BIOS

These screenshots are based on ABIT's 1.2 Beta BIOS. The final version will be out soon.


On the Standard CMOS Page you can set the most basic settings like time and date, harddisks and floppy. Also on this page you have a listing of the memory installed.


All overclocking features are grouped under the OC Guru page.


The FSB adjustments range from 133 to 600. 600 is a bit too ambitious, a realistic maximum FSB is between 380 and 500 MHz.


The multiplier can be set downward, down to 6 on all Conroe CPUs. On Extreme Edition CPUs you can raise the multiplier as well. This feature is not part of the 1.0 BIOS so an upgrade is advised.


The chipset strap setting allows you to change the operating mode of the memory controller. Different settings allow different memory dividers to be picked.


At the 1066 FSB setting the available dividers are 1:1, 4:5 and 2:3. This means that if you are looking to run high FSBs you will need memory that can do these clocks. There is no way you can run memory slower than the FSB when in 1066 mode. For example at FSB 400 you need at least DDR2-800 memory. This is common to all i975X motherboards, not only ABIT.

Voltages

Abit lets you change the three most important voltages.


The CPU VCore range goes from 1.325V up to 1.725V. Some undervolting options would have been nice here.


Memory voltage can be set from 1.75V up to 2.65V.


Increasing MCH Voltage is crucial if you are looking for high FSBs. As we see later in the overclocking section of this review, the maximum FSB scales almost linearly with MCH voltage.


On this page you can see some statistics on the use of this board, an option to reset these is not available.

ABIT EQ

Abit's monitoring and fan control package is called ABIT EQ.


A nice feature for case modders is that ABIT has put a number of LEDs on the bottom side of the case which light up in predefined patterns which can be selected on this page.


Temperature monitoring is watching all temperatures you could imagine on the board. An additional readout that gets the temperature directly from the Core 2 internal temperature would be a nice addition here.


Voltage monitoring is very complete as well. There are even two different 12V monitors, for the 24 pin and the 4 pin CPU voltage.


Fan speed monitoring keeps track of the fan speed on all fan connectors.


The fan speed control tabs are highly sophisticated and allow you to fine tune your fan noise exactly to your cooling needs.