![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Tuesday , April 24, 2007
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ASUS P5B Premium
The P5B Premium is ASUS’ latest introduction in their P5B series, touting full Windows Vista Trusted Platform support. With the stellar performance seen with the rest of the P5B series, this board shows lots of promise.
BIOS (continued)
The JumperFree Configuration submenu contains all voltage and speed related configuration options. The AI Tuning option determines which settings are user configurable, and which are automatically configured via internal BIOS settings. The Auto and Standard settings are the most restrictive settings, allowing for a minimal amount of manual setting configuration. The AI N.O.S. setting opens up manual configuration of the memory speed and system voltage options, with the system clock speeds determined by the system using the N.O.S. Mode and Turbo N.O.S. options. The BIOS automatically determines the desired level of overclocking set within the Turbo N.O.S. setting, once system usage minimums meet the criteria set by the selected N.O.S. Mode option setting. Setting the AI Tuning option to Manual allows the end user the most freedom in setting the system frequency and voltage options, with all settable options being manually configurable.
The CPU Frequency option determines the base CPU FSB, with a maximum allowable speed of 650MHz. Note that the CPU Frequency option does not have a menu selection interface, instead relying on user inputted numbers for the frequency selection. The DRAM Frequency option configures the memory speed, with the settings shown reflecting actual memory speeds based on the current CPU FSB speed, rather than default speeds based on a 200MHz or 266MHz CPU FSB. The PCI Express Frequency option configures the PCI Express bus speed, with a 150MHz bus speed ceiling. The PCI bus can be locked at a static 33MHz using the PCI Clock Synchronization Mode option.
Memory voltage is configured using the Memory Voltage option, which allows for a maximum setting of 2.45V. Note that it is highly recommended to use active memory cooling when using voltages above 2.15V. The CPU voltage can be configured to run at a maximum of 1.700V through the CPU VCore Voltage options. However, using this amount of voltage with a Core 2 Duo CPU requires a top notch cooling system. The FSB Termination Voltage option sets the Vtt voltage, with a 1.450V maximum allowed. This setting can be very useful with system stabilization, especially while overclocking. The NB VCore setting controls the Northbridge chipset voltage, with a maximum settable voltage of 1.65V. The Southbridge chipset voltage is configured using 2 separate options, the SB Vcore (SATA,PCIE) option with a 1.80V maximum and the ICH Chipset Voltage option allowing for a 1.215V maximum.
All board memory timing related options are found within the North Bridge Configuration submenu, which is the only submenu listed within the Advanced Chipset Settings submenu. The South Bridge configuration submenu contains speed related settings for the secondary PCI Express x16 slot.
From within the North Bridge Configuration submenu, all configurable memory timing related options become user accessible with the Configure DRAM Timing by SPD option disabled. The following memory timing options are available for user configuration: CAS latency; RAS to CAS delay; RAS precharge; active to precharge delay; write recover delay; row refresh cycle delay (shown as TRFC); RAS to RAS delay (shown as TRRD); write to read delay; read to precharge delay; write to precharge delay; and static read control. Note that on most of the listed memory timings options, the numerically lower setting forces more aggressive memory operation. For the TRRD, Rank Write to Read Delay, Read to Precharge Delay, and Write to Precharge Delay options, there is no pop-up menu displayed. These options are changed by manually entering a value or by using the + and - keys.