|
|
Gigabyte & Zotac Socket AM2+ Mobo Roundup
[Abstract]
Introduction NVIDIA's latest GeForce 9300/9400 series of mGPU motherboards has brought the spotlight back to IGP motherboards. For those who have an interest in these boards, the goals in recen...
[Content] PCDigitalMobileGame
BIOS Settings
Given that these mATX boards are not really designed to be overclocked, we have not tried to overclock them. There are of course some BIOS settings that could be interesting for those looking to optimize their setups. However, they are limited to more basic CPU ratio and frequency adjustments while the voltage and memory settings are relatively few. Adjusting memory timings for instance is not present. The more important ones found in these motherboards have been highlighted in the table below:-
BIOS Settings
| O/CSettings | GigabyteGA-MA78GM-S2H | GigabyteGA-MA74GM-S2 | ZotacGeForce 8300 | ZotacGeForce 8100 | | CPUFrequency | 200 -500 | 200 -500 | 200 -600 | 200 -600 | | CPURatio | Auto,x5 - x24.5 (0.5x steps) | Auto,x5 - x24.5 (0.5x steps) | Auto,x5 - x24.5 (0.5x steps) | Auto,x5 - x24.5 (0.5x steps) | | PCIeFrequency | 100 -200 | 100 -200 | 100 -200 | 100 -200 | | HT Link | Auto,200 - 2600 (200MHz steps) | Auto,200 - 1000 (200MHz steps) | N.A | N.A | | MemoryRatio/Multiplier | DDR400, DDR 533, DDR 667, DDR 800 | DDR400, DDR 533, DDR 667, DDR 800 | DDR400, DDR 533, DDR 667, DDR 800, DDR 1066 | DDR400, DDR 533, DDR 667, DDR 800, DDR 1066 | | VoltageAdjustment | - CPU Voltage: 0.80 - 1.90V (0.025V - 0.05V steps)
- Memory Voltage: Normal, +0.1, +0.2, +0.3V
- NB Voltage: Normal, +0.1, +0.2, +0.3V
| - CPU Voltage: 0.80 - 1.90V (0.025V - 0.05V steps)
- Memory Voltage: Normal, +0.1, +0.2, +0.3V
| - NPT Vid Control: 1.00 - 1.45V (0.025V steps)
- Memory Voltage: 1.90 - 2.20V (0.10V steps)
- Chipset Voltage: 1.20 - 1.35V (0.05V steps)
| - NPT Vid Control: 0.55 - 1.45V (0.025V steps)
- Memory Voltage: 1.90 - 2.20V (0.10V steps)
- Chipset Voltage: 1.20 - 1.25V (0.05V steps)
|
Test Setup
To ensure that our results were comparable, we used the same configuration below for all the benchmarks listed. Driver versions were also kept the same for similar chipsets though the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H had issues with the Catalyst 8.5 that we used during our Blu-ray testing e.g. black screen during Blu-ray playback. We updated to the latest Catalyst 8.11 and this problem went away.
- AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 @ 2.5GHz, 2 x 1MB L2
- 2 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR2-800 @ 5-5-16 CAS 5.0
- Integrated GPU Memory size set to 256MB
- NVIDIA nForce 18.11 and ForceWare 174.74 for Zotac 8300, 8100
- AMD SB700 Driver version 8.475 and Catalyst 8.5
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB SATA hard disk drive (one single NTFS partition)
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (and DirectX 9.0c)
- LG GGW-H20L Super Multi Blue Blu-ray Disc Rewriter & HD DVD-ROM
- CyberLink Power DVD 7.0 (updated to 7.3)
Benchmarks
BAPco SYSmark 2004
SPECviewperf 9.0
AquaMark3
3DMark06 ver 110
Quake 4 (1.2)
Unreal Tournament 3 (1.1)
|
|
|
