Overclocking Performance:

Here?s a look at how we conduct our overclocking performance tests on various boards. We start by overclocking our system in 5Mhz increments and slowly increase the frequency of the microprocessors as well the memory as need be. After overclocking the board in small increments, we boot back to Windows and run our regular suite of gaming stress tests to make sure the system is stable before continuing further. As long as the system passes our Aquamark3, 3Dmark01, UT2004, Far Cry, Halo and Doom III tests, we consider the system to be stable enough to continue testing. We then head back to the BIOS to make necessary changes (such as memory timings) and continue with our overclocking tests. After each attempt, the system is rebooted and put through rigorous assessments to ensure its stability. When we finally reach the potential of the motherboard, we go back to the BIOS, alter any settings we feel could limit the motherboard?s overclocking attempts and downclock a little bit to reach a stable point. When we reach another peak point, we generally move the bus speeds in one MHz increments to get the best overclock possible. And of course, once we have found the limit of the board, we continue to run stress tests on it to confirm system stability. The testbed is the same throughout the testing process with an exception of IDE and SATA drives. Since SATA drives have a tendency to limit overclocking, we usually use IDE drives in our tests, thereby, finding the true capabilities of the board.

Since we were already wary of the unfaithful BIOS options, we never had high hopes of achieving solid overclocks with our board, and as you can expect, our theoretical predicaments were confirmed when we started the overclocking tests. Unfortunately for us, we could not push the board beyond 219MHz, which is moderately close to the results we achieved with the K8V-SE Deluxe. Unless Asus adds the AGP/PCI lock and increases the memory voltage to a standard 2.85v, if not higher, then there are no chances of further improving the overclocking ability.