BIOS options and tweaking software
Years ago, getting a good array of tweaking and overclocking options in a motherboard BIOS wasn't guaranteed, even on a high-end enthusiast board. These days, however, motherboard makers are pretty good about exposing timing, clock speed, and voltage controls to users. Asus and Gigabyte have consistently provided feature-rich BIOSes on their enthusiast-oriented products, and their latest boards are no exception.
Despite offering similar functionality, the two boards' BIOSes do have a few key differences. We've summarized the most important options below.
| Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi-AP @n | Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 | |
| BIOS | AMI | Award |
| Bus speeds |
FSB: 200-800MHz in
1MHz increments PCIe: 100-150MHz in 1MHz increments DRAM: 667, 800, 835, 887, 1020, 1066, 111, 1333MHz |
FSB: 100-700MHz in
1MHz increments PCIe: 90-150MHz in 1MHz increments |
| Bus multipliers |
CPU: 6x-10x (Core
2 Duo E6750) MCH strap for: 200, 266, 333, 400MHz |
CPU: 6x-8x (Core
2 Duo E6750) DRAM: 2b, 2.4b, 3.2b, 2d, 2.66d, 3.33c, 4c, 2a, 2.5a, 3a, 4a MCH strap for: 266, 333, 200, 400MHz |
| Voltages |
CPU: 1.1-1.7V in 0.00625V increments DRAM: 1.5-2.78V in 0.02V increments NB: 1.25-1.91V in 0.02V increments SB: 1.05-1.2V in 0.15V increments CPU PLL: 1.5-2.782V in 0.02V increments FSB termination: 1.2-1.5V in 0.2V increments Clock over charging: 0.7-1.0V in 0.1V increments |
CPU: 0.5-2.35V in 0.00625V increments DRAM: +0.05-1.55V in 0.05V increments PCIe: +0.05-0.35V in 0.05V increments FSB: +0.05-0.35V in 0.05V increments MCH overvoltage: +0.025-0.375 in 0.025V increments MCH ref: +/- 10% DDR ref: +/- 10% DDR termination: +/- 0.05V CPU GTL ref1 -3-6% in 3% increments CPU GTL ref2 -3 - -9% in 3% increments |
| Monitoring | Voltage, fan status, and temperature monitoring | Voltage, fan status, and temperature monitoring |
| Fan speed control | CPU, chassis | CPU |
Some of these differences, such as the range of front-side bus and PCIe speeds, are largely academic. Others, like how each controls the memory bus speed, are mostly semantic. For example, Asus separates its MCH strap control from its memory bus speed options, while Gigabyte combines the two. In the Gigabyte BIOS, DRAM multipliers each come with a corresponding letter that denotes an MCH strap for either 266, 333, 200, or 400MHz.
You'll notice that both boards offer front-side bus and MCH strap options for effective 1600MHz front-side bus speeds. Support for 1600MHz front-side bus speeds isn't a part of Intel's official specs for the X38 chipset, although that may be because the company has yet to officially unveil processors with a 1600MHz FSB.
On the voltage front, the DQ6 has a distinct Vcore advantage. The board supports CPU voltages up to a heart-stopping 2.35V, giving liquid-nitrogen-cooled overclockers additional headroom over the P5E3 Deluxe. That headroom is unlikely to come in handy if you rely on traditional cooling methods, though. The P5E3's array of overvolting options are more than adequate for the rest of us.
Asus comes out a little ahead of Gigabyte when it comes to BIOS-level fan speed control, but only because that control extends to a system fan header in addition to the CPU. Surprisingly, neither board offers the ability to set individual fan voltages or reference temperatures in the BIOS. Only Asus offers temperature target control, and then only for the system fan, not for the CPU.
Perhaps the most interesting differences between the Asus and Gigabyte BIOSes are the unique features offered by each. The Asus, for example, provides support for configuration profiles that can be saved and loaded from the BIOS interface. Gigabyte, on the other hand, offers Quad BIOS—a feature that allows for BIOS recovery from a backup chip on the board in addition to copies stored on the driver CD and system hard drive.
If you're a little shy about poking around in the BIOS, both Asus and Gigabyte offer tweaking and hardware monitoring software for Windows.
Gigabyte wraps tweaking and monitoring capabilities into a single EasyTune application with a clumsy, almost sloppy interface. The functionality is there, but the presentation leaves much to be desired—even the color gradients are rough and pixellated. There's no accounting for taste, of course, but I'd much prefer a clean, simple interface.
Asus does a little better on the interface front, splitting tweaking and hardware monitoring between its AI Suite and PC Probe applications. The number of overclocking and tweaking options presented is roughly on-par with EasyTune, but PC Probe offers much more extensive hardware monitoring capabilities.
