Overclocking

The overclocking related options are spread out all over the BIOS.


The FSB selection is located on the CPU settings page. The range goes up to 500 MHz here, way above what's actually possible on this board.


All i945 chipsets have an overclock lock which limits the overclocking based on the PCI-Express frequency. If you enable the "synchronize" option, the lock is circumvented. Unfortunately you can't indefinitely increase the PCI-E clock, at some point you lose the SATA drives and the video card. More about this in the overclocking section of the review.


The range of VCore options is ok. A maximum of 1.6V might be good for air coolers, more extreme means could easily handle more voltage. Undervolting is possible, which allows for reduced heat output in underclocked systems like a Media PC.


Much better is the memory voltage range. Everything is covered here, even for the most extreme people.


I found no reason to increase the chipset voltage, not even when overclocking. But having the option here is sure nice, just in case.

Monitoring

A very nice feature, usually only found in much more expensive boards is that the fan speeds can be controlled based on temperature. Really good work here, ECS.