![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Tuesday , February 22, 2005
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
DFI nF4 SLI-DR
DFI's latest socket 939 offering pairs the power of the nForce4 chipset with PCI-Express based SLI. Read on to see how well this board does against the rest of the nForce4 SLI crowd.
BIOS
DFI used the well known Phoenix AwardBIOS design for the BIOS implementation on the nF4 SLI-DR board. The BIOS has been customized for enthusiast use as well. Note that the BIOS shown is version nf4ld209.
The Advanced BIOS Features menu is a centralized location for configuration of system initialization type settings, including those involved with boot drive selection. When a USB 2.0 hard drive type device is connected to the system at startup time and properly detected, it is shown as a selectable boot device within the Hard Disk Boot Priority submenu. The boot priority of specific items in this menu can be changed using the + and – keys.
The Integrated Peripherals menu contains numerous submenus and options for configuring the status of most integrated system devices. The RAID Config submenu contains all options for enabling and configuring the NVIDIA IDE and SATA ports for RAID operation. All ports, including the IDE master and slave ports within a single channel, can be individually configured for RAID operation. If a port is configured for RAID operation, it will not be detected on system initialization, but will show as available through the NVIDIA RAID BIOS.
The PC Health Status menu contains real-time statistics on all system monitored voltages, temperatures, and fan speeds. This menu also contains options for controlling system events based on configured temperature thresholds. While the upper threshold temperature for a fan header to run a fan at full speed is 75°C, the configurable maximum CPU temperature for system shutdown is only 70°C. Under ideal circumstances, you would want the option of setting the shutdown temperature to a higher threshold than that of the full fan speed temperature. As it stands, it is possible that your system could shutdown before the fans reached their maximum speed.
The PnP/PCI Configurations menu contains options for configuring the system IRQ and PnP-related settings. The BIOS does not give you the option of direct modification of the preset IRQ numbers. However, you can specify the pool settings for specific IRQ numbers through the IRQ Resources submenu. This submenu becomes accessible with the Resources Controlled By option set to Manual.
The CMOS Reloaded menu contains 4 individual banks in which you can store BIOS configurations. These BIOS configurations contains all settings configured in all the BIOS menus and submenus at the time you save them to an individual bank. The menu also allows for customized naming of the saved configurations, as well as the setting of a hotkey value. The set hotkey value can be used at system initialization time to force a particular BIOS configuration without having to go in to the BIOS itself.
The Genie BIOS Setting menu is a central repository for all memory, bus, and voltage configuration options. In addition, this menu contains options for status configuration of the integrated LAN devices and all SATA ports. The MAC LAN option controls the state of the NVIDIA-based GigE NIC, while the MARVELL Giga LAN Control option controls the Marvell based NIC. The two listed Internal Phy SATA options control the active state of the NVIDIA SATA II ports. The Sil3114 S-ATA RAID Control option configures the onboard Silicon Image RAID controller and associated SATA ports. Non-RAID SATA drives can be used and are detected properly by WinXP when attached to the Silicon Image controlled ports with the SATA RAID BY OLD MG or the SATA RAID 0,1,0+1,5 option selected. These options also enable the loading of the Silicon Image boot BIOS. Note that if the SATA RAID 0,1,0+1,5 option is selected, you must download the Silicon Image RAID 5 drivers from the DFI website in order for the SATA ports to be recognized by WinXP.
The FSB Bus Frequency option controls the main CPU FSB, with a hefty maximum allowed setting of 456MHz. The LDT/FSB Frequency Ratio option configures the speed of the HyperTransport link through the use of multipliers. The HyperTransport link speed is determined by multiplying the selected ratio number by the select CPU FSB, with the maximum ratio multiplier available being 5x. The LDT Bus Transfer Width controls the size of the upload and download transfer pipe available. For best performance, it is recommended to set this to 16 up and 16 down. The CPU/FSB Frequency Ratio option configures the internal CPU multiplier, with the maximum multiplier available determined by the CPU and the minimum allowed of 4x. The CPU speed is determined by multiplying the selected CPU multiplier setting and the selected CPU FSB setting. The PCI Express bus speed is determined asynchronously through the PCI eXpress Frequency option. This setting allows for a maximum PCI Express bus speed of 145MHz. Although no mechanism is provided to set or lock the PCI bus, there were no PCI bus related issues encountered while overclocking testing was performed with the board.
The BIOS offers two types of CPU voltage control: startup voltage and running voltage. The CPU VID StartUp Value controls the CPU voltage set at system initialization time, allowing for a maximum initialization voltage of 1.550V. This setting is very useful and welcome because a good number of CPU overclocking related failures occur because the CPU initialization voltage on a cold system boot is too low. The CPU VID Control allows for configuration of the CPU voltage, with a maximum of 1.550V selectable. However, the CPU voltage can be increased to a healthy 2.108V using the CPU VID Special Control option. Using this amount of voltage with an Athlon64 socket 939 processor is not recommended without a superior CPU cooling solution, however.
The LDT Voltage Control setting configures the HyperTransport link voltage, with a maximum allowable setting of 1.50V. The Chip Set Voltage option controls the amount of voltage provided to the nForce4 chipset with a maximum setting of 1.80V. While this amount of voltage may not seem like much, it was enough to propel the board to amazing overclocking heights while using the included chipset HSF. The DRAM Voltage Control option configures the voltage supplied to all seated DRAM modules on the board. With the DRAM 4V Select jumper block disabled, the maximum selectable DRAM voltage is 3.2V. With the jumper block enabled (in the 2-3 position) and a non-Auto CPU voltage selected, a maximum of 4.00V may be chosen for the memory voltage. Note that with memory voltage above 3.0V, it is highly recommended to employ active cooling for the memory modules.