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As with so many past BIOS implementations, ABIT throws everything in here with the IC7. You do have your usual items like Power Management, PC Health Status, and the PnP/PCI Configurations. Let's look at the areas that will be of most interest to our readers.
The ABIT SoftMenu
To access CPU overclocking options, you'll have to set the CPU Operating Speed to "User Defined". Once that's done, you can adjust the Ext. Clock, N/B Strap, DRAM Ratio, AGP Ratio, Fixed AGP/PCI Freq to your heart's content.
Remember that 99% of you only have access to retail Pentium 4 CPUs, so in that case, these CPUs are multiplier locked so you cannot change that. The FSB is another story, and the IC7 offers plenty of headway, allowing you to go as high as 414FSB. Now, the reality is you'll be hard pressed getting above 250FSB without some great cooling.
The AGP Ratio, Fixed AGP/PCI Freq is handy since overclocking the FSB overclocks everything, which can wreak havoc on your system, so it's a good idea to keep those areas within spec.
You got some good voltage options, which is a must when overclocking. The ability to add some extra juice is sometimes the difference between a constantly crashing setup, or a rock solid PC. You can go as high as 1.925v for the CPU, 2.8v for the memory, and 1.65v for the video.
The only other area of note (they are all important, but for those who like to dabble in the art of voiding their warranty…) is the Advanced Chipset Features. It is here you can adjust your memory timings, and if your ram can handle it, you can really tweak it here.
Overclocking
An ABIT board wouldn't be an ABIT without the ability to overclock like a champ. How was the IC7 then? Considering the multiplier is locked, we did quite well. We've had some good luck in the past with the stock Intel cooler, so for the initial tests, we'll be sticking with that.
Out of the box, the 2.4C runs at 12x200.
Stock Speed
Using WCPUID, we can see the CPU is running along at 2405.75MHz. The next OC we went for was 225FSB, which was done without any problems. Stock voltage remained the same, though to run our Corsair TWINX ram at 1:1, we needed to tone the timings down to 2.5-2-2-7.
The next overclock was 250FSB, and in order to do so, we needed to run the ram at 5:4 (200MHz).
250FSB OC
The system booted fine into Windows, but needed a boost to 1.7v vCore to manage stability. Keep in mind we're still using air cooling, so it was about now that I decided it was time to move to water.
290FSB OC
Using our Swiftech H20-8500, equipped with a couple 68cfm fans blowing trough the radiator, the best OC we managed was 290FSB. It'd be a lie to say we were totally stable though, as every few reboots, the system would not get into Windows, forcing a CMOS reset. At 285FSB, things ran much better. I've seen higher OCs from this setup, so there's a possibility that heat may be an issue here (we were at 58C at 285FSB). The radiator is lacking on the H20-8500, and I'm guessing a larger one would allow us ~300FSB OCs.
Test Setup
ABIT IC7 : Pentium 4 2.4C (12x200: 2.4GHz), 2 x 256MB Corsair TWINX PC3200 Ram, AiW ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, 80GB Western Digital, Windows XP SP1, ATi Catalyst 3.4
ABIT IC7: Pentium 4 2.4B (18x133: 2.4GHz), 2 x 256MB Corsair TWINX PC3200 Ram, AiW ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, 80GB Western Digital, Windows XP SP1, ATi Catalyst 3.4
Chaintech 9EJS1 Zenith: Pentium 4 2.4B (18x133: 2.4GHz), 2 x 256MB Corsair TWINX PC3200 Ram, AiW ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, 80GB Western Digital, Windows XP SP1, Intel Application Accelerator v2.3, ATi Catalyst 3.4
Test software will be:
AVI-to-MPG Encoding
CPU Tests
Unreal Tournament 2003
Quake 3: Arena
Jedi Knight 2
Just a quick plug to for hooking us up with the 2.4C used for testing. Bob is a super guy, and tell him VL sent ya and he'll hook you up. Let's get on to testing, shall we?
Next Page - Application Benchmarks
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ABIT IC7 Motherboard: We take a look at ABIT's budget Canterwood solution. It's missing a few frills, but it does offer the other things that are important… performance, overclocking and stability.
