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Review: MSI 655 MAX

by David Ross on 9 March 2003, 00:00 3.5

Tags: MSI, SiS (TPE:2363)

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Overclocking



The MSI 655 MAX has a wonderful array of bios features to enable some serious overclocking. In anticipation we set the board up in our Vapochil so that we could push it as far as it would go. In the same setup our Asus P4G8X Deluxe reached 185 MHz FSB with the same processor.





The MSI has
• Full FSB control
• Memory ratio control
• Processor voltage adjustment
• Memory voltage adjustment
• AGP voltage adjustment
• AGP / PCI frequency locking


As you can see below the memory control is extensive with ratios from 1:1 to 1:2 to choose from.





Imagine our disappointment when we found that our review board only had a range from 1.525v to 1.625v vcore. Add the fact that the board reported some seriously fluctuating voltages from our Sparkle 400W PSU’s vcore line, showing between 1.52v and 1.58v when the bios was set at 1.625v. This lack of stability and vcore adjustment meant that we were only able to achieve a moderate overclock of 155 MHz FSB.

With the Asus P4G8X hitting 185 Mhz FSB the MSI does not stand a chance of winning the overclocked battle despite its DDR400 support.

To add further to our frustration, MSI provide an excellent windows FSB adjustment program called ‘fuzzy logic’ which was of little use due to the lack of vcore adjustment and stability.

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