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- Date:
- Tuesday , October 14, 2003
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
MSI K8T-Neo
The K8T-Neo is MSI’s introduction into the AMD64 world. Pairing up the VIA K8T800 chipset with an Athlon64, this board may be an nForce3 killer...
BIOS
MSI chose to use an American Megatrends (AMI) based BIOS for the K8T-Neo. Like all overclocking conscious vendors, MSI customized the BIOS in certain areas for more enthusiast friendly endeavors.
The Advanced Chipset Features menu contains various chipset related optimization options. In this case, MSI chose to include LDT (Lightning Data Transport AKA HyperTransport), memory, and AGP bus related optimizations.
The System Performance option, at the very top of the Advanced Chipset Features menu, controls how aggressively the system sets internal chipset and bus related timings. The Turbo setting is automatically selected when optimized defaults are loaded from the main menu screen. The LDT bus bandwidth is controlled through two options, LDT to AGP Lokar (Upstream) for data going from the chipset to the CPU, and LDT to AGP Lokar (Downstream) for data going from the CPU to the chipset. The LDT to AGP Lokar Frequency option controls the physical speed of the LDT (Lightning Data Transport) bus. In testing, it was found that the speed of the LDT bus remained constant at the MHz rate set in the LDT to AGP Lokar Frequency option when the CPU FSB was raised. Thus, the LDT bus speed appears to be asynchronous to the rest of the system. The LDT bus frequency was measured using the VIA HyperTransport tool, version 1.0. Note that for all LDT bus related settings, the numerically higher value is the more aggressive setting.
One thing that MSI definitely did well was with the selection of user configurable memory timing options. The memory frequency becomes user manageable through the Memclock Value option with the Memclock Mode option set to Limit. The Memclock Value option itself allows you to select a memory type that in effect sets a divider for the occasions when the CPU FSB is raised or lowered. The base CPU FSB is 200 MHz, so the dividers available via the Memclock Mode option include the following (ratios formatted CPU:Memory): 1:1 (DDR400); 6:5 (DDR333); 4:3 (DDR300); 3:2 (DDR266); 2:1 (DDR200). Timing options available include Bank Interleaving, Burst Length, CAS Latency, RAS to CAS delay (labeled TRCD), Precharge to Active delay (labeled TRAS), and RAS Precharge delay (labeled TRP). With the exception of the Bank Interleaving and Burst Length options, the lower value is the more aggressive value. Bank Interleaving unfortunately has only the option of enabled/disabled, while the higher value is the more aggressive for the Burst Length option.
The Integrated Peripherals menu contains a multitude of options for controlling the VIA chipset controlled devices and ports. The VIA SATA 150 controller status is set via the VT8237 SATA-IDE option. The V-Link DATA 2X Support controls the speed of the data path between the North and Southbridge chipsets. System performance will suffer noticeably with this setting disabled. The OnBoard PCI Controller submenu contains options for controlling the various other chipsets located on the motherboard, including the Promise RAID controller. The P20378 SATA Controller option sets the behavior of the Promise RAID controller ports. With this option set to RAID, the RAID BIOS becomes accessible during system startup, but only RAID arrays are accessible through the OS. With the option set to SATA, single SATA drives become accessible through the OS. Both settings require a different device driver to be installed to the OS to function properly.
The PC Health Status menu contains various statistics corresponding to BIOS monitored system temperatures, BIOS monitored fans, and system voltages. Unfortunately, MSI did not include any means to throttle the fan speed on monitored fan headers, nor to set a system temperature shutdown threshold.
The Frequency/Voltage Control menu contains various options for controlling the CPU and memory bus frequency, as well as setting a multitude of system voltages. Also included is the Dynamic Overclocking option. This option enables the CoreCell Technology chip and sets how aggressively that CoreCell chip attempts to overclock your system. The CoreCell Technology itself is dynamic in the sense that it determines when the system could use a bit of extra power, and enables the overclocking level selected. Note that using this option allows for an additional 10% overclock above the manual settable 280 MHz. With the board set to a CPU FSB of 280 MHz and the Dynamic Overclocking option set to General (10% overclock), the maximum FSB speed of the system could reach 308 MHz with CoreCell assisted overclocking.
The CPU FSB can be manually set through the CPU FSB Clock option. This option allows for a maximum settable FSB of 280 MHz, which can be additionally enhanced in tandem with the Dynamic Overclocking option. With the Athlon64 chip multiplier locked, the maximum possible FSB of 308 MHz is nothing more than a pipe dream without the use of LN2 or similar extreme cooling devices. The DDR Voltage option controls the memory voltage allowing for a maximum of 2.85v. This is not a very high amount, when considered against the ludicrously extreme CPU FSB range, and can act to inhibit a system overclock with system memory set to run synchronous to the CPU bus. However, the voltage cap can be worked around by smart use of the memory divider option with the Advanced Chipset Features menu, to throttle the memory frequency down to manageable levels while pushing the CPU FSB insanely high. The CPU Vcore option controls the voltage provided to the CPU, with a maximum settable voltage of 15% above default. This translates to a maximum voltage setting of 1.725v when using an Athlon64 with default voltage of 1.50v. Given the lavish CPU FSB ceiling, the maximum CPU voltage is a bit disappointing and will definitely limit the maximum FSB obtainable. The AGP voltage is a whole different matter though. MSI chose to allow a healthy maximum voltage of 1.85v with which to slow cook your AGP card, but did not chose to allow for manipulation of the AGP bus speed. So what good does such high voltage give you? Not much, but maybe it will provide a bit more game based stability during excessive CPU FSB overclocking. One major oversight that will possibly impede your overclocking abilities are the lack of chipset and LDT voltage manipulation options. Both the AthlonXP and Intel P4 boards normally require some minimal amount of chipset related voltage tweaking to stabilize the system fully while overclocking. The Athlon64 platform may be no different.