EPoX 4PDA5+ Review - The BIOS
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The 4PDA5+ uses a Phoenix BIOS, but during POST, it shows the current system health readings such as fan speeds, temperatures, and voltages. Its a bit tougher to tell if the board is undervolting. I like the fact that using the Pause key here does not halt the monitors. Instead, they keep updating. These settings are echoed in the PC Health part of the BIOS.
Here we see the screens for memory settings for the chipset and advanced CMOS setup. The 4PDA5+ gives the ability to use SPD timings or manually set them. The
Aggressive Memory Mode controls the optimization level of the communication between the chipset and the memory. It came set at "Max" which is the highest level, so I left it there. The
Hard Disk Boot Priority lets you choose which one of your hard drives you want to boot, so you're not stuck at having your primary master drive or your first hard drive being your boot drive.
Enthusiasts will be wondering what they can do with this board's BIOS. I found it to be easy to use when overclocking. It allows for a AGP/PCI lock, and 1 MHz fine tuning of the FSB. Effective throughputs are given, and the display shows how much total voltage I am putting through a system. Its also good for people who are new to playing with voltages, since they often forget what the settings were when they started. The BIOS does allow for a wide range of voltages, from chip-nursing to chip-killing, since it allows a variance on Vcore from -0.1 V to 0.325 V using steps of .25 V. The Vagp and Vdimm both allow for an extra voltage boost of 0 to 0.4 V with steps of 0.1 V.
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