"Workhorse" motherboards based on 945GC by Gigabyte and Foxconn
BIOS
The BIOS of Foxconn 45CMV and Gigabyte 945GCMCL is based on the Award BIOS version.
The Gigabyte's board offers support for a standard pack of memory frequency multipliers. The pack of multipliers on the Foxconn board is the same, but the resultant frequencies look somehow out of the ordinary (perhaps because of the FSB = 1333 MHz which is not "standard" for i945GC):
The kit of available memory latency timings (the similar section in the BIOS section of the Gigabyte's board is displayed upon pressing the Ctrl+F1 key combination):
Now look at the system monitoring section.
Both the boards display the current temperatures for the CPU, rotational speeds of the two fans, as well as the voltage levels. Besides, the Foxconn board also indicated the system temperature.
The boards offer support for the Smart Fan feature that allows for a dynamic adjustment of the CPU cooler's rotational speeds depending on the CPU temperature. The user of the Foxconn board can control the settings of this feature, whereas in Gigabyte 945GCMCL they are default:
Both the boards offer features for adjusting the memory capacity allocated for the needs of the integrated video core. The thing is that on the Foxconn board this feature is operative, whereas on the Gigabyte's board it doesn't, and that is why:
In conclusion, we note that the Foxconn board allows the user to control all the technologies implemented in Intel's latest processors:
Overclocking and stability
As regards the memory modules, Foxconn 45CMV implements a 2-channel scheme, with four 1000 mkF and seven 680 mkF capacitors installed. Gigabyte 945GCMCL uses a single-channel scheme in which there are two 820 mkF and one 470 mkF capacitors.
Now on to the overclocking features.
| Board |
Foxconn 45CMV |
Gigabyte 945GCMCL |
| Multiplier adjustment |
- |
+ |
| FSB adjustment |
within 200/333 to 600 MHz (1 MHz) |
within 100 to 700 MHz (1 MHz) |
| Vcore adjustment |
+ 0.2V (0.0125V) |
- |
| Vmem adjustment |
+ 0.3V (0.1V) |
+ 0.4V (0.1V) |
| Vdd adjustment |
- |
- |
| Adjustment of Vpcix |
- |
- |
| Vtt adjustment |
- |
+ 0.3V (0.1V) |
| PCI-E adjustment |
within 100 MHz to 255 MHz (1 MHz) |
within 90 MHz to 150 MHz (1 MHz) |
Note that the Foxconn board offers quite a lot of overclocking tools, but unfortunately they are scatted over several sections (frequency and voltage settings). Besides, the 45CMV board overstates the PCI Express frequency (115 MHz instead of 100 MHz), which may be the trade-off for using the unofficial 1333 MHz bus.
Now let's look at the practical results of overclocking. The maximum stable FSB speed in the Foxconn board is 333 MHz; that for the Gigabyte's board is 160 MHz:
We reverted the multiplier of Celeron 215 to the rated value, and the CPU was running at 1.6 GHz.
As you can see, we were unable to overclock the Foxconn board: even with a slight raise of FSB, the board wouldn't start up. However, if we fit a CPU of lower rated FSB, its overclocking is possible:
Note that the result for the Gigabyte's board is lower, and the rated frequency is lower as well. So, at overclocking the boards come perform almost on par.
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