BIOS: Overclocking

ABIT is using their uGuru extensions to the Award BIOS on the AT8. UGuru is ABIT's centralized system of overclocking, monitoring and fan control. A Windows software allows you to change all the parameters on the fly.

Overclocking

The multiplier setting allows to set half multipliers.


You can set your FSB in 1 MHz steps between 200 and 400 MHz. The range is ok, especially if you consider the maximum FSB we got out of the board.


There is usually no need to increase the PCI-E clock, except to circumvent the i945 chipset's overclocking lock on other motherboards.


The range of VCore options which goes up to 1.8V in 0.025V steps is ok.


Chipset voltage can be raised up to 2.0V. Do not overdo it, the heatpipe may not be able to handle it.


Up to 3.20V for DDR is pretty standard. I would have liked to see a higher voltage range like offered on other motherboards.


The HT Bus voltage goes up to 1.40V and the chipset's 1.2V default can be increased up to 1.8V.


For special memory tweaking you can change the DDR Reference voltage. I'm not sure if it is auto-tracked based on the VDDR setting. But since the listing shows relative voltages I would assume so.

ABIT EQ

The ABIT EQ is home to the monitoring and fan control options of the AT8.


There are four temperatures monitored which are pretty much everything you would like to know.


Wow. That's a lot of voltages to monitor.


ABIT did a good job with the fan speed monitoring too. Every single fan output on the board can be monitored. Most other motherboards offer only two or three monitored fan speeds.


With FanEQ you can define how fast a fan should run based on a components temperature.


A statistics page shows how often you cycled power or how long the system has been running total. I miss an option to reset the values to zero.