Overdrive | BIOS

A screenshot of the truly lovely AMD Overdrive utility. This is the performance control screen where you can see all primary variables and adjust them. Everything can be adjusted on the fly.

This is the performance control screen showing the tweakable variables. This was the stage where we tested the processor at 3800 MHz. We simply increased voltage to 1.55V, and increased the CPU multiplier. You hit apply... and that's it.

We used a simple 35 USD OCZ Vendetta air-cooler on the processor. Observe the temperatures, and yes... this is in overclocked status (3600 MHz / 1.55 volts).

BIOS

Of course you are able to overclock from the BIOS as well.

ECS is doing a lot of work to overhaul their BIOS. We notice more and more options and they have now segregated their tweaking options into a sub-menu called MIB.

Unfortunately it's still not up to par with the competition. Selecting 667 MHz for the DDR3 memory for example, results in a proper 1333 MHz (double data rate) memory frequency. Yet when you select 800 MHz... you'll get 800 Mhz. Also, despite the fact we have a BE processor (multiplier unlocked) there is no option in the BIOS to manually select the CPU multiplier, which is just a big miss really.

The ECS system BIOS functionality is definitely improving though. Another change I'd like to see is voltage overclocking. Right now you add increased voltages as +100 mV etc. Problem is, you cannot read out what the actual memory voltage is (is it JEDEC, is it an EPP profile it loads up? we just don't know). Same for CPU voltage and others.

Example: If memory is rated 1.6 Volts I just want to configure my memory at 1.650 Volts or 1.665 etc etc.. incremental steps based off the nominal voltage. As such at this moment I recommend just to overclock with AMD Overdrive.