Abit KV8-MAX3 (VIA K8T800) Motherboard Review
Overclocking and stability
At overclocking, Abit products have always been among the best. Moreover, satisfying the needs of the overclockers is among the priorities in developing hi-end boards. It's already a tradition to gather all the overclocking features in the "SoftMenu" section which is item No.1 in the BIOS menu.
Let's look into them one by one. First off, the Abit KV8-MAX3 allows adjusting the system bus speed within 200 to 300 MHz in 1 MHz increments.
To increase the stability of an overclocked processor, you can try raising the processor voltage. That has been done in a very tricky way: the increment is 0.001V, and the maximum possible increment is 0.35V (i.e. for the processor with the nominal Vcore=1.5V, the maximum voltage = 1.85V).
The next item deals with raising the memory voltage.
The adjustment range is within 2.5V to 3.2V in 0.05-0.1V increments.
Then, Abit KV8-MAX3 allows adjusting the voltage on the AGP speed and that on the HyperTransport bus.
The admissible Vagp values are: 1.5V, 1.55V, 1.6V and 1.65V. The voltage on the V-link can take on the values within 1.2V to 1.4V in 0.05V increments.
Lastly, in the "SoftMenu" section there is the item "Press F8 to OC on the Fly".
Selecting "Y", you invoke setting new processor and memory speeds without re-booting. This allows the user to assess the system stability during the overclocking.
Now, taking a look at the power converter. It uses a 4-phase power scheme, in which there are eight 2200 mkF and four 1200 mkF capacitors.
Now more details on the OTES technology. This is nothing else but a plastic tube with an installed fan which provides air circulation over the components of the power supply module. This allows increasing operational stability at both nominal and increased speeds.
Note that Abit engineers have reduced the cost of the OTES design as compared to that installed on IC7-MAX3. In particular, they gave up using aluminum radiators installed on MOSFETs.
OTES gives maximum effect in those computers in which the power supply area is either poorly ventilated or not ventilated at all. The latter option is possible with the installation a water-cooling system. Besides, when Prescott processors are used, the power supply module experiences increased load. In performing prolonged computations (e.g. encoding media files), OTES guarantees acceptable thermal mode in this area of the system BIOS.
During operation, the plastic airway is nicely highlighted with three red LEDs.
Now on to the practical overclocking.
We were able to overclock this processor to 2200 MHz, like all the other Socket754 boards (except Shuttle AN50R in which the processor was overclocked to merely 2150 MHz).
When it comes to stability, there is one vague point. By default, the board sets the voltage on the HyperTransport bus (hereinafter Vht) equal to 1.2V. At the same time, the system was running quite unstable in the synchronous mode (i.e. with the DDR400 memory). But once we set Vht=1.3V all the problems vanished, and the system was running exceptionally stably.
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