![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Friday , May 02, 2003
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ABIT IC7-G
The i875P, AKA "Canterwood", mainboards are starting to make it to market. We review ABIT's feature packed addition to the line up.
BIOS
The IC7-G uses the ABIT standard Phoenix AwardBIOS. ABIT itself has added performance tweaks to the BIOS to aid the end user with their need for speed, including their SoftMenu interface.
The ABIT SoftMenu interface is well known among the enthusiast circles. From one centralized location, ABIT allows BIOS based control for the manipulation of everything from CPU and system speed to component voltages. The system's ultimate performance and stability is placed directly in the user's hands.
If the CPU Operating Speed option is set to "User Defined", you have the option of modifying the CPU FSB, the N/B Strap, the DRAM FSB ratio, and the AGP FSB ratio. The Ext. Clock (CPU/AGP/PCI) option allows for customizing the CPU FSB. The possible settings allowed scale from 100 MHz to 300 MHz. This setting will affect the system memory, AGP, and PCI bus speeds. The AGP Ratio (CPU:AGP:PCI) option controls the speeds of the AGP and PCI buses so that they can be kept in spec while OCing the rest of your system. A variety of multipliers are available, but sadly Pentium 4 retail and OEM CPUs are multiplier locked so these settings do little unless you possess an unlocked engineering sample.
The other two settings available within the CPU Operation Speed section are used in determining your system DRAM speed. The chart below shows the settings available through the DRAM Ratio (CPU:DRAM) option when combined with the N/B Strap CPU As option.
N/B Strap CPU As | DRAM Ratio (CPU:DRAM) |
By CPU | 1:1 (533, 800 MHZ CPUs) |
3:2 (800 MHz CPU) | |
3:4 (400 MHz CPU) | |
4:5 (533 MHz CPU) | |
5:4 (800 MHz CPU) | |
By SPD (DDR speed determined by internal memory circuitry) | |
PSB400 | 3:4 |
By SPD (DDR speed determined by internal memory circuitry) | |
PSB533 | 1:1 |
4:5 | |
By SPD (DDR speed determined by internal memory circuitry) | |
PSB667 | 1:1 |
5:4 | |
By SPD (DDR speed determined by internal memory circuitry) | |
PSB800 | 1:1 |
3:2 | |
5:4 | |
By SPD (DDR speed determined by internal memory circuitry) |
At the bottom of the SoftMenu Setup page are the system voltage settings. With the CPU Power Supply option set to User Define, the CPU Core Voltage option becomes accessible. You are able to set the CPU core voltage as high as 1.9v, in .025v increments. The DDR SDRAM Voltage option enables you to pump more power through your DRAM modules, up to a maximum of 2.8v. This is sufficient for most overclocking, but an allowable increase up to 3v would have been ideal. The AGP Voltage option allows for manual setting of the AGP voltage, allowing a maximum of 1.65v to be set. This voltage is adequate for most overclocking, but again a bit higher voltage might be required by some enthusiasts. Overall, the voltage settings supplied in our IC7-G BIOS are going to fit the needs of most mainstream enthusiasts. For those needing more, there are always voltage modifications.
Interestingly enough when OCing our 3GHz 800MHz bus Pentium 4, we noticed some voltage limitations. The CPU would not even post if the voltage was set above 1.75v. Discussing this with ABIT, they did not see the same limitations on their CPUs used for testing in Taipei. We do have questions in to Intel concerning this. Of course as you will see, using a 1.725v Vcore setting allowed us a 600MHz OC with our 3GHz CPU.
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.
When the DRAM Timing Selectable option is set to Manual, all four memory related timing options become manually settable. Settings available include CAS latency, Active to Precharge delay, RAS to CAS delay, and RAS Precharge delay. On all memory timing settings, a lower number is more aggressive.
The ICH5R based SATA connectors are controlled through the state of the OnChip Serial ATA options within the OnChip IDE Device screen. The OnChip IDE Device screen can be accessed by selecting the OnChip IDE Device option from within the Integrated Peripherals menu. The Serial ATA1 Mode and Serial ATA2 Mode options allows for customized setting of the specific SATA port itself. With the RAID Function option disabled, the SATA ports act as normal hard drive connections. With the RAID Function and SATA RAID ROM options enabled, you are able to set up the drives connected to SATA1 and SATA2 in a RAID0 type array through the Intel RAID BIOS.
The Silicon Image based SATA connectors are controlled by the state of the Serial ATA Controller options within the Onboard PCI Device screen. The Onboard PCI Device screen can be accessed by selecting the Onboard PCI Device option from within the Integrated Peripherals menu. With the SATA RAID ROM option disabled, both the SATA3 and SATA4 ports act as normal hard drive connections. If enabled, drives connected to SATA3 and SATA4 can be setup as a RAID0 or RAID1 type array through the Silicon Image RAID BIOS.
The PC Health menu offers monitoring of various board temperatures and voltages, as well as fan speeds from the onboard fan headers.
The PC Health Status screen options cover various catastrophic system critical events. Through the Fan Fail Alarm Selectable option, you can tell the BIOS to monitor the health of a specific system monitored fan header or on all monitored headers when set to Auto. 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 CPU FanEQ Speed Control option allows for customized fan speed throttling by selecting a speed percentage. This option is ignored by the system when either of the user defined threshold temperatures is exceeded.