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- Date:
- Tuesday , May 08, 2007
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Gigabyte N680SLI-DQ6
Rather than join the fray with just another reference design clone, Gigabyte brings the N680SLI-DQ6 to market with a touch of style and innovation that Gigabyte has been known for.
BIOS
GIGABYTE used the Award BIOS with the N680SLI-DQ6. Version F4B was used for testing.
The main BIOS screen contains all the standard time and date settings. Also you will find hard drive information and basic system information.
Advanced BIOS Features has the Hard Disk Boot Priority, boot device ordering, Password check, HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability, Limit CPUID Max to 3, No-Execute Memory Protect. CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E), CPU Thermal Monitor, CPU EIST function, Virtualization technology, and Init Display First settings. Integrated peripherals is next with On=Chip IDE Channels, IDE Prefecth Mode, NV Serial=ATA Controller, Serial ATA RAID Config, Onboard SATA-II Ctrl1, Onboard SATA-II Ctrl1 Mode, Onboard SATA-II Ctrl2, Onboard SATA-II Ctrl2 Mode, On-Chip MAC Lan, On-Chip MAC1 Lan, On-Chip SMART LAN, Onboard LAN1 Controller, Onboard LAN2 Controller, Onboard LAN Boot ROM, Onboard Audio Function, On-Chip USB, USB Keyboard Support, USB Mouse Support, Onboard 1394, Legacy USB Storage Detect, Onboard Serial Port 1, Parallel Port Mode, and x ECP Mode Use DMA. Basically, your standard fare found in most any BIOS.
The power Management Setup menu contains all of the standard advanced power management settings that are standard to every DIY motherboard BIOS. PnP/PCI Configuration controls IRQ assignment. The PC Health Status menu contains all the standard PC Health settings as well as Chassis intrusion, voltage levels, warning thresholds, current system temperatures and fan speeds.
The MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) is the next section and is the section the enthusiast will spend almost all their time BIOS wise. This menu contains several settings as you might expect. The first of which is the System Clock setting which is a separate sub menu of its’ own. For those of you who are familiar with other 680SLI chipset based boards, you will find familiar ground in the system clock setting. There are the usual SLI-Ready memory settings, FSB Memory Clock Mode, FSB Memory Ratio, Memory Frequency and PCIe x16 Slot 1 Clock(MHz), PCIe x8 Clock (MHz), and finally PCIe x16 Slot 2 Clock(MHz). The FSB memory clock mode works basically like this : When set to Unlinked mode, you can adjust memory and CPU frequencies independently of each other. When set to linked, the system will use standard dividers for memory/CPU FSB ratios. There are two displays readouts here as well. The first is Actual CPU Clock(MHz) and Actual Memory Clock (MHz). These you should pay attention to as they will show you where you are at currently, and what your new settings should take it too. Gigabyte has done a good job here. The FSB is adjustable up to 650MHz and the Memory frequency to 1400MHz. It is unlikely that this will limit anyone as these are generous margins to work with.
The next item in the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) is the Robust Graphics Booster, which seems to serve the same purpose as Linkboost, which as some of you already know was removed from the 680SLI chipset by NVIDIA and is no longer supported. CPU clock ratio is self explanatory, as this value is generally locked and can’t be changed unless you are lowering the value or you have an Extreme Edition series CPU. System Voltage control. I am not sure why, but Gigabyte insists on flashing this Voltage Not Optimized warning anytime you adjust the voltages from automatic to manual. This is really annoying, but the saving grace is that you shouldn’t be spending too much time looking at your BIOS.
Control-F1
On the modern Gigabyte motherboards you have to press control F1 in order to activate some of the more advanced areas of the BIOS. I don’t know the reason they do this, and for a board marketed as an enthusiast solution, it doesn’t make any sense to me. Never the less, that’s how they are made.
The first thing you’ll notice on the main screen is that the Advanced Chipset Features now appears and the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) has moved over to the right hand column as a result. In the Advanced Chipset Features section you will find LDT Frequency, System BIOS Cacheable, NVIDIA GPU Ex, and finally LinkBoost. As I mentioned LinkBoost is no longer supported by NVIDIA and has been officially deleted as a feature of the chipset according to the NVIDIA website. At the time of this writing the F4B BIOS is the newest one, and it’s nice to see LinkBoost has been left in there. I am not sure if Gigabyte will follow NVIDIA’s lead and delete this feature or not. In the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T) menu another sub-menu appears thanks to having pressed the Control-F1 key combination. This revealed option is Spread Spectrum Control. Contains the following items : CPU Spread Spectrum, PCIE Spread Spectrum, MCP PCIE Spread Spectrum, SATA Spread Spectrum and finally LDT Spread Spectrum. What is most important however is what appears in the System Clock Setting menu when Control-F1 is pressed and that is the Memory Timing Setting section. Here you will find the following timings : tCL (Cas Latency), tRCD (Row address to colum delay), tRP (Row Precharge Time), tRAS (Row Active Time), and Command Per Clock (CMD). Below the Advanced Memory Settings line on this page is additional memory timings. They are : tRRD (Row Active to Row Active Delay), tRC (Row Cylce Time) tWR (Write Recovery Time), tWTR (Internal Write to Read Command Delay) and tREF (Memory Refresh Rate). Overall Gigabyte has done a good job with the BIOS. It doesn’t over burden you with settings, but doesn’t short change you too much either on settings.