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The A7V8X features the same Award Medallion BIOS that all ASUS boards have shown in the past two years and has no surprises. The biggest deviation from earlier BIOS versions is the menu of AGP mode selections ranging from X1 to X8 with all intermediate settings. As usual, the board allows the adjustment of the CPU Vre, additionally, the memory (default, 2.5 - 2.85V) and AGP (1.5-1.8V) voltages can be adjusted.

Official Support for 333 MHz FSB

With recent boards, we have seen auto settings for the CPU clock frequency using either the 100 or 133 MHz FSB. The ASUS A7V8X is the first board to officially show a setting for the 333 MHz FSB-based CPU frequency as one of the predefined settings. We interpret this as a statement of confidence in AMD moving on to the higher FSB interface in the near future. This move would allow to run PC2700 synchronous with the FSB, that is, without fifos and sychronizers and, therefore achieve the optimal performance without compromising PCI devices.
Consequently, there is no support for DDR400 when the 333 MHz FSB is selected.

DRAM Latency Settings: A Function Of The Memory Bus Frequency

We will have more on this later but here is the short on some memory latency settings, that is, the Active-To-Command (RAS-to-CAS Delay; tRCD) and the Precharge-To-Active (tRP) latencies options change depending on the memory frequency, that is, in PC 2700 mode, 2 and 3T are available, in PC 3200 mode, 2 and 4T are available only. Please keep in mind that, against the common grain of some memory resellers, current DRAM chips only feature pipeline stages to allow CAS-2 and 2.5 and therefore, only those latencies can be supported irrespective of the memory frequency.

IRQ12: PS/2 Mouse Function Control, A Blast From The Past

In legacy system configurations, IRQ 12 is always hard-allocated to the PS/2 mouse. In the past, use of a serial mouse instead of the PS/2 counterpart often caused problems with this IRQ since it walked and literally screwed up other IRQ settings. Most common problems were the inability to install sound cards caused by resource overlap. With USB mouses becoming more common, the same problem re-surfaces only from a different angle. The solution in this case is a new setting called PS/2 Mouse Function Control that, when enabled, blocks IRQ 12.

An old acquaintance is the PCI latency setting that, by default is still set to 32, as usual we recommend increasing this value to a minimum of 64 for better HDD performance and overall system stability.

Test Configuration

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