between the optical In and PS/2 connectors. It is EZ CCMOS Switch that allows you to easily clear CMOS without opening the system case and looking for the jumper that is very inconveniently located in most cases.
I would also like to draw your attention to a few not quite standard connectors. A little above the Reset button there is a Guru Panel connector, while the Guru panel itself doesn’t come with the board. And in the lower left corner of the PCB there is a group of connectors marked as HDMI1, which is intended for connecting digital sound to graphics cards carrying HDMI port.
I couldn’t find any flaws in the mainboard layout. Considering how difficult it is to design a high-end mainboard with numerous electronic components and additional controllers I can conclude that the PCB layout of abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi deserves to be called ideal. Great job, abit!
You can take a look at the detailed list of abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi specifications on abit’s official web-site or in the user’s manual:
The main BIOS page is designed in black-and-white with rare splashes of color, which goes very well with the color scheme of the mainboard itself. By pressing F6 you can save the current settings. BIOS Setup of abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi allows saving up to 5 user profiles and load any of them by pressing F7.
I was upset to find almost no information on the BIOS settings and features in the mainboard’s user manual. We are very well familiar with the BIOS peculiarities of abit’s products, besides, there are comments for many options in the BIOS itself, however, I think they should have also taken into account those users who deal with abit mainboards for the first time, and for them these comments may not be sufficient. This is one of the few evident drawbacks about abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi that I discovered.
The mainboard BIOS is based on modified Phoenix-Award code and its most peculiar distinguishing feature is the uGuru Utility section with an almost complete collection of overclocking-friendly options and settings.
If the SPD of your memory modules contain Nvidia settings profiles, then you will be able to get more aggressive default timings by enabling SLI-Ready Memory option.
FSB frequency is measures in quadrupled value and varies from 400MHz to 3000MHz. if we translate it into more common values the interval will look like this: 100-750MHz. However, you will hardly have any difficulty with the numbers because the Estimated New CPU Clock information line reports the CPU frequency that you will get once the changes have been applied. By the way, you can employ the desired settings immediately from the BIOS by pressing F8 – OC On The Fly.
You can select one of the two FSB adjustment modes: Linked (synchronously with the memory) and Unlinked (asynchronously). By selecting one or the other you enable corresponding sets of parameters for further adjustment.
In the first case you can use FSB:Memory Ratio parameter to set the current FSB and memory frequency ratio from the limited list of values, which depend on the nominal bus frequency of the CPU installed in your system. Actually, we expected that the set of supported dividers should change if the N/B Strap CPU As parameter is changed. This parameter can be set to PSB533, PSB800, PSB1066, and starting with BIOS version 1.1 it can also be set to PSB1333, however, the set of supported dividers remained the same: 1:1, 5:4, 3;2 or Sync Mode (synchronously with the processor bus frequency).
If we choose the asynchronous mode, then FSB:Memory Ratio and N/B Strap As parameters are no longer available to us. We can simply set the memory frequency between 400MHz and 1400MHz with MEM (DDR2) parameter. Then the mainboard will find the most optimal coefficient from a pretty broad list so that the final memory frequency could be the closest to our selection. The resulting memory frequency will then be reflected in the Estimated DDR2 Data Rate line.
This may seem like a very complicated description, but it is actually all very simple in reality. The PCI-E bus frequencies and different voltages can also be adjusted easily. They are singled out into an individual page:
The mainboard offers very diverse options for processor Vcore, Vmem and Vchipset adjustment. It supports the following value intervals:
From uGuru Utility page you can get access to ABIT EQ. Here you can disable beeps and select the desired LED effect (pick the blinking pattern for the LEDs on the reverse side of the PCB, make them permanently on or off).
abit mainboards have always boasted extremely rich options for temperature, voltage and fan rotation speeds monitoring and control. abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi is certainly no exception here.
Note that there appeared an option for CPU average and peak current monitoring in Temperature Monitoring section. I personally think this info should have been placed into the Voltage Monitoring section.
The mainboard can control and manage the rotation speeds of all six fans that can be connected to it.
By the way, the four-pin CPU Fan connector allows adjusting the fan rotation speed only if the four-pin plug is utilized. However right next to it there is a three-pin SYS Fan connector that can take over this function if the rotation speed management is hooked up the CPU temperature.
The only group of parameters that will undoubtedly be of interest to overclocking fans but is not located within the uGuru Utility section is the memory timings. Each timing can be adjusted individually, and all the values that are not that important or not very well familiar to you can be left at defaults.
Just as I have stated during the PCB layout description, the BIOS Setup settings of abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi are simply outstanding. They are much more advanced than those offered by the competitors or are simply unique.
We performed our overclocking experiments on an open testbed that was configured as follows:
Our test CPU can work at 490MHz FSB (1960MHz in quadrupled values) if the Vcore is raised to 1.45V. We failed to set these parameters from the very beginning, so we decided to dig deeper into the overclocking process to find out the peculiarities of mainboard’s operation at higher frequencies. It proved capable of booting the OS at FSB frequencies up to 1750 (437.5) MHz, then follows the so-called FSB Hole (the frequencies, when the mainboard wouldn’t even start), and then you can boot it again at 1850 (462.5) MHz. unfortunately, the mainboard remained stable only at FSB frequencies of 1600 (400) MHz or less. In this case the system was running stably without any processor Vcore increase.
I would like to specifically stress this fact, because only processor core voltage could be increased freely. It was actually not completely free, as the mainboard started generating hissing sounds when the Vcore went even 0.01V up. It could be one of the coils, although all of them are Ferrite Choke Coils. The sound got louder as the voltage increased. As for increasing the Vchipset parameter, the mainboard was losing stability even at the proven 1600 (400) MHz frequency in this case.
We ran the tests with the very first BIOS version 1.0 dating back to 12/25/2006. I was pretty sure that there were no newer versions, because there was no information on the abit USA website. Later on I discovered version 1.1 from 02/13/2007. It could be the devilish number “13” that played the dramatic role in this case, but the new BIOS fixed only some of the problems and even added new ones to the list. For example, HyperTransport voltage was now set only at the maximum 1.4V, however, we could raise the CPU VTT Voltage and NB Voltage without losing any of the stability and there was no FSB Hole around 1800MHz any more. Unfortunately, these changes didn’t help us get beyond the notorious 1600 (400) MHz FSB during overclocking.
A new mainboard based on a new chipset that hasn’t been studied inside out yet is a great chance for us to perform some comparative testing and reveal the performance peculiarities in different work modes. We were going to run the tests in overclocked mode, because we have already studied the nominal performance of solutions on the same nForce 680i SLI chipset in our previous reviews. Unfortunately, abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi didn’t give us this opportunity for the reasons described above. But we still performed a few tests with some really astonishing results. Let me explain.
Most of Xbit Labs’ readers should already be familiar with the new overclocking terms that arrived with the new CPUs and chipsets, such as FSB wall, FSB hole and FSB strap. We have already had a chance to come across all these factors directly affecting overclocking results.
FSB wall is the maximum bus frequency supported by the given CPU sample. This frequency cannot be exceeded by reducing the clock frequency multiplier even if the mainboard can run at higher speeds. For example, Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 CPUs that we had in our lab couldn’t go beyond 400MHz FSB no matter what we did.
FSB hole is a frequency interval when the mainboard doesn’t work properly including inability to boot the OS or even start at all. At the same time the mainboard is working fine at higher or lower frequencies. For example, 400-450MHz FSB frequency range on Asus P5N-E SLI or the 450MHz FSB frequency on our today’s hero - abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi with the older BIOS version.
FSB strap. In this case it is the frequency when the chipset switched to a different work mode. At the same time the latencies increase and the performance drops, however, the system can operate at higher FSB speeds. Asus mainboards on Intel P965 Express chipset switch FSB strap somewhere after 400MHz bus frequency. E4300 processor didn’t hit this value thanks to its relatively high 9x multiplier, while E6300 processor had to get beyond 400MHz FSB to overclock to the same resulting frequency. So, we witnessed a paradox: although E4300 supported lower memory and bus frequencies it turned out faster than E6300 that lacked overclocking potential to make up for the increased latencies.
The above described situation referred to Intel P965 Express chipset, and what about the FSB strap frequency for the Nvidia nForce 680i SLI and can the FSB strap term refer to this chipset at all? During the tests of Asus Striker Extreme mainboard we discovered that the performance dropped when FSB frequency changed from 420MHz to 425MHz and only when the FSB frequency reached beyond 440-450MHz this negative effect could be eliminated. But maybe this performance drop is not really typical of the nForce 680i SLI chipset and is only the peculiarity of Asus Striker Extreme mainboard?
Therefore we decided to test the read speed from the memory with EVEREST Cache and Memory benchmark in the entire range of FSB frequencies supported by abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi (up to 450MHz with 25MHz increment). This benchmark is very dependent on the memory frequency, reacts actively to changes in latencies and allows detecting the FSB strap easily. Although the mainboard works unstably at 400MHz+ frequencies, this benchmark can stand it. The memory was running with fixed timing settings of 5-5-5-15-2T.
I would like to stress that the obtained performance values are not the actual chipset performance. No one will ever use such high timings with low memory frequencies. We increased the timing settings on purpose, in order to ensure that the system would work fine in the entire frequency range from the nominal 266MHz up to 450MHz. However, this approach will allow us to detect the performance drop, if it occurs. Theoretically, the FSB frequency increases synchronously with the memory and the dependence should be almost linear. And if there appears a sharp curve anywhere on the graph, it will indicate a change in chipset work mode, the enabling of FSB strap.
Well, the beautiful thing about theory is that it is all so clear and logical. The practical results we obtained were truly shocking: we didn’t expect them to change so unevenly.
The results of our benchmark suggested that the mainboard worked fine only at FSB frequencies that were multiples of 50: 300MHz, 350MHz, 400MHz, 450MHz, and at frequencies that were multiples of 25 we observed unexpected performance drops. An additional test session was necessary, so we performed the same tests with a smaller increment of 20MHz. Now we could draw some more substantial conclusions:
So, according to our theoretical expectations, the mainboard performance is growing almost linearly in the interval between 266 and 320MHz FSB. At 325MHz we see a sudden drop in performance. Look at the second graph - EVEREST doesn’t measure latency that well and when we repeat the tests a few more times the results differ very noticeably. However, in this case the latency graph corresponds completely to the performance graph: the drop on one corresponds to the spike on another. After that the performance keeps growing together with the memory frequency and FSB frequency up to 350MHz, and then comes another drop, a more massive one this time – from 360 to 380MHz FSB.
Our tests have proven the results we have obtained on Asus Striker Extreme mainboard: the maximum performance is provide at 400MHz FSB, then the performance drops and gets back to the same level only at 460MHz. In other words, this behavior is typical not of a particular mainboard, but of all mainboards on Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset: it doesn’t make sense to overclock beyond 400MHz FSB, if we can’t hit 460MHz. Unfortunately, I cannot check how the boards would behave at higher frequencies because of the limitations set by our today’s hero, abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi. In conclusion I would only like to add that you should try to avoid not only the FSB frequencies between 400 and 450MHz, but also 325MHz FSB, and 360MHz-380MHz interval. Too many limitations for the top-of-the-line chipset, don’t you think so?
When we overclock CPUs on Intel P965 Express based mainboards we have to use the minimal 1:1 divider for the memory frequency, and the memory is working synchronously with the FSB in this case. However, Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset has one interesting peculiarity: it allows clocking memory almost independently of the FSB. I am sure that a lot of users will take advantage of this opportunity, so how will the performance change in this case?
To check this out I performed another series of tests in EVEREST at the same FSB frequencies, but the memory frequency in this case was locked at 800 and 1000MHz. I selected these particular values for a reason. According to our tests, even PC2-4200 memory intended for work at 533MHz can overclock to 800MHz, not to mention PC2-5300 working at 667MHz. as for PC2-6400 modules, not all of them can hit 1000MHz, but the best ones can.
Since the memory frequency was fixed at a certain value, and we were measuring its performance, we were expecting the graph to be more like a straight horizontal line, because only FSB frequency was changing. Of course, if there would be no additional surprises from Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset.
There were hardly any surprises this time, only at FSB frequencies below 300MHz the memory running at 800MHz works faster than the memory running at 1000MHz. The dividers for 1000MHz could be not the best ones in this case. The difference could actually be even greater if we had set more aggressive timings for 800MHz memory, which was actually quite possible to do.
We again see a smaller performance drop that is smoothed out by the constant memory frequency. It occurs at 325MHz FSB. The second time performance drop is detected is at frequencies around 400MHz FSB. This drop is much more noticeable for memory running at 800MHz, but it is obviously explained by the fact that the mainboard cannot always detect the memory frequency we are setting: sometimes it is a little lower, and sometimes a little higher than the desired, which is shown on the graph.
You can easily see that the performance drops only at those FSB frequencies when the memory frequency is lower than the set one, and the least successful frequency in this case is 380MHz: the memory frequency is minimal in this case and equals 760MHz instead of 800MHz.
I would like to say once again that the obtained results do not demonstrate the actual system performance because the memory timings are fixed. These results are only interesting for the sake of studying the chipset behavior at different frequencies. If we consider the mainboards on Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset in real working conditions, then synchronous memory clocking will look much more preferable. During our tests the CPU was overclocked without losing stability to the maximum that abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi allowed, i.e. to 400MHz FSB. The memory was working synchronously at 800MHz with 4-4-4-12-1T timings. If we increased the memory frequency, the results worsened, for instance at 854MHz with the same timings. Asynchronous mode requires additional coordination and increases latencies. We only managed to hit the same performance at 1100MHz with the timings set to 5-5-5-15-2T.
As a result, I would advise Nvidia nForce 680i SLI based mainboard owners to perform a number of additional tests with different FSB and memory frequencies once the CPU has been overclocked to its alleged maximum. It is quite possible that you may get higher level of performance with different combinations of FSB and memory frequencies even though formally the bus or memory frequencies are lower.
During our discussion of BIOS Setup features I have already mentioned that N/B Strap CPU As parameter allows changing FSB strap, but in reality these changes didn’t affect the performance in any way, only when you set it to PSB1333 the mainboard started but wouldn’t boot the OS. If we can’t change FSB strap manually, let’s do that automatically: all we need to do is replace Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 processor with 266MHz (1066MHz) nominal FSB frequency with the E4300 supporting 200MHz (800MHz) FSB.
The tests revealed that with the Vcore raised to 1.445V the CPU can work stably at 375MHz. almost 90% is definitely not a bad result, but it is primarily important for us today because it allows us to investigate the performance of abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi with CPUs supporting different FSB frequencies.
Since our platform was already set for work at 375MHz FSB, we decided to start with this value gradually reducing the frequency and running the benchmarks. At first it was all very similar to what we have just discussed, the same “swing” with the drops at 375MHz and 325MHz:
However, when we finished the tests at FSB 325MHz the mainboard refused to start and froze, so that the only thing that could help us out was the Clear CMOS lever, and at 300MHz the mainboard simply wouldn’t start at all. 350MHz FSB – the board starts and works, 300MHz FSB – the board starts but doesn’t go through the POST stage and freezes. Looks like another FSB hole to me…
All in all, we would strongly recommend waiting for the new BIOS updates for this board, then abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi may show better results.
Some of you may feel that it is the fault of abit engineers, that they are taking too much time to correct bugs and release BIOS updates. It could be partially true, but we shouldn’t be so critical in this case. A lot of issues can be blamed on the Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset that is used for this board. In off-the-record conversations mainboard makers complain that the chipset characteristics differ too greatly between different units. A great example is our Asus Striker Extreme review. The first mainboard sample didn’t allow overclocking CPUs beyond 449MHz FSB, the second one turned out better, but in some cases you can come across on the Web users describe their boards going beyond 500MHz.
Some of you probably remember the SATA controller issues on reference nForce 680i SLI based mainboards. Suppose the chipset has nothing to do with it, but this is not just a single case. When issues with overclocking Kentsfield processors surfaced, eVGA Company, for instance, announced that they would replace the first mainboard revisions with new ones. Another observation concerns the remark on Nvidia’s web-site saying that the well-advertised LinkBoost technology has been removed from the specifications of the Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset. Has it been also caused by some stability issues? Moreover, the “stepped” performance we have discussed today in our detailed investigation is also hardly an advantage.
I have to admit that Nvidia nForce 680i SLI doesn’t look like an acute replacement for the Intel solutions. On the contrary, everything we know so far about the issues with mainboards built around this chipset indicates that this is not a very reliable solution.
As for the hero of our today’s review, abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi mainboard, there are advantages and drawbacks, as always. Great PCB layout, excellent BIOS functionality, but at the same not very successful overclocking results for as little as $350 or so. Time to think…