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Posted by
Toby
Crundwell on February 14, 2002
Company: FIC
Product: AN11
Stealth KT266A motherboard
Check
AN11
Stealth prices OR motherboard
prices list.
DDR is becoming something of an industry
buzzword, surrounded by hype. The technology serves to
deliver data on both sides of a cycle. Traditionally, to
transfer a piece of data (either 0 or 1) would take one
whole clock cycle, measured in Hertz (Hz). DDR allows data
to be transferred on the falling edge of the cycle, thereby
doubling the throughput. However the number of cycles (Hz)
remains the same. Contrary to popular belief, SDRAM is still
only available in 100 MHz 133 MHz or 150 MHz versions.
The new DDR versions of this memory are
not sold as PC200, PC266, PC300 or PC333, as one might
logically guess, but instead as PC1600, PC2100, PC2400 and
PC2700. This confusing number is the bandwidth, which can be
worked out by multiplying the effective frequency
(200/266/300/333) by the bits (64) and dividing the end
result by the number of bits per byte (8). All of which
leaves us wanting to call it PC200, PC266 or PC300.
The AN11 features three DDR DIMM slots
for PC1600, PC2100, PC2400 & PC2700. Whilst it is
totally feasible to run memory at 166Mhz, indeed the BIOS
supports an extra +33Mhz to drive it up to 200(400)Mhz,
there is no option to set the PCI divider to anything
greater than 1/4. This means PCI cards would have to run at
up to 58Mhz 116Mhz if you were to want to run your memory at
PC3700 speeds. At these settings, it is quite possible (even
probable) to do some damage. However, it can be done,
usually with the help of extreme cooling, like LN2 for
instance. The frequencies are not adjustable by megahertz
though, sometimes the jump between levels is as much as
5Mhz, with values from 133 to 166Mhz. Even the CPU core
voltage is not really adjustable to the same extent as on
competitive motherboards. Fortunately, the BIOS does have
some options relevant for overclockers, covering CPU
warning and CPU shutdown temperatures. Included is a utility
not dissimilar to Asus probe, "1st aid", included
on the driver CD.
The AN11 was made with Athlon XPs
broadly in mind. Based on the core known as Palomino, the
main benefits of the Athlon XP will be increased speeds and
reduced power consumption. Reduced power consumption means
reduced heat. Reduced heat means a greater opportunity to
overclock, and of course you can increase the voltage too.
Other than that the XP is just your normal T-Bird Athlon,
with the same 384k of on-die cache, and the same Socket A
form factor, and clocked at higher speeds than the
traditional T-Bird and is really only a stopgap until
processors based on Thoroughbred/Appaloosa cores come out.
It has to be noted that the numbers the processors are sold
at are PR, not clock cycles. I really couldn't care less
though as they are still really good performers, and above
1Ghz clock cycles becomes a much less accurate method of
judging speeds than benchmarks, of which PR is (although
possibly one that favours AMD).
Novus, a (very poor) pseudonym for Innovation
for users, is, according to FIC, a selection of
motherboard "features" to assist in the
installation of the motherboard and with system set-up. The
incorporation of novus features, FIC say, will see an
increase in the reliability and maintainability of the
mainboard, while decreasing inconvenient computer down-time.
In reality, novus is a cheap gimmick, and a buzzword for
what is largely already available. It includes:
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BIOS Guardian
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Logo Genie
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Hotkey
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Overclock partner
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Clockometer
BIOS guardian is what is commonly called
CPU right protection, an option in the BIOS which stops the
CPU being flashed when it is enabled. This safeguards mainly
against malicious virii which can sometimes try to erase
your BIOS (although personally I haven't come across any of
these). Logo Genie allows you to edit the BIOS flash image
file to include a custom image. Frankly, this, like the
Guardian, is far from new and is rather cheeky of FIC to
boast as a "feature", since the technique has been
around since the old DOS days when "IBM
compatible" was still on everyone's lips. Hotkey is
newer and much less useful. Basically instead of the chore
of pressing delete at startup and going to the menu you
want, you can perform a keystroke to get into whichever
sub-menu you need to access. I found this was no faster, and
I was even slower, although this is probably due to the fact
I am so used to just pressing delete. The situation when I
can see it being useful is if the computer crashes at post,
when CTRL-F will load all BIOS defaults, although the clear
CMOS jumper does the same thing. And I have yet to see a
computer crash at post. Finally, we have "Clockometer",
which is basically the FIC version of the infamous tweaking
utility, "Soft FSB", but also allows the
multiplier to be adjusted. I couldn't test this though, as
my CPU refuses to be unlocked. One thing I don't like about
the utility is how bulky it is. I'm also not a fan of being
treated like I was three years old again with
extraordinarily bright colours, although I guess Windows XP
users would be use to this. FIC have more details here.
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