What are the overclocking options the ECS KN1 Extreme offers? Strangely enough, they are all scattered around different pages of the mainboard BIOS Setup. For example, the option for changing the CPU multiplier is found in the Power Management Setup section. However, below we will give you the full list of all overclocking-related functions irrespective of their position in the BIOS Setup, though. So, the ECS KN1 Extreme can:

• Regulate the frequency of the clock generator from 200 to 250MHz with 0.5MHz increment (when this frequency is below 210MHz), 1MHz increment (when the frequency is below 230MHz) or 2MHz increment (above 230MHz);
• Reduce the CPU multiplier below the default value. The minimal available multiplier is 4x;
• Set up the frequency and the width of the HyperTransport bus. The frequency of this bus is set by a multiplier relative to the clock-generator frequency. This multiplier can be 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x or 5x. The width of the bus can be set to 8 or 16 bits in either direction;
• Increase the CPU voltage by up to 0.375V with 25 millivolts increment;
• Adjust the voltage on the DIMM slots. It can range from 2.55V to 3.11V with 0.08V increment.

Alas, but that’s all. The BIOS Setup offers no options to control the frequency of the PCI Express bus, but the ECS KN1 Extreme clocks it asynchronously. Regardless of the clock generator, the frequency of the PCI Express bus is always at the default 100MHz. It’s the same with the PCI bus, too.

The ECS KN1 Extreme doesn’t also permit to change the chipset voltage, but as we have seen with other nForce4 Ultra-based mainboards this setting doesn’t affect the mainboard’s overclockability at all.

As for the available overclocking functions, the mainboard’s obvious advantage is its ability to vary the voltages of the memory and CPU in a rather wide range; its disadvantage is the inability to raise the clock-generator frequency above 250MHz. All in all we have to confess the ECS KN1 Extreme mainboard is not really an overclocker-friendly product, at least with the current version of its BIOS.

The memory controller settings available in the BIOS Setup aren’t very generous, either. There are in fact no other options except choosing the memory frequency and Tcl, Trcd, Tras and Trp timings. Moreover, the mainboard doesn’t always set Trcd as chosen in the BIOS Setup ?sometimes it increases this timing by itself. The most unpleasant thing, however, is that the mainboard doesn’t allow controlling the 1T/2T Memory Timings parameter. It is always set to 1T Memory Timing.