ASUS P6T Deluxe Motherboard Review :: ASUS P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition BIOS and Overclocking

ASUS uses a modified version of the American Megatrends AMIBIOS. The menus are split into: Main, Ai Tweaker, Advanced, Power, Boot, Tools, and Exit. The Main menu has the Time, Date, Legacy Diskette A, Language, the detected drives on SATA 1-6, Storage Configuration and System Information. If you want to run your HDDs in RAID 0-mode here is where you would set the drives to RAID mode. System Information has the CPU, the amount of memory, BIOS Version and Build Date.

The Advanced Menu is where the CPU features are enabled or disabled. HyperThreading, Virtualization, CPU Truted Module, Hardware Prefetcher and Adjacent Cache Line Prefetch can be enabled in the CPU Configuration menu. The Onboard Devices menu is where the High Definition Audio, Front Panel Type, Marvell Storage Controller, Marvell SAS, LANs, and Firewire controller are enabled. The USB Configuration is where the USB Functionality is enabled.

Most of the tweaking on the board is done on the A.I. Tweaker section of the BIOS. Here you can adjust the various components of the computer. The A.I. Tweaker menu is split into Ai Auto Overclock Tune, CPU Ratio Setting, Intel SpeedStep Tech, Intel Turbo Mode Tech, DRAM Frequency, UCLK Frequency, QPI Link Data Rate, DRAM Timing control, and the various Voltage settings. Here's a chart of the various settings in the BIOS:

ASUS P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition

Setting	Options
AI Overclock Tuner	Manual, (Auto), DOCP, XMP
CPU Ratio Setting	Auto, 12.0, 13.0, 14.0, 15.0, 16.0, 17.0, 18.0, 19.0
Intel SpeedStep Tech	Disabled, (Enabled)
Intel Turbo Mode Tech	Disabled (Enabled)
BCLK Frequency	100-500
PCI E Frequency	100-200
DRAM Frequency	(Auto, DDR3-800MHz, DDR3-1066MHz
DRAM Timing Control	Auto, Manual
DRAM CAS Latency	(Auto), 3 DRAM Clock, 4 DRAM Clock, 10 DRAM Clock, 11 DRAM Clock
DRAM RAS to CAS Delay	(Auto), 3 DRAM Clock, 4 DRAM Clock, 9 DRAM Clock, 10 DRAM Clock
DRAM RAS PRE Time	(Auto), 3 DRAM Clock, 4 DRAM Clock, 9 DRAM Clock, 10 DRAM Clock
DRAM RAS ACT Time	(Auto), 3DRAM Clock, 4 DRAM Clock, 32 DRAM Clock, 33 DRAM Clock
DRAM RAS to RAS Delay	(Auto) 1 DRAM Clock, 15 DRAM Clock
DRAM Ref Cycle Time	(Auto), 30 DRAM Clock, 36 DRAM Clock, 48 DRAM Clock, 60 DRAM Clock, 72 DRAM Clock, 82 DRAM Clock, 88 DRAM Clock, 90 DRAM Clock, 100 DRAM Clock, 110 DRAM Clock
DRAM WRITE Recovery Time	Auto, 1 DRAM Clock, 15 DRAM Clock
DRAM READ to PRE Time	(Auto), 1 DRAM Clock, 15 DRAM Clock
DRAM FOUR ACT WIN Time	(Auto), 1 DRAM Clock, 31 DRAM Clock
DRAM WRITE to READ Delay	(Auto), 1 DRAM Clock, 15 DRAM Clock
DRAM Timing Mode	(Auto), 1N, 2N, 3N
DRAM Round Trip Latency on CHA	(Auto), Advance 15 Clock, Advance 1 Clock, Normal, Delay 1 Clock, Delay 15 Clock
DRAM Round Trip on CHB	(Auto), Advance 15 Clock, Advance 1 Clock, Normal, Delay 1 Clock, Delay 15 Clock
DRAM Round Trip Latency on CHC	(Auto), Advance 15 Clock, Advance 1 Clock, Normal, Delay 1 Clock, Delay 15 Clock
DRAM WRITE to READ Delay (DD)	(Auto) 1 DRAM Clock, 8 DRAM Clock
DRAM WRITE to READ Delay (DR)	(Auto) 1 DRAM Clock, 8 DRAM Clock
DRAM WRITE to READ Delay (SR)	(Auto), 10 DRAM Clock, 25 DRAM Clock
DRAM READ to WRITE Delay (DD)	(Auto), 2 DRAM Clock, 14 DRAM Clock
DRAM READ to WRITE Delay (DR)	(Auto), 2 DRAM Clock, 14 DRAM Clock
DRAM READ to WRITE Delay (SR)	(Auto), 2 DRAM Clock, 14 DRAM Clock
DRAM READ to READ Delay (DD)	(Auto), 2 DRAM Clock, 9 DRAM Clock
DRAM READ to READ Delay (DR)	(Auto), 2 DRAM Clock, 9 DRAM Clock
DRAM READ to READ Delay (SR)	(Auto), 4 DRAM Clock, 6 DRAM Clock
DRAM WRITE to WRITE Delay (DD)	(Auto), 2 DRAM Clock, 9 DRAM Clock
DRAM WRITE to WRITE Delay (DR)	(Auto), 2 DRAM Clock, 9 DRAM Clock
DRAM WRITE to WRITE Delay (SR)	(Auto), 2 DRAM Clock, 9 DRAM Clock
CPU Voltage	0.850000V-2.10000V in 0.00625V increments
CPU PLL Voltage	1.80V-2.50V in 0.02V increments
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage	1.20000V-1.90000V in 0.00625V increments
IOH Voltage	1.10V-1.70V in 0.02V increments
IOH PCIE Voltage	1.50V-2.76V in 0.02V increments
ICH Voltage	1.10V-1.40V in 0.10V increments
ICH PCIE Voltage	1.50V-1.80V in 0.10V increments
DRAM Bus Voltage	1.50V-2.46V in 0.02V increments
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHA/B/C	0.395x-0.630x with 0.005x increments
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHA/B/C	0.395x-0.630x with 0.005x increments
Load-Line Calibration	(Auto), Disabled, Enabled
CPU Differential Amplitude	(Auto), 700 mv, 800 mv, 900mv, 1000mv
CPU Clock Skew	(Auto), Normal, Delay 100ps, Delay 1500ps
CPU Spread Spectrum	(Auto), Disabled
IOH Clock Skew	(Auto), Normal, Delay 100ps, Delay 1500ps
PCIE Spread Spectrum	(Auto), Disabled, Enabled

Overclocking on the board is a joy. With a Intel Core i7 920 and a Thermalright CPU cooler, I was able to overclock the CPU over 4GHz without problems and without tweaking the voltages. This is an incredible overclock for a new chipset and CPU when the normal CPU frequency is 2.66GHz. ASUS designed their motherboard to support the highest possible overclock and this reflects it in the overclock stages. One thing to note is that the 965EE CPU which costs over $999 did not successfully reach 4GHz stably without voltage modification on the same board.

BIOS Shots