Nvidia nForce4 Ultra Mobo Shootout --- TheThirdMedia Hardware

Results - Overclocking

We now come to the overclocking section of our shootout. In this segment of testing, our aim is to achieve the highest possible FSB overclock that the motherboard will allow. This is to prove the overclocking headroom that the board should be able to provide under normal circumstances regardless of other factors like memory and CPU. To achieve this, we used an unlocked Athlon 64 3500+ processor and reduced its clock multiplier to keep it within specifications. Memory clock was also reduced and even the HyperTransport multiplier was toned down to 4x. We have found that although a 5x multiplier offers higher HT interconnect bandwidth, it severely limits overclocking ability. On most boards, using a 5x HT multiplier limits FSB overclocking within a 10-20MHz frame of the stock speed. As such, you can see why even lowering HT multiplier by one notch would still equal to better system performance if you intend to overclock.

If our overclocking chart looks like an alternating zig-zag, it was purely coincidental. However, we were actually very excited that the nForce4 Ultra had such a high overclocking potential and every enthusiast oriented motherboard in our shootout (ABIT Fatal1ty AN8, DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra-D and EpoX EP-9NPA+ Ultra respectively) managed to reach 290MHz FSB without any hassle at all. Even Gigabyte's mainstream model, the GA-K8N Ultra-9 proved to be extremely overclockable, beating its higher end counterpart, the GA-K8NXP-9. MSI's K8N Neo4 Platinum was no slouch either and achieved a commendable 270MHz before bowing out of the race.

It seems that 290MHz is the chipset cut-off point using default overclocking routines at present time as none of the boards were able to surpass this point. This belief was strengthened further when we tested Gigabyte's GA-K8N Ultra-9. The BIOS on this board seemed to cut off overclocking at 290MHz even though settings up to 455MHz are available. Please refer to the individual board review for further information.



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