BIOS Features
Now we get down to the nitty-gritty for those who love to tweak their systems and squeeze every ounce of power out of them. These screenshots are from Award BIOS Version F5, which was the latest non-beta BIOS available for this motherboard.
Upon entering the Award BIOS , we are greeted with its main menu screen. I’ve always liked this type of BIOS because it’s very user friendly and has every feature displayed in an easy-to-use and organized fashion. As with all Gigabyte motherboards, don’t forget to press CTRL+F1 to gain access to the BIOS advanced features.
Our first section in the BIOS wastes no time showing us the overclocking potential with the GA-X58-UD5. There are several items to key in on in this screenshot and we will go over each one of them in the next several screenshots.
The CPU Clock Ratio is locked at 20x, courtesy of our test bench’s i7-920 processor. Those who can fork out $1,000 to purchase the i7-965 will have this section unlocked, which is really handy when you want to push the overclocking power of the motherboard, CPU, and memory.
The Advanced CPU Features section provides users all the control they would want or need over their CPU. A couple items worthy of note are Intel’s Turbo Boost technology and the CPU EIST function. Depending on CPU loading, EIST can dynamically lower the CPU voltage and core frequency to decrease power consumption and heat production.
There are several options for setting the QPI Link Speed in this BIOS. The i7-920 can now match the i7-965’s QPI speed of 6.4 GT/s because Intel recently started shipping these processors with unlocked QPI.
Advanced Clock Control has functions for configuring the base clock, PCI-E frequency, C.I.A. 2, CPU clock drive, PCI-E clock drive, CPU clock skew, and MCH clock skew.
The CPU Intelligent Accelerator 2 or C.I.A. 2 is designed to automatically adjust CPU speeds and frequencies to maximize performance. It basically helps noobs overclock their systems without getting their hands dirty. The five settings – Cruise, Sports, Racing, Turbo, and Full Thrust – will increase the CPU frequency between 5% and 19% depending on CPU loading. We currently have this option disabled because we will be manually overclocking the i7-920.
The infamous Performance Enhance option has received some discussion early last year in the PCPer forums. Many think it has to do with tightening memory timings, but I’ve never set it to anything but the default “Turbo” setting. Here’s the skinny right from Gigabyte’s Taiwan website:
“This feature improves memory performance and memory compatibility and features 3 modes you can choose from: Standard, Turbo and Extreme modes. Standard mode gives the highest OC clock, but with high latency. Turbo mode gives the best balance between clock speed and latency. Extreme mode delivers the best performance with low latency (but memory clock might be lower as well).”
Just as the title states, this option allows you to configure the memory multiplier.
Each DRAM channel can be independently configured by setting the DRAM Timing Selectable to Manual. You can also set the DDR and QPI voltages in this section.
The Advanced DRAM Features section also gives users pretty much the same access to memory frequencies and timings, but also includes setting each channel’s turnaround settings.
The last section in the MB Intelligent Tweaker lets users configure voltages for the CPU, QPI, IOH, and DRAM. It’s pretty much a smorgasbord for tweaking all the voltages for creating a more stable overclock.
The Advanced Voltage Control is an enthusiast’s dream in terms of giving them full control and access to every vital component to ensure they can experience a rock-solid, stable system at overclocked settings.
Moving onto the Standard CMOS features, we can configure all our hard drives, floppy drive, and other storage and optical devices. We can also set the day, month, year, and time in this section.
The Advanced BIOS feature gives users the capability to set their boot priorities as well as set which display they would look to use when they boot their systems.
Here’s a quick screenshot of the Integrated Peripherals screen that tells the PC how to configure SATA RAID, USB 2.0, Azalia codec, onboard firewire and LAN, and a new Smart Backup utility that we’ve been seeing around the block lately.
Power management is really where users can help themselves save a few bucks on their energy bills by configuring how the PC functions during sleep and standby modes.
Our final screenshot shows the PC Health status page that is fairly standardized and gives details about CPU and MCH temps, CPU and system fan speeds, and even an option to see your PC case is open or not.
After taking a quick breather from giving our readers an overview of all the functions and features available with the GA-X58-UD5’s BIOS, I can confidently say that this is a well laid out, feature-rich BIOS that should give enthusiasts all the tools they need to get stable overclocks in their respective PCs.
It’s amazing to me how many differences there are between different vendors and how they configure and present their respective BIOS. Some use different terminology to explain basic PC functions, while others lay out their options in a totally unique way.
Gigabyte really seems to have their standard down pat, and users will appreciate the attention to detail and keeping a consistent organization between where they can find the right options they are looking for. While this BIOS might not have all the bells and whistles of high-end X58 boards, it definitely gives enthusiasts and gamers several different options for increasing their PC’s performance and stability. For more information on Gigabyte’s X58 BIOS features, check out this link.
