Bios, System Setup, notes, issues
The bios supplied on this motherboard is supplied by Award, and contains alot of options for voltage and FSB tweaks. There is also the option to lock the PCI spe ed, which is useful to those among you that like to "overclock" The memory timing s and speed are able to be changed via the bios. For all of my tests the Memory i s running DDR333 at the strictest timings, i.e. CAS 2 timings. I was impressed wi th it's stability at such timings.
The system front-side-bus can be changed from 100FSB up to 165FSB in 1 Mhz incre ments via the bios.
CPU voltage can be changed from default to +5% or +10% . DDR voltage can be changed from default up to 2.9v. AGP voltage can be changed from default up to 1.7v.
The usual hardware monitoring options are present.
Here's a quick rundown of the test systems should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.
Intel Pentium 4 2533MHz S478 Northwood CPU
NB78-HL run in DDR333 mode
Creative Labs GeForce4 Ti 4600 128MB at stock speeds (300/660)
256MB Winbond pc3200 C2.5 run at 2-5-2-2 at DDR333
80GB Seagate Barracuda ATA100 Hard Drive.
Pioneer 104 DVD-RW
Antec 400w PSU
19" Compaq MV920 monitor
Software
Windows XP Professional Build 2600.xpclient.010817-1148
Intel 4.00.109 chipset drivers
Detonator XP 40.72 drivers
Sisoft Sandra 2002 Professional SP1
Pifast v41
Lame v3.91 MP3 encoding with Razor-Lame 1.15 front-end
Virtual Dub 1.4.10 DVD encoding, Diva 4.12 CODEC
3DMark 2001SE
Comanche 4 benchmark
Serious Sam 2 Demo
Quake 3 v1.30
Code Creatures Benchmark
PCmark 2002
UT2003 Demo
Notes
I'm running the memory at strictest timings allowed in bios at CAS latency 2, as 1.5 would make me clear the BIOS before it would boot. All benchmarks run with sound disabled.
Stability
I have had no stability issues running stock speeds.
Issues
Although the BIOS gives options for +10% Vcore in my test sample the motherboard has issues with undervolting. At idle the highest Vcore I witnessed was 1.55v mea ning a full .1v under the set voltage. At default the difference was less pronoun ced with only a .03v undervolt when idle.
Overclocking
There are many overclocking options in the bios including Vcore, Vmem, and Vagp a djustments as well as the ability to raise the FSB in 1 MHZ increments all the wa y to 165FSB. The motherboard has the ability to lock the PCI/AGP at 33Mhz/66Mhz r espectively regardless of the FSB speed.
The undervolting issues have affected the overclocking ability of this sample so only stock results will be shown.
On to the benchmarks....
