- Oct 31, 1999
- 4,741
- 34
- 91
I am never an early adopter of new tech...usually wait until things have been tested out a bit but my hand was forced when my old KT266 exploded two days ago. I had Newegg rush me the new mobo with a T-Bred 1800 and some nice Corsair XMS 2700 Platinum Series RAM. Just to round things out I will comment that the T-Bred came unlocked without the laser bridges cut across L1 and has been a breeze to o/c. The RAM comes with silver RAM-sinks for an extra $1, which looks very nice...don't know what that does for performance though, but it can't hurt.
Northbridge: NForce2 SPP
Southbridge: NForce2 MCP-T
Key added features are the Silicon Image SATA controller, 2 NIC's (one 3COM, one nVidia), 4 USB 2.0 ports and a bracket for an additional 2 USB 1.0, IEEE 1394 - 2 ports via bracket, onboard sound, 5 PCI and 3 DDR slots. Items found on other ASUS boards which are missing here are built-in card reader functions (the VIA boards I know have on-board CF/SD/MS reader capability). Other nice features include the ASUS Q-FAN which will adjust fan speeds according to temp, ASUS POST Reporter which gives voice error messages if you can't POST, and CPU overheat protection with throttling.
The board was very easy to install. There is plenty of room for a big heatsink and the part of the clamp you have to push down on is directed toward the top edge of the board, giving you plenty or room to manipulate a screwdriver (out of the case, that is). The northbridge has an enormous heatsink w/o a fan. The ATX connector is far away from the CPU, north of the IDE connectors, making it easy to stash the power cable behind your drive bays - a very nice touch. The memory slots and arms seemed very well constructed and memory installation was a cinch.
The AWARD/Pheonix BIOS is standard stuff with good overclocking options. FSB up to at least 211 and VCore up to at least 1.85 (I say at least because that's what is listed in the manual and I don't remember off-hand). The usual memory tweaking options. Voltage options for AGP and memory. It automatically adjusts the PCI/AGP dividers based on your FSB setting, but does not inform you what it is anywhere, which is somewhat annoying. The first time I set it to 166 i just had to cross my fingers and hope it was going to adjust the dividers appropriately. For System and Memory it gives you three standard options: Aggressive, Optimal, and User Define. I could see no difference between the memory settings it chose with Aggressive and Optimal though. I just set everything to Aggressive. This did not seem to affect benchmarks.
The included software has dirivers for USB 2.0, LAN chips, onboard sound, and NForce monitoring utilities. Of those it was all pretty easy except for the USB 2.0. You have to install two sets of drivers in a very specific order. They give you a very ominous warning that if you do it wrong you may permantly screw your Windows and have to reinstall it. They then proceed to give fairly crappy (and in my case, inaccurate) instructions on how to proceed. In my case I found my USB 2.0 hardware hiding in the Device Manager under Other Devices with some generic "Other Device Unrecognized" name. I then had to try to force the driver update on several of these until I found the right one.
At first I fired it up at 133 FSB just to get the kinks out. After running a few benches I noted that there was virtually no performance gain over my previous KT266A setup. I then upped to 166, dropping my CPU multiplier, and everything went off like clockwork. Since then I have continued to stress it in every way possibly...advancing slowly at present. It has not offered so much as a single hiccup throughout the whole process. Just from transition from my old system to the new one with 166 FSB, i got ~ 800-1000 increase in 3DMark. Sandra memory scores at 166 with Aggressive settings are RAM Int:2568, RAM Float: 2401. This compares quite favorably to a KT333 with PC2700 (2092/2014).
Update 11/28/02: System running at 166 FSB with CPU at 1.92@1.60V. Problems with ASUS Probe reporting incorrect temps...reports about 8C cooler than actual temp reported in BIOS. FSB overclocking did not go very well. When locking the AGP at 66, dialing down the cpu to normal speeds, I was only able to get the FSB to 170 before hard-locks started occuring. System remains very stable at 166 FSB though.
Update 12/02/02: Interesting quirk with the board discovered. When overclocking and system locks, the mobo does not reboot on the next attempt - it just gives a no-POST. I found I must reboot twice to get it to POST after a hard-lockup. This initially lead to some elevated sphincter tone moments when I was sure I had destroyed the CPU (which BTW is now up to 2.01@1.725V).
Northbridge: NForce2 SPP
Southbridge: NForce2 MCP-T
Key added features are the Silicon Image SATA controller, 2 NIC's (one 3COM, one nVidia), 4 USB 2.0 ports and a bracket for an additional 2 USB 1.0, IEEE 1394 - 2 ports via bracket, onboard sound, 5 PCI and 3 DDR slots. Items found on other ASUS boards which are missing here are built-in card reader functions (the VIA boards I know have on-board CF/SD/MS reader capability). Other nice features include the ASUS Q-FAN which will adjust fan speeds according to temp, ASUS POST Reporter which gives voice error messages if you can't POST, and CPU overheat protection with throttling.
The board was very easy to install. There is plenty of room for a big heatsink and the part of the clamp you have to push down on is directed toward the top edge of the board, giving you plenty or room to manipulate a screwdriver (out of the case, that is). The northbridge has an enormous heatsink w/o a fan. The ATX connector is far away from the CPU, north of the IDE connectors, making it easy to stash the power cable behind your drive bays - a very nice touch. The memory slots and arms seemed very well constructed and memory installation was a cinch.
The AWARD/Pheonix BIOS is standard stuff with good overclocking options. FSB up to at least 211 and VCore up to at least 1.85 (I say at least because that's what is listed in the manual and I don't remember off-hand). The usual memory tweaking options. Voltage options for AGP and memory. It automatically adjusts the PCI/AGP dividers based on your FSB setting, but does not inform you what it is anywhere, which is somewhat annoying. The first time I set it to 166 i just had to cross my fingers and hope it was going to adjust the dividers appropriately. For System and Memory it gives you three standard options: Aggressive, Optimal, and User Define. I could see no difference between the memory settings it chose with Aggressive and Optimal though. I just set everything to Aggressive. This did not seem to affect benchmarks.
The included software has dirivers for USB 2.0, LAN chips, onboard sound, and NForce monitoring utilities. Of those it was all pretty easy except for the USB 2.0. You have to install two sets of drivers in a very specific order. They give you a very ominous warning that if you do it wrong you may permantly screw your Windows and have to reinstall it. They then proceed to give fairly crappy (and in my case, inaccurate) instructions on how to proceed. In my case I found my USB 2.0 hardware hiding in the Device Manager under Other Devices with some generic "Other Device Unrecognized" name. I then had to try to force the driver update on several of these until I found the right one.
At first I fired it up at 133 FSB just to get the kinks out. After running a few benches I noted that there was virtually no performance gain over my previous KT266A setup. I then upped to 166, dropping my CPU multiplier, and everything went off like clockwork. Since then I have continued to stress it in every way possibly...advancing slowly at present. It has not offered so much as a single hiccup throughout the whole process. Just from transition from my old system to the new one with 166 FSB, i got ~ 800-1000 increase in 3DMark. Sandra memory scores at 166 with Aggressive settings are RAM Int:2568, RAM Float: 2401. This compares quite favorably to a KT333 with PC2700 (2092/2014).
Update 11/28/02: System running at 166 FSB with CPU at 1.92@1.60V. Problems with ASUS Probe reporting incorrect temps...reports about 8C cooler than actual temp reported in BIOS. FSB overclocking did not go very well. When locking the AGP at 66, dialing down the cpu to normal speeds, I was only able to get the FSB to 170 before hard-locks started occuring. System remains very stable at 166 FSB though.
Update 12/02/02: Interesting quirk with the board discovered. When overclocking and system locks, the mobo does not reboot on the next attempt - it just gives a no-POST. I found I must reboot twice to get it to POST after a hard-lockup. This initially lead to some elevated sphincter tone moments when I was sure I had destroyed the CPU (which BTW is now up to 2.01@1.725V).
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