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| by lemonlime | July 26, 2009 | ||
| BIOS Rundown BIOS Rundown The MSI 790FX-GD70 ships with the first “official” BIOS revision, version 1.0. Since the GD70’s official release, there have been two official releases, a 1.2 and 1.3. Most of the changes appeared to be simple CPU microcode additions and other minor changes. We should note that our X2 550 processor was not recognized by the 1.0 BIOS revision, but did boot up without issue. It simply reported the processor as “AMD Model Unknown”. Version 1.3 corrects this issue. Several beta BIOS revisions were released since the 1.3 final release, and we’re going to be taking a look at the latest 1.5b1 for the purposes of this review. Almost all of the options within the BIOS are the same as the original 1.0 release, but you’ll see why we chose this particular BIOS revision in the “AMD Deneb Core Unlocking” section of the review. Without further ado, let’s take a closer look at the GD70 BIOS.   Click on image to enlarge Upon first bootup, we were greeted by a colorful full-screen logo display that can be disabled within the BIOS if so desired. Hitting the expected “Delete” key brings us to the very familiar AMI BIOS interface. The layout and overall navigation of the BIOS should be nothing foreign for the majority of PC builders and tweakers out there. We won’t waste any time going through the generic “Standard CMOS Features” and other basic menus. Let’s get straight to the goods, the “Cell Menu”    Click on image to enlarge The “Cell Menu” is where the magic happens, and the GD70 has no shortage of magic. A very full-featured “tweaker-friendly” spread of options can be found in the “Cell Menu” including no fewer than 13 individual voltage adjustments and all of the essential frequency and multiplier adjustments. Voltages can be changed in very small increments and some as small as 0.01V, such as with “DRAM Voltage”. Plenty of voltage adjustment headroom is provided and certainly enough to cause some serious damage if used carelessly. Some of the maximum values are provided below:
  Click on image to enlarge There is certainly no shortage of DRAM timing adjustments either. Everything from “CAS Latency” to a whole slew of “Drive Strength” options can be specified. Most buyers will have no desire to tinker beyond the usual CAS-tRCD-tRP-tRAS settings that usually need to be set with higher end DDR3, but its nice to know the other options are there for maximum memory tuning performance.  Click on image to enlarge Aside from timings, MSI allows 800MHz, 1066MHz, 1333MHz as well as the not officially supported 1600MHz memory ratios to be used.  Click on image to enlarge Another nice feature that the old DFI LanParty boards were famous for is BIOS setting “Save Profiles”. MSI calls this feature “User Settings” but there are four different banks of settings that can be saved and recalled. This is especially useful if you’d like to save a known good overclocking configuration before pushing the system farther.   Click on image to enlarge On the system monitoring front, the GD70 is a bit light when it comes to temperature and voltage readings. Only CPU and “System” temperature are reported in the BIOS, but all of the fan headers are RPM monitored. In the “Green Power” menu, we have some very interesting power measurements. Actual amperage readings are taken from the CPU core, CPU northbridge and even the efficiency of the board. Individual power phases as well as the motherboard LEDs can be controlled from this menu as well.  Click on image to enlarge We were very pleased by MSI’s implementation of “M-Flash”. Put simply, M-Flash allows very easy BIOS flashing from within the BIOS and supports any standard USB mass storage device. You can even browse the file system to find your BIOS files, which is great as remembering those complex file names and extensions can be an annoyance. We flashed to several BIOS revisions using a simple USB stick, and couldn’t be more pleased with the process. If only all boards made it this easy. | ||
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