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- Date:
- Tuesday , March 25, 2003
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ABIT BH7
The BH7 is ABIT’s latest masterpiece featuring the Intel i845PE chipset. Read on to find out why ABIT is convinced that this is the board to pair up with your prized P4...
BIOS
The BH7 uses the Phoenix AwardBIOS, implemented with a layout that is standard among a majority of motherboard manufacturers. ABIT has added performance tweaks to the BIOS to aid the end user with their need for speed.
The ABIT SoftMenu interface is legendary among enthusiasts everywhere. In one screen, ABIT allows for the manipulation of everything from CPU and system speed to component voltages. These settings give the user ultimate control of system performance and stability.
With the CPU Operated Speed option set to User Defined, you are able to independently set the CPU FSB, the CPU multiplier, the PCI bus frequency, the DRAM strap ratio and the DRAM ratio itself. The Ext. Clock option allows for setting of the CPU FSB from 100 MHz to 250 MHz. Setting the CPU external clock will affect the speed of you system DRAM and can affect the speed of the system PCI bus as well. You can use the PCI Bus Frequency option to set the speed of the PCI bus. You have the option of running the PCI bus at a locked frequency, or tying it to the speed of the CPU FSB via offered frequency dividers. The Multiplier Factor option allows for setting of the internal CPU multiplier. This multiplier, when combined with the external clock setting, determines the actual speed of the processor. It was found in testing that the multiplier control was not stable enough to use when overclocking an unlocked engineering sample CPU. The multiplier would be set to a higher value than selected in the BIOS in some cases, and in other cases would be wholly ignored by the system on bootup.
The last two settings within the CPU Operating Speed section determine the speed at which your system DRAM will run. The chart below shows the settings available through the DIMM Ratio (CPU:DRAM) option when combined with the DRAM Ratio H/W Strap option.
DRAM Ratio H/W Strap | DRAM Ratio (CPU:DRAM) |
Low | 1:1 (400 MHz CPU FSB:PC1600 DDR) |
3:4 (400 MHz CPU FSB:PC2100 DDR) | |
By SPD (DDR speed determined by internal memory circuitry) | |
High | 1:1 (533 MHz CPU FSB:PC2100 DDR) |
4:5 (533 MHz CPU FSB:PC2700 DDR) | |
By SPD (DDR speed determined by internal memory circuitry) | |
By CPU | 1:1 (FSB/DDR based on actual CPU FSB settings) |
4:5 (FSB/DDR based on actual CPU FSB settings) | |
By SPD (DDR speed determined by internal memory circuitry) |
The settings near the bottom of the SoftMenu III interface have to deal with system voltages. The Core Voltage option allows for setting of the voltage delivered to the CPU in percentages, all the way up to +30% which can be over 2v depending on your CPU’s default voltage settings. The DRAM voltage option allows for up to 3.05v to be powering your installed DIMMs, which should be more than enough juice for even the most strenuous overclock. Just make sure to have sufficient cooling on your DIMMs, because with that much voltage going through them, they’ll get real hot real quick. The last setting allows for manual setting of the system AGP voltage. ABIT chose to limit the voltage allowed to 1.6v which is adequate in most cases, but a little more voltage would have been nice.
The Advanced Chipset Menu allows for full control over most chipset related settings, including memory timings. Changing memory timing specifically can offer a vast amount of system performance improvement.
With the DRAM Timing Selectable option set to Manual, you are able to manually set how aggressively your memory interacts with the rest of the system. Too aggressive of a memory setting can easily lead to system OS corruption, however. As far as settings available, you can manual set the CAS latency, the Active to Precharge delay, the RAS to CAS delay, and the RAS Precharge delay. On all memory timing related setting, the lower number is more aggressive.
The very last setting in the Advanced Chipset menu is the Differential Current setting. This setting has something to do with increasing stability of the DRAM through current manipulation, but there is actually little information provided for this setting. ABIT’s recommendation is to leave the differential current setting at default, or to set it to 6x for marginal system stabilization under overclocked conditions.
The board’s SATA header is controlled through the state of the Serial ATA Bridge option within the OnChip IDE Device(s) screen. The OnChip IDE Device(s) screen can be accessed by selecting the OnChip IDE Devices option from within the Integrated Peripherals menu. If the Serial ATA Bridge option is disabled, IDE1 and IDE2 both support 2 IDE devices each. However, if the Serial ATA Bridge option is enabled, the SATA header becomes active as IDE2’s master connection. The IDE2 header itself remains active, but only supports a single device connected in a slave configuration. If the device on IDE2 is not set to slave, neither the drive connected to the SATA header nor the drive connected to IDE2 will be recognized correctly.
The most interesting fact about the SATA implementation is that is does not require separate installation of OS level device drivers with a SATA device connected to the system. The SATA chipset actually routes the SATA device’s signal through the IDE2 device in the ICH4 southbridge. This signal re-route makes the SATA drive appear to be an IDE drive to the system.
The PC Health menu offers monitoring of various board temperatures and voltages, as well as fan speeds from the onboard fan headers.
The options available within the PC Health menu allow for setting of system responses to various catastrophic event scenarios. The Fan Fail Alarm Selectable option allows for BIOS monitoring of fan health on a specific system monitored fan header or on all monitored headers. The CPU Warning Temperature setting allows for a threshold temperature to be set for safe CPU operation, from 30 to 120 degrees Celsius. If the temperature threshold is passed by the CPU, a warning alert sounds through the system speaker. The CPU Shutdown Temperature allows for setting of a predefined threshold for maximum safe CPU operation. If the shutdown threshold is passed, the system is immediately shutdown by the BIOS. One thing that seems strange to me is the fact that the warning threshold can be set to a much higher threshold temperature than the shutdown threshold. The last setting within the PC Health menu, Smart FAN Speed Control, allows for throttling of the CPU fan speed by percentage.