BIOS

ASUS Striker II NSE mainboard we tested features BIOS version 0403 dated April 3, 2008. Of course, it was absolutely unacceptable to use a 2-month old BIOS version, because our mainboard would certainly have numerous issues like any nForce 790i SLI based board. Especially since Nvidia and their partners reported almost weekly about fixing different issues in their BIOS. That is why we first of all went to ASUS web-site to look for a new BIOS version. Imagine how surprised we were to find out that no new BIOS for ASUS Striker II NSE has been released since then!

Luckily, we could take advantage of the fact that ASUS Striker II NSE is practically identical to ASUS Striker II Extreme, which we have already mentioned before. It turned out that the BIOS from a more expensive mainboard is fully compatible with ASUS Striker II NSE, so we could use BIOS version 0801 for Striker II Extreme. ASUS engineers promised that they had fixed most of the problems connected with HDD data losses. However, there are still quite a few issues to work on. For example, we have immediately discovered that ASUS Striker II NSE was incompatible with some memory modules, such as DDR3-1800 from Cell Shock, which we have been using successfully for a long time.

ASUS Striker II NSE BIOS Setup is based on Phoenix-Award micro-code and has pretty unusual structure. The very first page is now Extreme Tweaker section devoted to major frequencies, voltages and timings.

The first parameters offered here are FSB and memory frequencies and processor clock frequency multiplier. They are activated once you disable automatic overclocking in AI Overclock Tuner and “simple” setting of CPU and memory parameters using CPU Level Up and Memory Level Up options.

The processor frequency multiplier is set in a standard way, and you even get fractional multipliers for 45nm CPUs. However, FSB and memory frequencies are set in a slightly unusual manner, especially for those users who have no experience with LGA775 mainboards on Nvidia chipsets. The bus frequency is set in quadrupled values from 400MHz to 3000MHz. in more traditional numbers it will be an interval from 100MHz to 750MHz.

As for the memory frequency, there are two ways to set it: in Linked and Unlinked modes. In the first case, DDR3 memory is clocked synchronously at the same frequency as FSB. The second mode implies setting the frequency manually in the interval from 800MHz to 3000MHz. In this case the mainboard will pick the best FSB:Mem divider, although nForce 790i SLI supports 10 times more dividers than Intel chipsets. Once the optimal divider is found, the mainboard will immediately report the actual memory frequency right there in the column called “Actual Mem (DDR), MHz”. The difference between the desired and actual memory frequency is usually no more than 100-150MHz. Besides, unlike Intel chipsets, Nvidia core logic can clock DDR3 SDRAM at frequencies higher than FSB speed. In other words, ASUS Striker II NSE boasts unprecedented flexibility in memory subsystem configuring.

After that you can adjust the frequency of HyperTransport bus that connects the bridges in nForce 790i SLI, and the frequency of PCI Express buses from the North and South Bridges of the chipset.

Memory timings are available in a special BIOS subsection called Memory Timing Settings.

The timings that can be adjusted are more than enough for fine tuning of the memory subsystem:

The voltages are set in a separate section called Over Voltage:

ASUS Striker II NSE offers an extensive number of voltages to play with:

Note that all voltages may be set in Auto and in this case the mainboard will try to find the most optimal parameter settings on its own judging by the processor and memory frequency. During manual configuring, the selected parameters are highlighted green, yellow or red depending on their potential danger to the system components.

I would also like to point out an extremely useful Loadline Calibration option among voltage settings. Thanks to special design of the CPU voltage regulator circuitry it allows minimizing harmful Vdroop effect during overclocking. I have to say that ASUS also gave the users the opportunity to adjust CPU GTL_REF parameters. These settings may be helpful during quad-core processors overclocking, because they allow setting threshold values on the FSB bus for each physical core. Thorough management of these parameters allows hitting extremely high frequencies during quad-core CPU overclocking.

The next section called CPU Configuration offers tool for processor technologies management.

From here you can control power-saving and virtualization technologies and even disable individual cores of multi-core processors. Moreover, I have to add that ASUS Striker II NSE, like other ASUS mainboards, refuses to reduce processor Vcore in case of low power consumption if processor Vcore is set at a certain specific value in the Over Voltage section in the BIOS.

Other BIOS Setup sections contain ASUS’s usual settings. The only section we need to mention here is Hardware Monitoring section. It allows monitoring not only processor, North and South Bridge temperatures, but also three additional temperatures recorded by the three additional thermal diodes connected to the mainboard.

The temperatures from these diodes may be used to control the rotation speeds of connected fans. You can also tie up the processor fan rotation speed to the CPU temperature.

BIOS Setup of this mainboard also has both ASUS’ typical utilities: EZ Flash 2 and O.C.Profile. The first allows reflashing BIOS from floppy disks and USB drives directly from the Setup, while the second one allows saving settings profiles. Note that profiles can be saved in mainboard memory as well as on drives as files, which makes it very convenient to exchange profiles with some other ASUS Striker II NSE and Extreme owners.