KT7A BIOS Tweak Guide - ABIT KT7A Bios Tweak Guide

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ABIT KT7A Bios Tweak Guide

 

Thank god for Q3Bench provided by G256.com. If your gonna do a heavy amount of Q3 benchmarking, this tool is an absolute must-have. I did not adjust the graphics for Quake3 in any manner and left things just as they are when you boot it from scratch. Within the Q3Bench, I adjusted the levels accordingly. I chose to run the following resolutions at both "Normal" and "Max" quality settings. 512x384, 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. The lower end res's showing CPU performance, Mid-range settings for the average user, and the High res settings for looking at sheer system horsepower.

 

NORMAL Configuration

 

MAX Configuration

 

Well, that's pretty impressive, considering we have no tweaks here. I also want to re-iterate that I have not tweaked the video card whatsoever. It is using all the default settings that were installed with the 12.41 drivers. After all, this is a BIOS Tweak Guide. We'll do the Video Card Tweak Guide at a later date ;-)

Seriously though, anytime your running almost 100FPS in 1024 res with High Quality Settings enabled, you know your doing ok. Lets move on to our first tweak. The Fast CPU Command Decode. Moving it from the default of "Normal" to "Fast" as seen below.

 

 

Sisoft Fast CPU Command Decode

 

 

Now this kinda surprised me. We see no gains at all in CPU and CPU Multi-Media, and an ever-so slight gain in memory scores. Although I believe that was just a typical fluctuation and not an actual advance due to the tweak itself. Remember, these are "synthetic" benchmarks. Lets take a look at 3DMark2001

 

3DMark2001 Fast CPU Command Decode

 

Here we are seeing a gain of 34 marks. So all is not lost. We have gained some ground in 3DMark2001 which would represent an improvement in actual game play. Although Quake3 will definitely tell the true story.

 

Fast CPU Command Decode

NORMAL Configuration

 

MAX Configuration

 

While not moving mountains here, we are seeing a slight improvement in framerates at 1024x768 and lower. Always moving toward our objective of better performance, I think we're headed in the right direction. Lets checkout what "Enhance Chip Performance" will do for us on the next page.

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