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- Date:
- Tuesday , March 22, 2005
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
GIGABYTE GA-K8NXP-SLI
GIGABYTE’s premier socket 939 offering, the nForce4 based GA-K8NXP-SLI, comes bundled with its own single card SLI video card. Read on to find out just how well this motherboard stacks up to the competition.
BIOS (continued)
GIGABYTE chose to incorporate an expert mode into their BIOS configuration. This expert mode operation is toggled by pressing the Control and F1 keys simultaneously while in the main BIOS screen. When this key sequence is pressed, The Advanced Chipset Features menu becomes accessible, as well as several additional options within the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) menu.
The Advanced Chipset Features menu contains options for configuring chipset related bus and timing options, including those pertaining to the HyperTransport and memory buses.
The speed of the HyperTransport bus can be set using the HT Frequency option through the use of provided multipliers. At the default 200MHz CPU FSB, the HyperTransport bus can be set to run at a speed of 1000MHz using the 5x multiplier option. The HyperTransport bus bandwidth is set through the HT Width option. For optimum performance, it is recommended to set this to 16 up and 16 down. The DDR speed is configured using the Max Memclock (Mhz) option, with the settings shown corresponding to preset ratios. The memory ratios are determined as follows, with the ratio listed as DDR FSB:CPU FSB and all ratios assuming a base CPU FSB of 200MHz: 100MHz is 1:2; 133MHz is 2:3; 166MHz is 5:6; and 200MHz is 1:1.
As with many of the other nForce4-based boards, the GA-K8NXP-SLI contains an abundance of memory timing options. The available memory timing options are user configurable with the DDR Timing Setting option set to Manual. Configurable memory timing options include the following: CAS latency; row cycle time; row refresh cycle time; RAS to CAS delay; row to row delay; active to precharge delay (shown as Min RAS# active time(Tras); RAS precharge delay (shown as Row precharge Time (tRP)); write recovery time; write to read delay; read to write delay; and refresh period. Note that on all memory timings listed, the numerically lower setting forces more aggressive memory operation. The memory command rate setting is determined through the Enable 2T Timming option. With this option enabled, the command rate is set to 2T, while it is set to 1T when disabled. In testing, we found the board was unstable with this option set to Disabled.
In expert mode, the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) menu contains a few additional options for memory and video card bus configuration. With the Linear R.G.B. clock % option set to enabled, the R.G.B. core clock and R.G.B. memory clock options become user configurable. Using these options, the overclock video related core and memory speed by up to an impressive 255%. The M.I.B.2 allows for setting of memory brand currently in use with the motherboard. Each option available has brand specific settings associated to it for more optimal memory performance and usage.
When the F8 key is pressed during boot up, the Dual BIOS Utility screen displays. Through this screen, you are able to flash the board’s BIOS or backup the BIOS from a floppy disk, save the current BIOS or backup BIOS to a floppy disk, backup the current BIOS settings to the backup BIOS chip, and configure automatic system responses to BIOS type error situations.