OVERCLOCKING:

Speaking of EasyTune III, lets explore the overclockability of this funky blue PCB motherboard with apparently everything you could ever need already integrated. Overclocking of the socket 370 CPU is accomplished not from the BIOS, as is the case with many motherboards, but instead from Windows, and EasyTune III.

Simple overclocking for the newbie, restrictive overclocking for the experienced user highlight our opinion of Easy TuneIII. While the automatic overclocking is a neat feature to use, it takes no heed of active cooling which may enable higher values. A minor 88Mhz highlight Easy Tune's attempt at overclocking our 700E.

The advanced mode of EasyTune gives you better control over FSB settings but absolutly no influence over Vcore. The display is a nice feature, and with a good copper heatsink (Frosty CopperPins) we were able to achieve a stable 840Mhz, by no means near the limits of what our 700E should be able to do.

My personal preference is tweaking through the BIOS, for several reasons. One you get control over the voltage going to the CPU, and two, there are generally more options as far as FSB speeds go.... for instance the Abit BF6 has FSB speeds in increments of 1 all the way up to 200 FSB.

EasyTune III has two main settings, one for automatically overclocking, and the other allows more control over the individual settings. The "Auto Optimize" button does a system analysis, checks possible settings and then overclocks. In our case this equates to a PIII Cumine 700E being pumped up a lowly 88Mhz, to sit at 788Mhz. The progie lets you select the default setting with one click, which is what we did before heading on over to the advanced options.

In the advanced mode you gain direct control over the Front Side Bus in increments of 100, 103, 112.5, 115, 120, 125, 128 and 130FSB. This is quite restrictive I find. I prefer having the ability to go all the way up to 150FSB at the very least. The program displays the system bus, PCI clock, and DRAM MHZ as well as the final overclocked speed up above.

There are no options to change Vcore, but there is a jumper on the board which will increase "CPU voltage" 10%. GigaByte calls this little jumper "Magic Booster." Finally, for different users, settings can be saved and loaded up to suite personal overclocking tastes.

I find this way of overclocking a bit strange, but for first time overclockers this is going to give them the tools to do what they may have never done before.