ASUS Commando Motherboard Review :: Commando BIOS And Overclocking

ASUS uses a modified version of the American Megatrends AMIBIOS that they use on many of their motherboards. The latest version of the BIOS is 902 which I used for testing the motherboard. The BIOS is split into seven main sections: Main, Extreme Tweaker, Advanced, Power, Boot, Tools and Exit.

The Main menu has the time and date settings, floppy drive, language, hard drive information, IDE Configuration submenu and System Information submenu. The IDE Configuration submenu is where you set your drives to RAID or AHCI or Native IDE modes. The System Information subscreen has the information on the BIOS, the CPU,and available system memory.

Extreme Tweaker is where the overclocking takes place and takes the place of JumperFree menu from earlier ASUS boards. AI Tuning is where you set the overclock setting from Auto, Standard, AI NOS and Manual. AI NOS allows the user to set the overclock to a preset percentages that kick in when the system is under load. Manual allows the user to tweak the various settings one by one.

FSB can be set from 100MHz-650MHz in 1MHz increments. PCI Express frequency can be set from 90 MHz to 150MHz in 1MHz increments. DDR2 memory frequency can be set to Auto, DDR2-533MHz, DDR2-667MHz, DDR2-800MHz, DDR2 889MHz, and DDR2 1067MHz. Depending on which memory you use you can select from the various choices.

CPU VCore Voltage can be set from 1.1V to1.85V In 0.0125V increments. FSB termination voltage can be set from 1.2V to 1.55V in 0.05V increments. Northbridge core voltage can be set from 1.25V to 2.025V in 0.025V increments. Memory voltage can be set from 1.80V to 3.375V in 0.025V increments. DDR2 channel and controller voltage can be increased by +/- 30mV in 10mV increments. Southbridge core voltage can be set from 1.50V to 1.85V in 0.05V increments. Southbridge chipset voltage can be set from 1.050V to 1.225V in 0.025V increments. Overclocking the Commando was both a treat and easy to do. With FSB modifiers up to 650MHz, and un-lockable multipliers combined with the multitude of voltage options I was able to overclock the 3.8GHz 670 to a clock of 4.18 GHz. Straight clock speeds only tell part of the story, and I was able to overclock the FSB to 290MHz, which is pretty good for the CPU in question.

BIOS Screenshots

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