BIOS
The initial GNB MAX was a little lightweight in the BIOS department. With limited FSB options and no voltage adjustment at all, the motherboard was clearly aimed at the workstation market where stability is the all-important factor. However, a number of other big-name manufacturers decided to implement a standard, adjustable BIOS in their respective motherboards. It seems as if MSI have decided to aim this particular motherboard at both the workstation and enthusiast market.
The portion of BIOS that is of most interest to us is the voltage adjustment section. If the MAX2 detects a native 400FSB P4, you're only given the option of choosing FSBs from 100 - 132. If, however, you have the more common 533FSB variety, FSBs from 133 - 200 are unlocked in 1MHz increments. To ensure that the enthusiast can fully take advantage of the FSB ceiling, the AGP / PCI can be locked or defined manually up to 85MHz AGP. Incidentally, the motherboard considers 48/24MHz to be the locked default speed. As you can see, voltage options are decent, with 1.85v Vcore, 2.8v VDimm, and 1.8v AGP.
As usual, setting a specified voltage is BIOS results in under-volting. 1.75v VCore was inputted, but we only received around 1.67 - 1.69v under moderate BIOS load. Whilst under-volting is to be expected, losing almost 0.1v under heavy Windows' load isn't conducive to overclocking.
DRAM timings are configurable to the usual 2-5-2-2 settings. 2-6-2-2 settings were chosen for benchmarking.
Some of the options on offer. MSI, like pretty much everyone else, now use a jumper-free system. Although Serial ATA selection is shown within BIOS, this particular motherboard doesn't support that feature. This seems like a generic MAX2 BIOS. Further, toggling the on-board LAN on or off makes no difference; it's permanently on.
MSI have realised the importance of the enthusiast sector, and this particular BIOS is about as far as MSI go in terms of voltages and tweakable options. The rest of the BIOS is pretty standard fare. Hyper-Threading is supported, naturally, via an adjustable option.
