![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , October 26, 2006
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
abit AB9 Pro
abit is a long time favorite of the PC enthusiast and gaming crowds alike. Today we take a look at one of their feature-packed P965 Express motherboards for Core 2 Duo and see if the new "Universal abit" is worthy of the old "ABIT" name.
BIOS
abit used the Phoenix Award BIOS with the AB9 Pro. Version 1.4 was used for testing, and it really is pink. Seriously, you can’t change the color. (Editor’s Note: While I did not try to change the color of the BIOS, I have had some BIOS in the past that allowed me to cycle colors. A quick Google search turns up that (Shift-F2) might cycle the BIOS colors although this was not experimented with, but a search on the abit forums turned up nothing.)
Other than the color, it resembles the Award BIOS we’ve all known for many years. The best feature about this BIOS is that the overclocking sections is the very first thing you see when you get into it. This is nice, as any enthusiast will spend a lot of time here, and it’s nice that the overclocking utility is right up front. abit calls their jumperless configuration utility uGuru. The uGuru utility is simple, yet effective. Many options are present here in this menu for overclocking your processor, and getting the most out of your board and CPU.
As mentioned before, the uGuru utility is the first section of the BIOS. Here you can control FSB, CPU Multiplier, and various voltage settings. The first setting is the External Clock Frequency. This controls the FSB of the CPU and therefore controls the clock speed of the processor. The next setting is the CPU multiplier. My E6300 test CPU’s multiplier was not adjustable on this motherboard either up or down. Many motherboards now support adjusting the multiplier down but not up. My test board did neither. The next setting si the N/B Strap CPU As setting. The choices are: By CPU, FSB1066, FSB800, and FSB533. DRAM Spec. (CPU:DRAM). The choices are: By CPU, FSB1066, FSB800, and FSB533.PCI Express Clock is the next setting, and generally there is very little reason to change this, but it is adjustable up to 150MHz.
Up next is the Voltages Control Menu. Here you can control CPU core voltage, DDR2 Voltage, MCH Voltage, and ICH10 Voltage. The CPU voltage is adjustable from 1.25v to 1.7250 volts. Memory voltage is adjustable from 1.75v to 2.50v which is pretty good. Next, MCH voltage is adjustable from 1.25 to 1.45v. ICH10 voltage is adjustable from 1.50 volts to 1.70 volts. The last thing that is present in this section is the Power Cycle Statistics monitor. Here you can check PC up time, up time total, PC power cycles, reset button cycles, AC power on total time, and AC power cycles.
The abit EQ tab within the uGuru Utility contains all the monitoring functions of the motherboard. The first section within abit EQ is abit EQ beep control. Next is temperature monitoring, voltage monitoring, fan speed monitoring and finally FanEQ Control. The abit EQ Beep Control option allows beep warnings via the PC speaker if thresholds set in the following tabs are exceeded. The Temperature monitoring submenu shows CPU, SYS and PWM temperatures and allows you to control shutdown and warning thresholds. The Voltage Monitoring submenu allows the same thing for various motherboard components such as the NB and SB chipsets, memory and CPU. It also allows beep warning and shutdown thresholds for those components just as the Temperature monitor does. The Fan Speed Monitoring tab has real time monitoring of fan speeds for CPU, NB, SYS FAN, AUX1, OTES1 and 2 fans. You can adjust the warning and shutdown thresholds here as well. You also have the choice in these menus of overriding the system monitors entirely and simply not use the warning system or monitor the values at all.
The Fan EQ Control menu contains a series of submenus designed for configuration of the systems impressive 6 fan headers. The BIOS controls the fan speed of a fan that's connected to a fan header by throttling the voltage supplied by that header, based on default or user configured settings for that header. The reference temperature determines which values the fan is controlled from. In the case of the CPU fan, CPU temps alone determine the fan speed of that particular header. All other headers can be configured to use the SYS temperature monitor, the CPU temperature monitor and the PWM temperature monitor to control their fan speeds. You can set the Control Temperature High and Low options to determine what temperatures govern the switch from fan low to fan high mode. Also, you can set the DC voltage to each of the fans with the DC Fan Voltage High and Low options. Should the temperature climb above either default temperature thresholds, or those set by the user, the system BIOS will automatically switch the fans from low to high speed.
The Standard CMOS Features section is the second section of the BIOS. Here is where basic time, date and IDE drive data and settings are found. This section is like most Award BIOS on many motherboards. The only difference here is that this one is pink. The Advanced BIOS Features menu has various options and submenus for system startup, including boot order of detected hard disks and other devices. A properly detected USB 2.0 hard drive will show as a viable device in the Hard Disk Boot Priority submenu. The priority of specific items in this menu can be changed using either the + and – keys.
The CPU Feature menu has several basic settings such as Limit CPUID MaxVal, C1E Function, Execute Disable Bit, Virtualization Technology and EIST Function settings.
From the main BIOS screen, the Advanced Chipset Features menu is where memory timings can be accessed. By default, the By SPD mode is selected, which doesn't allow for the timings to be adjusted. When set to Manual mode, all configuration options become configurable. Memory timing options include: CAS Latency Time, DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay, DRAM RAS# Precharge, Precharge delay (tRAS), Command Rate, PCI-E Compatibility Mode, and finally Init Display First.
The Integrated Peripherals menu is the next section of the BIOS. The OnChip IDE Device Menu contains IDE Bus Master and SATA mode settings for the JM363 and ICH8R controllers. OnChip PCI Device is the next menu under Integrated Peripherals has the USB 2.0 settings, and on chip audio controller settings. This is where you setup legacy USB settings or disable or enable the two devices covered in this section.
The Onboard PCI Device menu contains LAN port configuration settings for Option Roms and for enabling or disabling the devices. Also, the Silicon 3132 SATA controller and JMB363 SATA Controllers are configured here as well. Here they can be enabled, disabled or put in AHCI, IDE or RAID modes. Also, the IEEE1394 controller is configured here as well. It can be enabled or disabled.
Power Management is the next menu of the BIOS. This controls all the standard ACPI Suspend Type settings and controls wake up and sleep events. The final menu in the BIOS has the PnP/PCI Configuration settings. Again, this is all very standard stuff, that is found in all Award BIOS. The main difference as mentioned before is that it is pink.