BIOS
BIOS
ABIT's BIOS' usually cater for those interested in pushing their systems a little, they often include a number of fine-tuning tweaks rarely found in other manufacturers BIOS'. ABIT have been using their in-house Softmenu III BIOS configuration utility for some time now, it works well so why change it. The beating heart of Softmenu III is shown below.
There's quite a lot to digest here so I'll go through it step-by-step. CPU speed can either by determined by the BIOS or by the user. Switching to 'user define' allows you to manipulate the Front Side Bus in 1MHz increments from 100MHz - 200MHz. Pentium 4s are multiplier-locked during production, so the only changes one can make, with a view to changing the CPU's speed, is to raise or lower the FSB. The SR7-8X supports both the 100 and 133FSB versions of the Pentium 4 Northwood processor.
The CPU FSB/DRAM/AGP/PCI is something of a confusing affair. The majority of internal PC speeds are derived by calculating a ratio with one another. Standard AGP and PCI speeds are 66MHz and 33MHz respectively. The idea is to keep these in check when raising bus speeds.
The number of various ratios is perhaps a little bewildering for a novice user. I'll illustrate how I best feel each set of ratios fits in with particular FSBs.
| Ratio | CPU FSB | DDR MHz | AGP Speed MHz | PCI Speed MHz |
| 3:3:2:1 | 100 | 100 (DDR200) | 66 | 33 |
| 3:4:2:1 | 100 | 133 (DDR266) | 66 | 33 |
| 3:5:2:1 | 100 | 166 (DDR333) | 66 | 33 |
| 3:6:2:1 | 100 | 200 (DDR400) | 66 | 33 |
| 4:3:2:1 | 133 (NW B) | 100 | 66 | 33 |
| 4:4:2:1 | 133 | 133 | 66 | 33 |
| 4:5:2:1 | 133 | 166 | 66 | 33 |
| 4:6:2:1 | 133 | 200 | 66 | 33 |
If you wish to run at FSBs other than those shown above, you can 'fix' the sensitive AGP and PCI busses to any frequency between 66MHz (default) and 100MHz. I can't really understand the need to run at sky-high AGP and PCI busses, though.
CPU voltage can be adjusted up to 15% above the nominal 1.5v. You have the options of +5%, +10%, and +15%. DDR Voltage sees a range of options too, with 2.5v to 2.8v in 0.1v increments.
DDR timings can be manipulated, too. You can either set it to a pre-defined parameters such as 'Slow', 'Normal', 'Fast', 'Turbo', or 'Ultra', or you can manually define each parameter yourself. I've chosen the most aggressive timings for testing at 166MHz memory. I had to relax the timings when testing at 200MHz RAM, in both cases the CPU was at 133FSB.
The extra integrated features present themselves in BIOS. You're free to do with them as you please. The BIOS is reassuringly solid, but it's let down by the slightly confusing dividers. I would also like ABIT's older voltage adjustment options back. You used to be able to set CPU voltages from 1.1v upwards, perfect for those that want to run passively. The only other gripe I have is that some of the explanations seem to be written by someone whose first language isn't English, as they're sometimes hard to follow.
