abit AN52 vs. MSI K9A2 Platinum
Author:
Date: 31.01.2008 |
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BIOS
The BIOS of abit AN52 is based on the Award BIOS Phoenix version, with the BIOS of MSI K9A2 Platinum based on the AMI BIOS version.
The section in charge of memory operation settings in the abit board looks like this:
The MSI board offers no less abundant albeit pretty inconvenient set:
The next important parameter that affects the performance is setting the memory operating frequency.
Now look at the system monitoring sections. In abit AN52, all is implemented at a rather high quality:
The board displays the current temperature values for the CPU, system, power converter, as well as voltage levels, rotational speeds of the four fans, and offers a feature for adjusting the rotational speed of the CPU cooler depending on the CPU temperature (the FanEQ feature), as well as the cooler connected to the SYS_FAN.
Besides, it's also possible to keep track of the system monitoring readings from within Windows, using the abit EQ utility (with a very plain and inconvenient interface):
Using the abit FlashMenu utility, you can update the BIOS firmware:
As regards the system monitoring of the MSI product, MSI K9A2 Platinum keeps track of the current temperature values of the CPU and the system, voltage levels, rotational speeds of the three fans, and offers a feature to adjust the rotation of the CPU cooler depending on the CPU temperature (the Smart Fan utility), as well as the cooler connected to the SYSFAN1.
Besides, the board is able storing and loading the BIOS settings as profiles (two profiles altogether are supported).
To update the BIOS firmware, the MSI board offers the MSI LiveUpdate utility. It is fully aimed at using the Internet connection through which you can also update the drivers and utilities. However, if you have no Internet connection, you would have to find the update utility on the disk and load the new firmware into it. Anyway, we did not like MSI's approach to that.
Another utility, Dual CoreCenter, is aimed at the system monitoring, control over the rotational speed of the fans, and dynamic overclocking.
Overclocking and stability
Before we move on to Overclocking, let's look at the power converters. The PWM of the abit AN52 board uses a 3-phase power scheme, in which there are six 1500 mkF, three 1200 mkF, and two 1000 mkF capacitors. The PWM of the MSI board uses a 5-phase power scheme, in which there are ten 820 mkF and six 470 mkF capacitors.
Now on to the overclocking features. On the abit board, all the overclocking tools are gathered in the "SoftMenu" section:
on the MSI board - in the "Cell Menu" section:
| Board |
abit AN52 |
MSI K9A2 Platinum |
| Multiplier adjustment |
+ |
+ |
| HTT adjustable |
within 200 to 400 MHz (1) |
within 200 to 600 MHz (1) |
| Vcore adjustment |
within 1.35 to 2.0 V (0.025 V) |
within 1.376 to 1.656 V (0.04 V) |
| Vmem adjustment |
within 1.8V to 2.6V (0.05 - 0.1V) |
within 1.8V to 3.1V (0.05 - 0.2V) |
| Vdd adjustment |
within 1.2V to 1.6V (0.05-0.1V) |
within 1.125 to 1.525 V (0.025 V) |
| Vsb adjustment |
- |
- |
| Vht adjustable |
within 1.2 to 1.4 V (0.05 V) |
within 1.175 to 1.525 V (0.025 V) |
| PCI-E adjustment |
within 100 MHz to 150 MHz (1) |
- |
We note the following traits of the motherboards at overclocking. First, abit AN52 wouldn't overclock at all; the maximum possible HTT speed = 216 MHz. We must admit that we received this board late last year with the BIOS version 10, but for the two months that followed the BIOS "grew up" to version 15, but still there aren't any improvements in the overclocking part. Therefore, we can conclude that either the chipset NVIDIA nForce 520 is absolutely not suitable for overclocking, or the engineers at abit have not yet learned how to "cook" it :-)
As regards the MSI board, we note the feature for dynamic overclocking - D.O.T., which allows raising the HTT speed by 52%, stepwise.
Now let's look at the practical results of overclocking. The maximum stable FSB speed in the MSI board is 360 MHz.
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