Overclocking

Gigabyte uses a standard Award BIOS which controls its overclocking options.

Under the Frequency/Voltage control menu is where you will find all your overclocking and optimization settings. Under this menu you can change your CPU Ratio (providing it is unlocked), CPU BUS Frequency, AGP/PCI clock control, Memory frequency, DIMM overvolt, AGP overvolt and CPU overvolt.

CPU ratio can be changed from 8x up to 25x providing your CPU is unlocked; if it is locked, the frequency will stay at its default and BIOS will not let you select this option.

CPU BUS frequency is simply your FSB adjustments. You can change the bus speed from 100MHz up to 355MHz in 1MHz increments. APG/PCI dividers can be locked to their specific defaults to allow the best and stable overclock.

Memory frequency dividers can be changed depending on your CPU FSB. If you are running a 400MHz FSB or 533MHz FSB, your memory options are 266 or 333MHz. If you are running a new 800MHz CPU, you get 266MHz, 333MHz and 400MHz.

Now we come to our voltages which I must say I was quite disappointed in.

DIMM overvolt allows you to raise the DRAM voltage from its default of 2.5 up to either +0.1v, +0.2v or +0.3v. At max setting this only gives you 2.8v. While this can give a reasonable overclock, 3.0v+ is the expected norm for overclockers now.

AGP overvolt allows you to change your AGP signal voltage from its default of 1.5v for AGP 4x card or 0.9v for AGP 8x card up to a max of +0.3v. This comes in handy only if you overclock your AGP and PCI buses.

CPU voltage options are from your default voltage up to 1.76v in 0.025v increments. This does allow a reasonable voltage selection for Pentium 4 CPU's.

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