Foxconn 955X7AA, Intel LGA 775 Motherboard Review - Overclocking Features
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Overclocking Features
The SuperSpeed option is the one we'll be playing with. It holds all the overclocking settings, and it even has a feature to overclock everything automatically.
When you select the Overclock setting, there are 3 options: Manual, Optimal Reference (which is automatic overclocking), and Default (not overclocked). If you select Optimal Reference, the BIOS lets you set the overclock at 4 different levels.
L1 is mildly overclocked and L4 is the largest overclock it will give you. I moved up the settings gradually, and everything stayed totally stable all the way up to L4. To show you how far the L4 setting overclocked the system, here are the CPU-Z readings. The first one was taken at default settings with no oc. The second one was taken at the L4 oc.
As you can probably tell, the level 4 overclock raised many of the system speeds. The core speed of our Intel Presler went from 2.8 GHz to 3.3 GHz without breaking a sweat on air cooling. If you look up at the voltage, you'll also see it increase from a stock 2.4v to an overclocked 2.624v. The front side bus increased for 200 MHz to 236 MHz. The bus rose from 800 MHz to 943 MHz. You can't see it on this screen, but under the memory tab you would also have seen that the timing frequency that started at 333 MHz overclocked to 393.3 MHz.
Under these increases, the system is still completely stable and seems like it could have gone a little further. The temperatures of the processor and the system both stayed well within their limits under load. This automatic overclocking feature would be fantastic for inexperienced overclockers, or people who want to get more performance out of their computer but not how to get it.
While CPU-Z is open, here is the motherboard information it gives us.
There will still be plenty of people who feel more comfortable changing all the overclocking settings themselves. Don't worry, because there is a manual overclock screen.
- Adjustable bus speeds
- Adjustable memory timing
- Adjustable voltages (may be Vcore only)
- Adjustable ratios
You can overclock the settings that you would hope to. With the Optimal Reference settings though, it's very tempting just to be lazy and use one of the preset levels.
Next: Synthetic Benchmarks >>
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