Shootouts

AMD IGP Chipset and Motherboard Showdown

By Vincent Chang - 6 Dec 2008

BIOS Settings & Test Setup

BIOS Settings

Given that these mATX boards are not really designed to be overclocked, we have not tried to overclock them. There are of course some BIOS settings that could be interesting for those looking to optimize their setups. However, they are limited to more basic CPU ratio and frequency adjustments while the voltage and memory settings are relatively few. Adjusting memory timings for instance is not present. The more important ones found in these motherboards have been highlighted in the table below:-

BIOS Settings
O/C Settings Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 Zotac GeForce 8300 Zotac GeForce 8100
CPU Frequency 200 - 500 200 - 500 200 - 600 200 - 600
CPU Ratio Auto, x5 - x24.5 (0.5x steps) Auto, x5 - x24.5 (0.5x steps) Auto, x5 - x24.5 (0.5x steps) Auto, x5 - x24.5 (0.5x steps)
PCIe Frequency 100 - 200 100 - 200 100 - 200 100 - 200
HT Link Auto, 200 - 2600 (200MHz steps) Auto, 200 - 1000 (200MHz steps) N.A N.A
Memory Ratio/Multiplier DDR 400, DDR 533, DDR 667, DDR 800 DDR 400, DDR 533, DDR 667, DDR 800 DDR 400, DDR 533, DDR 667, DDR 800, DDR 1066 DDR 400, DDR 533, DDR 667, DDR 800, DDR 1066
Voltage Adjustment
  • CPU Voltage: 0.80 - 1.90V (0.025V - 0.05V steps)
  • Memory Voltage: Normal, +0.1, +0.2, +0.3V
  • NB Voltage: Normal, +0.1, +0.2, +0.3V
  • CPU Voltage: 0.80 - 1.90V (0.025V - 0.05V steps)
  • Memory Voltage: Normal, +0.1, +0.2, +0.3V
  • NPT Vid Control: 1.00 - 1.45V (0.025V steps)
  • Memory Voltage: 1.90 - 2.20V (0.10V steps)
  • Chipset Voltage: 1.20 - 1.35V (0.05V steps)
  • NPT Vid Control: 0.55 - 1.45V (0.025V steps)
  • Memory Voltage: 1.90 - 2.20V (0.10V steps)
  • Chipset Voltage: 1.20 - 1.25V (0.05V steps)

Test Setup

To ensure that our results were comparable, we used the same configuration below for all the benchmarks listed. Driver versions were also kept the same for similar chipsets though the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H had issues with the Catalyst 8.5 that we used during our Blu-ray testing e.g. black screen during Blu-ray playback. We updated to the latest Catalyst 8.11 and this problem went away.

  • AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 @ 2.5GHz, 2 x 1MB L2
  • 2 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR2-800 @ 5-5-16 CAS 5.0
  • Integrated GPU Memory size set to 256MB
  • NVIDIA nForce 18.11 and ForceWare 174.74 for Zotac 8300, 8100
  • AMD SB700 Driver version 8.475 and Catalyst 8.5
  • Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB SATA hard disk drive (one single NTFS partition)
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (and DirectX 9.0c)
  • LG GGW-H20L Super Multi Blue Blu-ray Disc Rewriter & HD DVD-ROM
  • CyberLink Power DVD 7.0 (updated to 7.3)

Benchmarks

  • BAPco SYSmark 2004
  • SPECviewperf 9.0
  • AquaMark3
  • 3DMark06 ver 110
  • Quake 4 (1.2)
  • Unreal Tournament 3 (1.1)
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