System
- Motherboard: SOYO CK8 Dragon Plus
- CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0GHz
- Cooling: Cooler-Master JET-7
- Memory: 2X256MB Corsair DDR400 CAS Latency 2.0
- Hard Drives: Dual Seagate SATA150 120GB RAID 0 7200RPM
- Video: ATI RADEON 9700 Pro 128MB
- DVD: Aopen 16X
- Power Supply: SOYO Raptor 400W
Software
- SYSmark 2002
- PCmark 2004
- 3Dmark 2001SE
- 3Dmark 2003 (patched)
- Quake 3
- UT 2003
- SpecviewPerf 7.1.1
AWARD BIOS
GIGABYTE offers the DUAL-BIOS feature on their motherboards and this feature works as a redundant system BOOT option in case of BIOS error or failure. Let us say you go downright bonsai on your overclocking efforts and BIOS 1 has gone south, well then the system boots to BIOS 2 and lets you keep on going. Try to learn from your mistakes though as if you fry both the BIOS chips you are left with a post-less motherboard. The BIOS is easy to navigate and very straightforward with its feature functions offering the user control over the systems performance options. To get into the Advanced Chipset Features section of the BIOS you must first hit CNTR-F1 when you are in the main BIOS screen.
In the pictures below you can see the various control screens offered in the AWARD BIOS and what the do including the system protection options of the shutoff by CPU fan failure and system fan failure events. GIGABYTE also offers a LIVE update utility that allows updating your BIOS to the most current version automatically online, which can be a very cool thing that we give kudos for as it just makes things easier even for advanced users. Overclocking options do exist just not in the pure BIOS form they come in the form of GIGABYTE's Easy Tune4. I have never liked non hardware enabled overclocking and I am not going to start today and although it can get almost a 10% increase it is just not enough for the hardcore enthusiast to be of much real-world use.
