My 2nd PC, in a honey of a brand new but, older Chenbro "Gaming Bomb" case,
(only bought on ebay it because it's a lovely solid quality case - somebody
must have found some old stock), currently has a :-
Asrock AliveNF6G-VSTA board | Athlon 64 3800+ single core | 2 x 512mb
Crucial PC2-5300 (333mhz) memory, (thanks to that stupid memory selector at
Crucial...and me not checking the specs. of the cpu I bought on ebay!),...I
assume this refers to 166mhz running at ddr giving the so-called
"effectively 333mhz" marketing hype etc....to do with data being carried top
and bottom of each clock cycle etc.
I've just been playing with the bios settings, which were originally set to
comply with the hardware specs. ...as best as I could set them. ...including
"Auto" all over the place , ...if you see what I mean.
and CpuZ reported that the cpu was running at 2400mhz
and "Memory" was reported as:
200.9mhz
FSB
RAM CPU/12
CL 5.0
RAS to CAS Delay 5
RAS Precharge 5
Cycle Time tRAS 15
Bank Cycle time tRC 20
...in an unusual fit of adventurousness !!! I enabled the "AM2 Boost"
feature in the bios,
and ran CpuZ to see what it had to say, and it was I think ....going from
memory, (too lazy to alter bios yet again)
CPU 2433.? ...I think
DRAM Frequency 273.?mhz
FSB
RAM CPU/9
CL 5.0
RAS to CAS Delay 5
RAS Precharge 5
Cycle Time tRAS 15
Bank Cycle time tRC 21 ...I think it was 21
....anyhoooo! ...to see what difference disabling memory "Flexibility
option," which had always been enabled, I disabled that and ran CpuZ again.
so, AM2 boost is on, and flexibility option is disabled, ...I should
mention that during the past couple of months I've been regularly hunting
with Google on these options to try and find out what they do, and the best
way to set them, and inexorably end up wading through tons of gibberish in
overclocking forums !! ...where everyone seems to be trying to shorten the
working life of their expensive components by stressing them to their
absolute limits !
....anyway, with Flexibility option disabled and AM2 Boost enabled ***,
CpuZ reports:
Core Speed 2635.2 mhz
Bus speed 219.6
HT Link 878.3 mhz
Memory 329.4 mhz
CPU/8
CL 5
RAS to CAS dealy tRCD 5
tRP 5
tRAS 15
tRC 21
Command Rate 2T (always seems to be the same - 2T)
*** cpu mhz seems to have increased, "Bus speed," ...if that means "fsb,"
seems to have gone up to 219.6mhz,
....and DRAM frequency appears to have gone up from 200.*mhz to 273.*mhz,
.....finally, with Flexibility option turned off, to 329.4mhz ...which
doesn't seem to relate in any way to the fsb speed, either actual mhz on the
physical board or the exotic DDR rating of 333mhz !
I've been testing each scenario with Lavalys Everest, and the memory
benchmarks seem to confirm that memory read and write benchmarks are
significantly higher with the "AM2 Boost" option switched on, and
"Flexibility Option" turned off.
As you can probably tell I've got fed up reading and trying to understand
the mysteries of "quad-pumped fsb's" ...and HT link speeds between the
North and South bridge chips, and trying to grasp the relationship between
the various frequencies whistling around that board !
If some kind soul could hint that leaving the two tempting, bios options
set, as above, isn't going to shorten the life of my components too much,
I'll leave them as they are. It seems to noticeably improve responsiveness
of that system box. ...though it seems a little bit like "overclocking" to
me !!!
your thoughts would be much appreciated,
regards, Richard
Linear Mode
