ASRock P45R2000-WiFi Motherboard Review

BIOS Rundown

An enthusiast knows that the components, accessories, and features of a motherboard are only part of the puzzle. The BIOS is what can make or break a board’s performance for both stability and overclocking. We will take a closer look at the overclockability of the board in the overclocking section.

The ASRock P45R2000-WiFi features an AMI 8mb BIOS and supports ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake-up Events. Like many other ASRock boards, you must press F2 instead of the typical delete key to enter the BIOS upon booting. Seems strange to move from the standard delete key, but it is not an issue if users are aware of it.


First off, ASRock offers three splash screen options as well as an option to disable all splash screens to allow viewing of POST messages. Disabling of splash screens is recommended when overclocking in order to see what speed the system is booting at from the POST screen.


The BIOS info page is typical of many other boards on the market. This page shows which CPU and memory is installed and a few specifications such as cache and speed. This is also where you can check which BIOS version is installed, which is displayed at the top at the page.

The PC Health page is also standard, showing CPU and motherboard temperatures, fan speeds for the two fan headers, and voltages (vcore, 3.3v, 5.0v, and 12.0v). It would have been nice to see Vdimm and a chipset monitoring setting but this of course could mean a more expensive monitoring chip.


The CPU Configuration page includes CPU Thermal Throttling and Intel Speedstep Technology, both of which are recommended to disable if you want the multi to remain static. This is also the screen where you will find adjustable frequencies for CPU / PCIE and the CPU multiplier. Users must set Overclock Mode to Manual to adjust these settings.

The Chipset Setting page is where you find all of the overclocking settings you will need to push your system to the limits. Settings on this page range from memory dividers, memory timings, to many voltages and other useful settings. Let’s take a closer look at the overclocking options at our disposal.


First you have the memory remap feature. This is to be enabled if you are utilizing 4GB or more of memory so it will all be recognized in Windows. Another feature on the Chipset Settings screen that you will see in Intel chipset boards is XMP Technology. XMP (extreme memory profile) is Intel compatible and provides the next level of JEDEC standard. Briefly, XMP is an extra speed bin to JEDEC’s standard DDR3’s definitions, allowing for higher speeds and tighter timings than JEDEC, simply by enabling the XMP Profile.

One thing we have not saw much of from ASRock is secondary memory settings in the BIOS. The X48 board BIOS has only the basic four: tCL, tRCD, tRP, tRAS plus DRAM Command Rate (1N vs. 2N). However, the P45R2000-WiFi hosts a variety of memory timings, from the four basics, to tRFC, right down to tRD; basically everything a user would need. For memory dividers there are three available: 400Mhz (DDR3 800), 533Mhz (DDR3 1066), and 667Mhz (DDR3 1333). We will go over how the dividers work in detail in the overclocking section.


Two other pages linked to Chipset Settings page are DRAM RCOMP Strength Settings and DRAM DLL Skew Settings. These settings have to do with the memory registers but after several hours of tweaking, these pages didn’t seem to help FSB or stability at all.


Continuing down the Chipset Settings screen, we see all of the voltages needed for overclocking. At default all of the settings are set to auto, which provides stock voltages for each component. Memory voltage maxes out at 2.34v for DDR3 and the maximum vcore is 1.60v. It is important to note that unlike most other settings that have a drop-down menu and allow easy voltage selections, the only way to adjust CPU voltage is by pressing + and – on the keyboard. This method is not as convenient and it takes extra time to adjust CPU voltage.


Northbridge, Southbridge, Southbridge1.1v, VTT and PLL voltages are not numeric selectable voltages but rather settings of low, medium, high, and very high. It is a little concerning to not be aware of how much voltage is actually being used in each of the settings and it is recommended to avoid the highest setting altogether to be safe and not risk damaging an expensive CPU. This is especially important for VTT voltages as several users have reported dead 45nm CPUs at only 1.5v VTT. ASRock support unable to provide any actual voltages for these settings nor measure points for a digital multimeter; however, we heard from a reliable source that very high for VTT = about 1.42v.

One bright point in the voltage section is instead of using non-numerical settings for GTLREF Voltage, ASRock added options ranging from 0.67 x VTT to 0.615 x VTT, which is quite handy for FSB overclocking. Generally 0.615xVTT is best for 45nm CPUs and 0.67xVTT for 65nm, but this is dependant on other voltages and requires some tweaking to find optimal combinations.

All in all, the enthusiast user should be quite pleased with the availability of additional BIOS options such as secondary memory timings, Skew settings, and voltages such as VTT and PLL. It looks like ASRock continues to adapt the BIOS to appeal to a wider market; as more boards come out the BIOS seems to be becoming more and more overclocker friendly. Hopefully with the next board ASRock will include actual voltages for NB, SB, PLL, and VTT and add additional voltage availability for vcore.