DFI Lanparty Blood Iron P45-T2RS Elite Motherboard Review

BIOS Rundown

Now to move on to the Voltage Setting sub-page of the Genie BIOS page. This page is where you find all the adjustable voltages you need for overclocking. At the top is CPU Special VID Add. This is for adjusting vcore and up to +.787.5mv above VID but remember that this is enough to easily kill any CPU, so be careful.

Next on the voltage list is DRAM voltage. An unheard of 3.28v is available for memory but keep in mind this is for extreme overclocking only and most modules will not like more than 2.2v.


Next up we have PLL and Northbridge voltages where 2.15v is available for PLL and 1.97v for Northbridge. We can’t see an instance where you would need above 1.75v on PLL nor 1.7v on Northbridge even for the most extreme benching session, but the volts are available if needed.


Continuing down the voltage list we have VTT and Clockgen voltages with respective maximum voltages of 1.6v and 3.85v. Clockgen voltage is used to achieve stability when using high FSB and VTT and is crucial for overclocking at high FSB but must be kept in balance with GTL, NB and many other settings. VTT is said to be one of the most dangerous voltages to increase over a period of time so use it with caution. Often, P45 boards reach very high FSB with relatively low VTT and Northbridge voltages if the correct combination of GTL is used.


Now we get into GTL and FSB Ref settings. GTL REF Voltage is basically CPU VTT reference voltage. CPU GTL 0/2, 1/3, and NB GTL all must be used in perfect ratios to achieve stability at high FSB. Meanwhile, FSB Ref voltage is a tweak to MCH parameter registers and is sometimes useful for breaking a perceived FSB wall. Recommended settings to test are 23/24/25/2A/2B. The GTL combination we found most useful for our Xeon 2110 was .61/.61/.58.

As you can see there are a TON of BIOS tweaks available so an enthusiast or hard core overclocker should be very pleased (or overwhelmed) with the options available. It is important to use a methodical approach when overclocking; that is, tweak one setting at a time, test stability, and then move to the next. If you try and tweak everything at once it will take many days to figure out which setting(s) are causing instability. Luckily ABS II can help a new overclocker swap settings with his friends.

Always keep in mind there are enough voltage options to easily fry your RAM, motherboard, and CPU if care is not taken. We recommend a lot of background reading and overclocking experience in general before increasing voltages and trying for that extreme overclock.