ASUS P5B: New BIOS Adds Unlocking & Improved Overclocking
by Wesley Fink on August 24, 2006 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
E6700
The 0507 BIOS adds a new feature in the BIOS under the "Advanced", "CPU Configuration" tab. Where there was no means to adjust CPU ratios in earlier BIOS versions, with 0507 you now have an adjustment range from 6X to 10X.
Some Conroe chips also unlock at the top, allowing ranges to about 14x. None of our Conroe chips unlocked up, but you may be one of the lucky ones who have a Conroe that unlocks both down and up.
The E6700, which runs at 2.67GHz, is very interesting because of the large headroom we consistently find at stock voltage. Once again, on the P5B Deluxe at stock voltage, the combo could run day and night at 3.4GHz (340x10) with no issues at all. At the stock multiplier of 10x, at 1.4875V the highest stable speed was 360x10 or 3.6GHz, At a reduced 9x the highest speed was 400x9, which is also 3.6GHz. With the new BIOS unlocking multipliers down, we reached 440 at 8x, or 3.52Ghz, as you can see in this screen capture.
7x allowed a further increase to a FSB speed of 494, which is where the 6700/P5B maxed out. Even at a 6X multiplier 494 seems the limit of the FSB with this CPU and board. Comparing this to our highest FSB overclock of 362 with this board in the Conroe Buying Guide we would conclude that ASUS has significantly improved the overclocking of the P5B. The ability to choose and hold lower multipliers allowed the bus speed to increase from 360 to 494.
E6600
The E6600 unlocked down with the new BIOS and allowed a new range of FSB adjustments of 405x9 (stock), 460x8, 495x7, and 495x6. Below is a screen capture at 495x7 or 3.465GHz.
While the new BIOS on the P5B adds enormous flexibility to the 965P motherboard, it should still be pointed out that on average the 965 still does not overclock as well as the Intel 975X if you compare clock to clock. You might want to look back at the 975X overclocking results in Conroe Buying Guide: Feeding the Monster for a comparison.
The 0507 BIOS adds a new feature in the BIOS under the "Advanced", "CPU Configuration" tab. Where there was no means to adjust CPU ratios in earlier BIOS versions, with 0507 you now have an adjustment range from 6X to 10X.
Some Conroe chips also unlock at the top, allowing ranges to about 14x. None of our Conroe chips unlocked up, but you may be one of the lucky ones who have a Conroe that unlocks both down and up.
The E6700, which runs at 2.67GHz, is very interesting because of the large headroom we consistently find at stock voltage. Once again, on the P5B Deluxe at stock voltage, the combo could run day and night at 3.4GHz (340x10) with no issues at all. At the stock multiplier of 10x, at 1.4875V the highest stable speed was 360x10 or 3.6GHz, At a reduced 9x the highest speed was 400x9, which is also 3.6GHz. With the new BIOS unlocking multipliers down, we reached 440 at 8x, or 3.52Ghz, as you can see in this screen capture.
7x allowed a further increase to a FSB speed of 494, which is where the 6700/P5B maxed out. Even at a 6X multiplier 494 seems the limit of the FSB with this CPU and board. Comparing this to our highest FSB overclock of 362 with this board in the Conroe Buying Guide we would conclude that ASUS has significantly improved the overclocking of the P5B. The ability to choose and hold lower multipliers allowed the bus speed to increase from 360 to 494.
E6600
The E6600 unlocked down with the new BIOS and allowed a new range of FSB adjustments of 405x9 (stock), 460x8, 495x7, and 495x6. Below is a screen capture at 495x7 or 3.465GHz.
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| Click to enlarge |
While the new BIOS on the P5B adds enormous flexibility to the 965P motherboard, it should still be pointed out that on average the 965 still does not overclock as well as the Intel 975X if you compare clock to clock. You might want to look back at the 975X overclocking results in Conroe Buying Guide: Feeding the Monster for a comparison.
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ZachSaw - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
"the ability to unlock the previously locked Conroe chips is so significant that every other manufacturer will have to follow the ASUS lead or lose market share to the motherboard giant."LOL. Perhaps ASUS is the one who is the follower. All of Gigabyte's 965 boards have had this ability since the very beginning. ASUS had to release an update to their BIOS to support this, after seeing Gigabyte's feature.
In any event, this is a VERY SIMPLE function to implement -- what innovation? It simply uses the EIST feature in your CPU to implement multiplier "unlock". In fact, it's technically wrong to say "unlock", since we don't lock the multiplier you managed to select in the first place! That's the whole point of EIST. Unless you can select upwards, then you can claim to have unlocked the multiplier. Otherwise, it's just legally and technically a wrong term to use. You can claim to support Multiplier Adjustment, but do not EVER say it's unlocked. Be warned.
Please clean up your article. Too many mistakes.
Also, it'll be good to put a foreword in your article to mention that your oc is based on Engineering Samples (B1 step), which are different from retail (B2). Retail ones have some differences which make it a little faster clock to clock, but not as overclockable. You do not want people to rush out to buy those processors, based on your table of overclocked frequencies.
Madellga - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
Correct. Reviews like this should be based on Retail samples, not Golden Cherry Picked units.Otherwise people are misled by the results.
Frumious1 - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
Yeah, "Golden Cherry Picked units" like the freaking RETAIL E6400 and E6300 stepping B2 that overclocked higher than the "cherry" ES B1 E6600/E6700? OMFG the world is coming to an end!!!The only thing potentially misleading is that the B2 E66/6700 might do better than shown here. The bottom line is that the B2 is a later, IMPROVED stepping that should actually at least match these results.
The Gigabyte information is more of a problem, but given my experience with a DS3 I can't say I'm too happy with GB right now. F4 seems to have cleared up most of the problems. F2 was an absolute joke, however.
ZachSaw - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
You simply do not know enough. B2 is a later step, no doubt. But, who says later steps increase oc-potential??? It's pretty weird how the community came to this "conclusion". It might be true for later steps (C and above), but usually not the earlier ones such as B1 and B2. So don't jump to conclusions when you have never tested out A0 parts before.
All I'm asking them to do is, to use retail parts. That's all.
Frumious1 - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
Maybe you can pull some strings with Intel and get them to send new B2 or later retail samples to Anandtech? I'm sure the AT guys don't want to go out and buy a bunch of new CPUs when the current ones work fine. We all recognize that there is an element of marketing to hardware enthusiast sites - that's why there are a shitload of ads at all the sites, right? (Thank you, AdBlock!) AMD and Intel (and Asus, Gigabyte, Asrock, etc.) send parts for free to AT and they review them. "No such thing as bad publicity!"You keep ignoring the fact that the E63/6400 were NOT B1/ES steppings, and yet they overclocked better. That's where I drew my conclusions. Sure, less cache has an impact, but at the very least it's safe to say B1 isn't amazingly better than B2. Anyway, all overclocks are largely CPU dependent. Everyone in the community knows that. YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary. That the P5B hits 500+ MHz FSB is more than enough for me. I don't particularly like to run at "mostly stable" settings, so if I can POST and run most benches at a 68% OC, I'll drop to 50% for 100% stability and peace of mind. $185-$200 for a chip that can match stock X6800 performance is pretty tasty.
shecknoscopy - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
1) How is it possible that they can do this? I thought the multiplier lock was something phyiscally hard-wired in the manufacture of the processor - akin to those graphics cards that absolutely cannot unlock extra pipes.2) Any chance that we'll see it appearing on the other ASUS conroe boards? Or is the answer to (1) intricately linked to the north bridge?
3) How about other manufacturers? Now that ASUS has set the stage, are we going to see the Gigabyte (or what's left of 'em), MSI, DFI, etc... boards following suit? Or is this patentable technology?
4) Anyone else had it with these <explicative> snakes on this <explicative> plane? I wish someone would do something about them, already....
-Sheq
ZachSaw - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
Write a few bytes into the MSR. Read the PRM of conroe. You'll find out how easy it actually is. Under Windows, you'll need a driver's help to access MSRs, but the BIOS has complete access to MSRs.
ASUS followed Gigabyte -- AFAIK, Gigabyte already has this feature since they introduced 965P-series boards. They did it so early that they didn't need any updates.
Sh0ckwave - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
I can confirm this. I just tried it on my DS3 with and E6400. I was able to set the multi to 6, 7, and 8.Calin - Friday, August 25, 2006 - link
Who knows, after the Gigabyte-Asus union (partial union with a manufacturing purpose), maybe they do share some know-howtombomba2 - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
Sorry, but as long as anandtech doesn't have conroes which can be unlocked up, I think this is a very questionable feature of the board.