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ASUS Secretly Overclocking Motherboards?
Hubert writes "It seems that the motherboard manufacturing industry is getting a little bit too competitive now that ASUS and many other manufacturers are secretly tweaking and overclocking the motherboard in default BIOS settings." A front side bus that's a mere 2 MHz faster may not seem like much of a tweak, but it's just enough to gain an edge over the competition.
Last time I checked the "default" FSB was decided by chipset and CPU makers, not by mainboard makers.
They are running the bus faster than specified, so all PCI devices, the CPU and the memory will run faster than specified. These other compontents are typically from another vendor. This is overclocking, per definition, I'd say.
Sorry. Is there an article linked? I saw some preamble and some advertising and some gratuitous web dross, but an article? I'm afraid I missed it.
a r1=249&var2=0 a r1=249&var2=1 a r1=249&var2=2
It's a horribly designed web site. Here are the links:
http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&v
http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&v
http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&v
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
But when I purchase this motheboard from newegg, designed as a package with all those components together, and it is advertised as an 800Mhz FSB, I certainly understand there is a certain margin of error. A 2Mhz deviation may fall within expected safe parameters, but this deviation also affect other components - i.e. from the article, the processor runs 33Mhz faster, and memory is running at roughly 3Mhz faster. Further, manually scaling the speed up on this mobo, the article states it consistently is 2Mhz above the supplied number. If I want those components to run faster/hotter, then let me be the one choosing to do so, or advertise your motherboard for what it is - an 802Mhz FSB. This just opens up a whole pandoras box, so least they could be honest - and let ABit come out with an 804Mhz FSB next.
Some points critiquing this review:
* He's measuring using software. The error margin of software methods to measure this kind of thing dwarf 2% and head into the 6% range; typically more so with voltage measurement, which motherboards tend to measure about 0.1V lower than they really are; but for this kind of thing, we should demand testing with a correctly calibrated and maintained hardware frequency counter. I don't think CPU-Z qualifies to measure a change that small reliably.
* This is normal, and within expected tolerances; it's only running a bit high because the natural wandering of his motherboard's PLLs is a little high, and it's only 33MHz above because it's being rounded up when locked.
* Each individual motherboard will have a slightly different clock. Some vary WAY more than this. And only one motherboard of each model tested. That isn't statistically significant, particularly as this is an issue which will vary from individual motherboard to motherboard, as it relies on the tolerances of the clocks. He needs to take a lot more samples; over 100 really; and graph a bell curve from that.
* Also - only one control?
Furthermore, I think this reviewer simply doesn't understand the default settings of the motherboard. He's letting it select sensible defaults, then complaining they're not as sensible as he'd like. He's complaining that his particular motherboard is a little bit out on manual settings, but really if he's that concerned about such a small change, why isn't he testing using hardware?
I think the memory timings can be put down to ASUS's "AI". This is a motherboard feature... and it can be disabled. ASUS's concept "Normal" or "Slower" is a very small push, but if he wants to run truly at stock like a paranoid, use "Disabled", Manual timings on memory, and lock the PCI speed to 33MHz. That goes particularly for the PEG Link Mode. This is normal and expected behaviour for an ASUS (and everyone else).
However, the fractional overclock is actually well within what would be considered normal tolerance. 6% at worst, and that's only on the PCI bus if you didn't lock the PCI bus clock (but in fact it _does_ lock the PCI bus clock, he just didn't measure that bus).
If this caused any problems with system components, the components would not be binned at this level, as for example CPUs are required to pass all self tests at over 10% over a given bin speed to actually make the bin (to reduce returns and DOA); less than that and they will go into the lower bin, because there's a question mark about their ability to perform consistently at stock.
So yeah, his motherboard might be (according to software) running a trifle high; but only 1.1%-1.2% high. Woo, his motherboard's within normal tolerances. Whole lot o' nothing, from a guy who just wants blog traffic.