Bios, Box Contents 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 bios of the MSI nForce2 motherboard has a lot of settings that overclockers and tweakers will love to see. In the Advanced Chipset Options menu you will find the majority of what you are looking for. Here you can edit the processor frequency from 100-200 MHz. The memory speed is set by a ratio option on the “CPU:DRAM” field that includes the following options: 1:1, 5:6, 4:5, 3:4, 2:3, 3:5, 1:2, Auto. And, so that you don’t have to be a math wiz to calculate your own memory speeds, the MSI bios reports a “resulting frequency” when ever you chance the CPU:DRAM option.

Other settings in this bios menu include the memory settings for CAS to RAS, RAS, RP and CAS latency. There is an option to turn 8x AGP support on and off as well.

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The other interesting bios menu is the Frequency/Voltage menu. It includes the remainder of the options you are looking for including AGP clocks frequency settings of 66-120MHz and AGP voltages from 1.5-1.7v. DRAM voltages can also be modified on the scale of 2.5-2.7v. The CPU multiplier can be modified from 7-13x here and the Vcore can be modified from 1.55 up to 1.80v – there is also a “No CPU” option that I can’t quite grasp either! 🙂

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Box Contents

Because this model that we received for review was the lowest cost model, there isn’t a lot included with it. There is a header for 6-channel audio that includes a optical connection and another header for USB additions. Manuals, IDE and floppy cables round it out.

System Setup

The system setup hasn’t changed from the other nForce2 motherboard reviews, so here you have our general setup for reviews:

AMD Test System Setup
CPU 1 x 2.17 GHz AMD Athlon XP 2700+ Processor
Motherboards MSI K7N2 nForce2 Motherboard
Chaintech 7NJS nForce2 Motherboard
Asus A7N8X nForce2 Motherboard
Leadtek K7NCR18D nForce2 Motherboard
Memory 2 x 256MB Corsair Micro XMS3200 DDR DRAM
Hard Drive 80 GB 7200 RPM IBM EIDE
Video Card ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
Video Drivers 61.66
Operating System Windows XP w/ Service Pack 1

Tests:

Quake III: Arena
Unreal Tournament 2K3
3DMark 2001
SiSoft Sandra Memory Bench
SiSoft Sandra CPU Bench
Content Creation Winstone 2001
Business Winstone 2001
SPECviewperf 7
Cachemem
ScienceMark

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