What's in a Micro ATX BIOS?
Micro ATX models are rarely revered for their tweaking and overclocking options, so we poked around the BIOSes for our Asus and Gigabyte boards to see what we could find. Much to our surprise, these boards are pretty well equipped if you want to get your hands dirty and fiddle around.
| Asus P5E-VM HDMI | Gigabyte GA-MA78G-S2H | Bus speeds |
FSB: 400-800MHz in
1MHz increments FSB strap: 200, 266, 333MHz PCIe: 100-150MHz in 1MHz increments DRAM: 533, 667, 800MHz |
HT:
200-500MHz in
1MHz increments HT Link: 200MHz-2.6GHz in 200MHz increments PCIe: 100-200MHz in 1MHz increments VGA core: 150-1100MHz in 1MHz increments |
| Bus multipliers | CPU: 6x-10x (Pentium E2180) |
CPU: 5x-25x (Phenom 9600 BE) DRAM controller frequency: 5x-16x DRAM: 2,2.66,3.33,4,5.33 |
| Voltages |
CPU: 1.1-1.7V in 0.0125V increments DRAM: 1.8-2.44V in 0.02V increments PLL: 1.5-1.8V in 0.02V increments FSB termination: 1.2-1.5V in 0.02V increments NB: 1.25-1.71V in 0.02V increments SB: 1.05, 1.2V |
CPU: +0.025-0.6V in 0.025V increments DRAM: +0.1-0.3V in 0.1V increments NB: +0.1-0.3V in 0.1V increments |
| Monitoring | Voltage, fan status, and temperature monitoring | Voltage, fan status, and temperature monitoring |
| Fan speed control | CPU, chassis | CPU |
Both offer all the usual memory timings with a decent array of overclocking options, to boot. Front-side bus and HT clock speeds are available in ranges that should be more than ample for most folks. You can even tweak CPU and chipset voltages, although there are more overvolting options on the Asus board than on the Gigabyte.
Temperature-based processor fan speed control is really a must-have feature for home theater PCs, so it's good to see it making an appearance in both BIOSes. The Asus board offers temperature-based fan speed control for its system fan header, which is a nice little perk. Neither board exposes BIOS-level control over target temperatures or fan speed profiles, though.
If you're planning on plunking a Phenom into the GA-MA78GM-S2H, you'll be happy to know that its latest F3C BIOS revision includes a switch to disable AMD's TLB workaround. AMD has instructed motherboard makers not to include such a switch in their BIOSes, but Gigabyte and others don't appear to be heeding that request, which suits us just fine. You should also be able to disable the TLB patch using AMD's OverDrive software, which is fully compatible with the 780G chipset.
Specifics on specifications
To cover all the little details we haven't had the chance to discuss yet, I've compiled a handy spec sheet that sums up the Asus P5E-VM HDMI and the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H.
| Asus P5E-VM HDMI | Gigabyte GA-MA78G-S2H | |
| CPU support | LGA775-based Celeron, Pentium 4/D, Core 2 processors | Socket AM2+/AM2-based Athlon, Phenom processors |
| North bridge | Intel G35 Express | AMD 780G |
| South bridge | Intel ICH9R | AMD SB700 |
| Interconnect | DMI (2GB/s) | PCI Express x4 (2GB/s) |
| Expansion slots |
1 PCI Express x16 2 PCI Express x1 1 32-bit/33MHz PCI |
1 PCI Express x16 1 PCI Express x1 2 32-bit/33MHz PCI |
| Memory |
4 240-pin DIMM
sockets Maximum of 8GB of DDR2-667/800/1066 SDRAM |
4 240-pin DIMM
sockets Maximum of 16GB of DDR2-667/800/1066 SDRAM |
| Storage I/O |
Floppy disk 1 channel ATA/133 via JMicron JMB368 6 channels 300MB/s Serial ATA with RAID 0, 1, 10, 5 support |
Floppy disk 1 channel ATA/133 5 channels 300MB/s Serial ATA with RAID 0, 1, 10 support |
| Audio | 8-channel HD audio via Realtek ALC883 codec | 8-channel HD audio via Realtek ALC889A codec |
| Ports |
1 PS/2 keyboard 1 PS/2 mouse 1 VGA 1 HDMI 6 USB 2.0 with headers for 6 more 1 RJ45 10/100/1000 via Atheros L1 1 1394a Firewire via VIA VT6308P with header for 1 more 1 analog front out 1 analog bass/center out 1 analog rear out 1 analog surround out 1 analog line in 1 analog mic in 1 digital coaxial S/PDIF output |
1 PS/2 keyboard 1 PS/2 mouse 1 VGA 1 DVI 1 HDMI 1 eSATA 4 USB 2.0 with headers for 8 more 1 RJ45 10/100/1000 via Realtek 8111C 1 1394a Firewire via Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 with header for 1 more 1 analog front out 1 analog bass/center out 1 analog rear out 1 analog surround out 1 analog line in 1 analog mic in 1 digital TOS-Link S/PDIF output |
There isn't much to see here, although it is worth noting that the Gigabyte board claims to support up to 16GB of memory. We don't even want to know how much a 4GB DIMM is going to cost you, though. Suffice to say it's probably several times that of the motherboard itself.
Notice that Asus and Gigabyte differ in their choice of Firewire providers. Asus chose VIA's VT6308P, while Gigabyte opted for a Texas Instruments chip. We'll see in a moment how the performance of these two implementations compares.
