BIOS
Gigabyte's use of a modified Award BIOS is another sensible measure. BIOSes should be evaluated in context to the board's intended market. Being a strictly budget board we shouldn't expect masses of voltage adjustment and advanced enthusiast-orientated features.
Looking down at the Frequency/Voltage control section, the 81PE775-G's BIOS seems comprehensive enough. Multiplier factors are available on unlocked or certain engineering sample LGA775 processors only. Host Frequency (MHz FSB) ranges from 100MHz-355MHz in 1MHz increments, and crucial AGP, PCI, and SATA frequencies can be locked from the default and recommended 66/33/100 through to 96/48/145MHz. There's very little need to adjust it from the default levels if overclocking.
Memory frequency can be adjusted from the F3 BIOS but timings appear to be either left out or hidden. The board automatically applies SPD timings, so you'd need low-latency memory to get the best out of it. Given a FSB of 200MHz RAM frequency can be set to 133MHz, 166MHz and 200MHz. Auto limits top-end RAM MHz to between DDR333-DDR426, so raising the FSB to, say, 250MHz drops RAM speed to right down to DDR333. DIMM voltage can be set to a reasonable 2.8v, AGP to 1.8v, and the CPU's ranges from 0.8375v-1.6v in 0.0125v increments.
I can't see why Gigabyte hasn't included real-time voltages in the health section. A simple OK doesn't cut it, I'm afraid. 53c BIOS temperature doesn't seem too bad for a Prescott running at 3.6GHz. I'd like to see Gigabyte, at the very least, upgrade the present BIOS to include obvious memory latency adjustment and provide voltage reporting.
