ASUS P6T SE Motherboard Review :: BIOS and Overclocking

ASUS uses a modified version of the American Megatrends AMIBIOS that is popular with many motherboard manufacturers. Their menu is split into Main, AI Tweaker, Advanced, Power, Boot, Tools and Exit. The Main submenu has the System Time, Date, Language, the detected SATA drives the storage configuration and System information. Storage Configuration is where you configure SATA as RAID, IDE or AHCI.

AI Tweaker is where the overclocking of the motherboard is done. Ai Overclock Tuner has four settings, Manual, Auto, DOCP and XMP. Manual has all of the settings changed by the user. Auto overclocks the system automatically. DRAM OverClocking Profile setting the Base clock by setting the memory clock. The board also supports Intel's eXtreme Memory Profile which is the equivalent to NVIDIA's EPP memory profile.

The advanced menu is where the CPU features are turned on/off, the Chipset features are turned on/off, and the Onboard Devices Configuration, USB Configuration and PCIPnP are set. CPU features like the ratio, C1E, Hardware Prefetcher, Virtualization Tech and CPU Trusted Module Function, Execute Disable Bit, Intel HT, SpeedStep, Turbo Mode and C-State tech are set. Onboard devices is where the front panel and JMicron eSATA controller settings are set.

I overclocked using ASUS's TurboV utility to overclock the P6T SE. I was able to overclock the 920 CPU to 3.63GHz without failure. This is OK for a value board such as this. The CPU was using the default heatsink that came with the 920 and better cooling would have resulted in better overclocking. Here's a list of the available settings in the BIOS for overclocking:

Setting	Range
CPU Ratio	Auto, 12x, 13x, 14x, 15x, 16x, 17x, 18x, 19x, 20x
Intel SpeedStep	Enabled, Disabled
Intel Turbo Mode Tech	Enabled, Disabled,
BCLK Frequency	100-500
PCIE Frequency	100-200
AI Overclock Tuner	Auto, Manual, DOCP, XMP
DRAM Frequency	Auto DDR3800 DDR31066 DDR1333 DDR3 1600 DDR3 1800 DDR3 2133MHz
DRAM CAS#	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,3 DRAM Clock, 4 DRAM Clock-32 DRAM Clock, 31 DRAM Clock
DRAM RAS to RAS	Auto, 1 DRAM Clock-7 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 Readto Pre Time	Auto 1 DRAM Clock-15 DRAM Clock
DRAM FOUR ACT WIN Time	Auto, 1 DRAM Clock-63 DRAM Clock
DRAM Back to back CAS# Delay	Auto, 1 DRAM Clock-32 DRAM Clock
CPU Voltage	Auto 0.85000v-2.10000v
CPU PLL Voltage	1.80V-2.50V
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage	1.20000v-1.90000v
IOH Voltage	1.10v-1.70v
IOH PCIE Voltage	Auto, 1.5v-2.76v
ICH Voltage	1.10v-1.40v
ICH PCIE Voltage	1.50v-1.80v
DRAM DATA Ref voltage on CHA/B/C	Auto, 0.395v-0.630v
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHA/B/C	0.395X-0.630X
Load-Line Calibration	Auto, Disabled, Enabled
CPU Differential Amplitude	Auto, 700mV, 800mV,900mV, 1000mV
CPU Clock Skew	Auto, Normal, Delay 100ps-Delay 1500ps
CPU Spread Spectrum	Auto, Disabled, Enabled
IOH Clock Skew	Auto, Normal, Delay 100ps-Delay 1500ps
PCIE Spread Spectrum	Auto, Disabled, Enabled

BIOS Screenshots