Bios, Overclocking and System Setup

This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.

The initial bios that came on the 8KHA motherboard was a standard blue screen Award Bios that we are all used to seeing. Upon inquiry, Epox was able to supply with an updated bios dated 5/23/01. This bios was a Phoenix bios that has the graphical interface, and even includes images of the processor logos for Duron and Athlon CPUs. Both bios offer the same options, the newer was just has prettier packaging.

Overclocking on the 8KHA motherboard was more of a joy than even the 8K7A. With every option based in the bios, it was a breeze to do the guess-and-check process that is required of a good overclocking attempt. Some of the options you will find include the multiplier adjustments from 5.0x up to 12.5x as well as front-side bus options of 95 MHz to 166 MHz in single megahertz increments. The voltage options are similarly implemented like they were on the 8K7A motherboard. Instead of setting the voltage directly, you ‘add’ to it. For instance, the 1.4 GHz Athlon used in testing here has a default voltage of 1.75v. Using the bios on the 8KHA we can ‘add’ +0.025, +0.050, etc all the way up to 1.85v. Unfortunately, I was unable to manually break the 1.85v barrier.

How well did the Epox board stand up to overclocking? VERY well in both the total speed and FSB options. The top speed I was able to reach with the 1.4 GHz CPU and 256 MB of PC2400 DDR SDRAM from Corsair was 1.55 GHz with standard air cooling running at 1.85v and a 155×10 setting. However, I could use a full 160 MHz FSB and reach a 1.52 GHz at 160×9.5! Memory scores, as you can imagine, were very impressive at these speeds.

Here are the system specs for our benchmarks and testing:

Test System Setup
CPU AMD Thunderbird 1.4 GHz (133 MHz Bus)
Memory 2 x 128MB Corsair XMS2400 DDR DRAM
Hard Drive 20.5GB 7200 RPM Western Digital EIDE
Video Card Visiontek GeForce 3
Video Drivers Detonator 12.90
Operating System Windows 98 SE

Tests:

Quake III: Arena
3DMark 2001
SiSoft Sandra Memory Bench
SiSoft Sandra CPU Bench
Content Creation Winstone 2001
Business Winstone 2001
4 different SPEC view perf tests
Cachemem
ScienceMark

« PreviousNext »