Gigabyte EP45 DS4R Motherboard Review :: EP45-DS4 BIOS

Gigabyte uses a modified version of the Award Phoenix BIOS that offers the Standard CMOS Features, Advanced BIOS Features, Integrated Peripherals, Power Management Setup, PnP/PCI Configurations, and PC Health Status, Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) and the standard Load Fail-Safe Defaults, Load Optimized Defaults Password settings and more.

Advanced BIOS Features has the Hard Disk Boot Priority, the Boot Device Priority, CPU Features enabling including C1E, CPU Thermal Monitor 2, CPU EIST Function, Virtualization Technology, enabling the LOGO, and Init Display First settings. You can also enable the HDD SMART Capability and No Execute Memory Protect settings.

Integrated Peripherals is where the SATA RAID settings, USB Controller settings, Azalia Codec settings, Firewire and LAN settings are set. The first setting is the RAID/AHCI Mode enabling. If you want to run your computer in RAID 0 modes, this is where it’s at. One thing about the USB Controller, if you want to enable native USB Keyboard and Mouse support, here is where you need to enable it.

Gigabyte’s overclocking settings are in the Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker section of the motherboard BIOS. Here you can Overvolt the DDR2 memory. One issue I have with Gigabyte is that their motherboards have a +0.05v setting. But there’s no reference voltage so who knows how much of a voltage increase it is or what is 5% or 10% overvoltage. I have the same issue with their Ctrl+F1 setting. I would prefer to enable the advanced options with a warning about overclocking included instead of requiring the pressing of two buttons to enable it.

The CPU Clock Ratio can be set differently on unlocked CPUs. The CPU Host Clock Control is where the controls the FSB speed. CIA2 is Gigabyte’s overclocking tool. PCI Express frequency can be set from 90MHz to 150MHz in 1MHz increments. Our E6750 is locked and can only be set from 6x, 7x, or 8x (the default multiplier for the E6750). MCH frequency can be set 266MHz, 200MHz, 333MHz, or 400MHz. The System Memory Multiplier controls the memory divisors. A 1:1 ratio would equal a 2x multiplier. 4.00D, the maximum that the board supports would indicate a memory speed of 1600MHz (FSBx4). CPU Vcore shows the actual voltage so you can modify it from the default knowing how much of an overvoltage it is.

BIOS Shots