![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , June 01, 2006
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
DFI LANParty UT CFX3200-DR
The latest addition to DFI’s Athlon64 arsenal seems to show off the ATI Radeon Xpress 3200 chipset’s power. How well does this board stack up?
BIOS
The Phoenix AwardBIOS design was used in implementing the CFX3200-DR’s BIOS. The BIOS version shown below and used in testing was version R5UD425.
The Advanced BIOS Features menu contains options for configuring the system during its startup sequence, including options and submenus for controlling boot device access order. The Hard Disk Boot Priority submenu lists all hard drive type devices connected and detected at system boot time. When a USB 2.0 hard drive type device is detected at system boot time, the device will show as a viable boot device in this submenu. The access order of the drives listed within the Hard Disk Drives submenu can modified using the + or – keys, with the lowest number in the list given top boot priority.
The Advanced Chipset Features menu contains options for configuring the system Northbridge and Southbridge controlled devices.
The South Configuration submenu contains Southbridge related devices options. The Realtek Azalia audio riser slot is controlled via the Azalia LINK option in this submenu. The South Bridge Feature menu contains various Southbridge chipset related performance options.
The PCIE Configuration submenu contains options for configuring the operational state of the PCI Express slots. Through the Link Width …. GFX0 and GFX1 options, you can set the bandwidth for the 2 PCI Express x16 graphic ports. It is recommended to set them to 16x mode in both single card and multi-card CrossFire modes for best performance. At the very bottom of the submenu, there are options for upping various Southbridge and PCI Express voltages by 10%, which is both within device tolerances and very desirable for overclocking purposes.
The Integrated Peripherals menu contains configuration options for several onboard devices, including the onboard USB 2.0 ports and the IDE devices. All IDE device configuration options can be configured from within the OnChip IDE Setting submenu.
All IRQ and PnP related devices settings are located within the PnP/PCI Configurations menu. All system interrupts can be customized manually with a value between 1 and 15, or set to Auto mode which enables automatic system assignment. With the Resources Controlled By option set to Manual, the IRQ Resources submenu becomes user accessible. Individual IRQ numbers can be assigned to a specific resource pool from within this submenu.
The PC Health Status menu displays real-time statistics for all BIOS monitored system voltages, fan speeds, and temperatures. You have the options to configure a CPU temperature threshold for automated system shutdown through the Shutdown Temperature option, as well as minimum and maximum fan activation settings based on specific device temperatures.
The CMOS Reloaded menu contains 4 individual banks with which you have the ability to store customized BIOS configurations. Among other things, the menu allows for customized naming of the saved configurations, as well as setting of an individual hotkey value for each configuration bank. The set hotkey value can be used at system initialization time for forced load a particular BIOS configuration, without having to go in to the BIOS itself.
The Genie BIOS Setting menu contains all system configurable voltage and device speed related configuration options, as well as options for configuring certain PCI bus type devices. At the very bottom of the Genie BIOS menu are the current voltage settings for various configurable onboard devices, including the CPU Core, and DIMM voltages.
The LDT & PCI Bus Control submenu contains configuration options for the HyperTransport bus. The Upstream LDT Bus Width and Downstream LDT Bus Width options set the HyperTransport bus bandwidth. For best performance, it is recommended to set both options to 16 bit.
The PCI Device Control submenu lists various options for configuring both onboard RAID controllers, and integrated the LAN ports. The Serial ATA Controller option sets the state of the integrated ULI RAID controller, while the Sil3114 S-ATA RAID Control option controls the Silicon Image based controller. The Advanced SATA Feature submenu contains configuration settings for the ULI Southbridge integrated RAID controller, including options for RAID and standalone type operation.
The FSB Bus Frequency option sets the board’s base FSB speed, with a configurable maximum of 500MHz. The LDT/FSB Frequency Ratio option sets the base ratio for the HyperTransport bus, with actual bus speed calculated by multiplying the base FSB and the current LDT ratio setting. At the default 200MHz CPU FSB, the HyperTransport bus can be run at a 1000MHz speed through the 5x ratio setting. The CPU/FSB Frequency Ratio option controls the internal CPU ratio setting, with a minimum available ratio of 4x. The real-time CPU speed is calculated through the multiplication of the current CPU ratio setting and the current base FSB setting. 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 RD580 HT PLL Speed option controls the aggressiveness of the HyperTransport’s bus clocking chip, with the High Speed setting giving better performance. The signal strength of various HyperTransport components can be customized as well, with all values settable between 0 and 7.