AOpen AK86-L Motherboard Review - The BIOS
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One of the interesting features of this board involves what AOpen has done to the BIOS. The BIOS included with the shipping version of this board includes access to more memory timings than I've seen in any other board, as well as multiplier adjustment, and full control over the speed that the memory ran at. Using the Windows BIOS flashing tool, I upgraded to the latest BIOS version. I loaded up the performance defaults, and went through my testing set.
The results became strange. Very strange. In fact, they were downright horrible.
Looking into this further, I noticed the memory was locked down to DDR 333. With BIOS v1.13, when using two DIMMs or more, the BIOS limits the RAM speed to 166MHz, instead of the standard 200MHz. In addition, control of timings was limited to a few standard options, instead of the copious selections with the earlier version.
After checking the documentation, I found out that this was done for "compatibility reasons." Now, considering the pain in the butt many A64 boards have been when it comes to working well with memory, I can almost understand why they would do this --but this is NOT the best way to go out and accomplish that compatibility! It's essentially dumbing down the performance for anyone who wants a gig of RAM, regardless of whether they have compatible modules or not. Moving back to v1.11 gives you back full control.
None of the BIOS's I tested gave much in the way of voltage options for the CPU. Not that they’re really needed, due to the lack of a PCI/AGP lock. Without that little tool, no overclocking is going to be incredibly successful, especially if you plan on using the onboard SATA RAID function. I lost my array at 230MHz for the HT bus. Using a PCI controller that is less sensitive would aid in this; however, it seems that recent video cards are fairly intolerant of AGP speed changes, so you'd be out of luck anyway if looking for good gaming performance at the same time.
Next: Testing the AK86-L >>
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