Gigabyte MA-790FXT UD5P Motherboard Review :: BIOS and Overclocking

There are two things one has to know about Gigabyte motherboards on their BIOS. First, Gigabyte awes the first company to introduce dual BIOS's, second the offer a licensed version of Phoenix Award BIOS with every board they sell. Dual BIOS allows the user to recover from a bad BIOS Flash by using the built-in second BIOS to boot.

The Main Menu is split into Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.), Standard CMOS Features, Advanced BIOS Features, Integrated Peripherals, Power Management Setup, and PC Health. Standard CMOS Features includes HDD detection, Date, Time, Memory detected, and the FDD configuration. Advanced BIOS Features is where the Boot Device Priority is set, the CPU Features and the Init Display is set.

The majority of the tweaking will be done on the Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker submenu as here you will find the CPU, memory, chipset and voltage tweaks. Overclocking on the MA-790FXT-UD5P motherboard was easy and comprehensive with clock speeds above 3.25GHz observed on a Phenom II X4 810 that normally run at 2.6GHz. The system was totally stable at that CPU speed, which is a 25% increase over the 2.6GHz default clock. Gigabyte offers a wide array of tweaks to the motherboard in this menu which is summarized in the chart below:

Setting	Range
CPU Clock Ratio	Dependent on CPU
CPU Northbridge Frequency	Dependent on CPU
CPU Host Clock	Auto, Manual
CPU Frequency	200-500MHz in 1MHz increments
PCIe Clock (MHz)	100-200MHz in 1MHz increments
HT Link Frequency	Auto, 200-2.6GHz
Set Memory clock	Auto, Manual
Memory Clock	4x, 5.33x, 6.66x, 8.00
CAS Latency	3T-1T
RAS to CAS R/W Delay	3T-6T
Row Precharge time	3T-6T
Minimum RAS Active Time	5T-18T
1T/2T Command Timing	1T, 2T
TwTr Command Delay	1T-3T
Trfc0 for DIMM1	75ns, 105ns,127.5ns,195ns, 327.5ns
Trfc2 for DIMM2	75ns, 105ns,127.5ns,195ns, 327.5ns
Trfc1 for DIMM3	75ns, 105ns,127.5ns,195ns, 327.5ns
Trfc3 for DIMM4	75ns, 105ns,127.5ns,195ns, 327.5ns
Write Recovery Time	3T, 4T
Precharge Time	Auto, 2T, 3T
Row Cycle Time	11T-26T
RAS to RAS Delay	2T-5T
DDR3 Voltage control	+0.25-+0.75v in 0.05v increments
NB Voltage control	+0.1v-0.3v in 0.1v increments
SB/HT Voltage control	+0.1v-+0.3v in 0.1v increments
NB/PCIe/PLL Voltage control	+0.1v-+0.3v in 0.1v increments
CPU Voltage control	Dependent on CPU

Bios Screenshots