BIOS: Overclocking

Overclocking

The Overclocking Features page in the BIOS is home to the overclocking options. Sapphire has done an excellent job here, the options are well rounded, you might even find some options which no other board offered yet.


The CPU FSB can be changed in 1 MHz steps between 200 MHz and 440 MHz. Options for the PCI-Express bus frequency range from 100 MHz to 200 MHz. Most people fix it at 100 MHz and it works well.


Four values are available for Northbridge voltage. 1.50V sounds a bit much to me, especially without active cooling on the chipset. But it's better to have the options than to be limited. ATI lists 1.26 V as maximum recommended Voltage for the chipset, but overclockers have never cared about limits set by manufacturers, anyway.


The voltage of the HyperTransport link can be increased up to 1.5 V as well.


Two voltages of the PCI-Express bus can be changed.


Great job here again, Sapphire. DDR voltage is selectable from 2.5 V all the way up to 4.0 V in 0.05 V increments. There is no special "4V Jumper" to be set like on the DFI LanParty NF4 Series.


This setting allows you to define how much the VTT termination voltage should change from the default setting, which automatically tracks the memory voltage.


The easiest way to get a few more MHz out of your CPU, is by increasing the Core voltage. Sapphire's motherboard is one of the few boards to allow undervolting. Minimum voltage is 0.825 V, in steps of 0.025 V you can go up to 1.550 V. If that is not enough for you there is the VID offset setting which allows you to boost your CPU voltage even further. If you remember our review of the PI-A9RX480, you may remember that we complained about too little CPU voltage. Sapphire sat down with us, listened to our suggestions and now you can go up to 2.16 V.


Another new feature in this BIOS is the auto overclocking feature. Based on CPU temperature it will increase the CPU clock. Personally I prefer to know what the system is running at, but for media PCs which are supposed to run silent this offers a whole lot of new options. When the box is idle, run at a really low clock (200 FSB and low multiplier). When videos are played back (CPU temperature rises) and the CPU might be too slow, automatically increase the clocks.

Memory Timings

Wow, that is a lot of options to play with. It is a good idea to have three groups: Timing Mode, User Config Mode and DRAM ECC Feature Control. Each one can be set to Auto or Manual. If you like to tweak you memory settings, you will love this board. Everything I can think of has been covered in the BIOS.


The memory clock setting allows to change to the usual memory dividers. Running memory faster than the HT is not possible here.


I really like this bootmenu. When you press a hotkey during startup you are presented with the menu which allows quick selection of the startup device without messing with the BIOS settings.