Overclocking Comparison

Maximum overclock data was added to Performance graphs beginning with the nForce4 SLI roundup several months ago. The overclocking performance graphs should allow better comparison of the overclocking capabilities of tested boards. For more details on the specific overclocking abilities of a specific board, please refer to the Overclocking and Memory Stress Test section of individual board reviews.

Overclocking

The overclocking performance of the ULi M1695/M1567 Reference 2 was impressive to say the least - even more impressive than the excellent Reference 1 ULi board. 242 Clock Frequency at stock multiplier is one of the highest overclocks that we have ever seen with this reference processor.

400 at the lower 7x multiplier is truly amazing, and it is the highest value that we have reached in any testing. Keep in mind that this is not our standard base DDR400 overclocked, and is not directly comparable to past results. Therefore we did not include a performance graph with the 400 value with lower multipliers. We always test to see the highest value that we can reach on any board before settling back at the DDR400 overclock. The ULi is just amazing to reach 400 CPU Base Clock in our tests, which certainly indicates a robust voltage regulation with this chipset. We are very happy when we reach a 50% CPU Base Clock OC (300) at lower multipliers. Reaching 100% Base Clock Speed OC (400) is rare.

ULi's claim that a base clock speed of 400 was possible met a lot of skepticism here, but the board did exactly what ULi promised. To be fair, it is mostly just a bragging point and has little impact on performance until ULi also implements the companion vDimm adjustments and expanded vCore to make 400 a true performance booster, but it is still impressive.

SLI and Dual Video Disk Controller Performance
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  • Wesley Fink - Saturday, August 6, 2005 - link

    The 400 graph has been removed. After considering the questions here it is fair to say the ULi tests were not run under the same test conditions (due to no DDR Voltage controls and limited vCore adjustments) and should not be directly compared. The 242 remains since it was achieved with the same test conditions.
  • Wesley Fink - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link

    Yes, this is the only board using the FX57 in OC testing, but we will be testing with the FX57 in the future. Yes, that makes it an unfair comparison.

    It really was not possible to use our normal OC tests because the Reference board has no memory voltage adjustments at all. We stated this very clearly in the reviews. The option was to report very low results, or to make changes to the test to show how high the board could actually go in overclock (400 clock speed). We chose to show what the board could do on OC, but the results are not directly comparable to past results.
  • Lonyo - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link

    OCZ BOOSTER FFS!!!!
  • Aquila76 - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link

    So if you want to run SLI, you have to use that riser card, right? How exactly does that fit in a standard ATX case? The cards are 90 degrees from their normal position. I understand that this is a good board if you're going to use older AGP cards and want an upgrade path; but I would think they could make it a lot cheaper if they left SLI capability off as it seems rather pointless in this format.
  • kmmatney - Saturday, August 6, 2005 - link

    I thought the same thing, but yes, its just a prrof of concept - the retail board makers will implement it without the need for a riser card.
  • MarkB - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link

    I think it's more of a proof of concept for showing off the chipset's capabilities, instead of making a whole new reference board to house the 2 x8 pci-e slots.

    I doubt any retail board would use the riser approach.

  • Sunbird - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link

    Here is South Africa the ASRock 939A8X-m based in this ULi chipset has arrived at our local reseller last week.

    Its a mATX board and has SATA raid and all the other usual stuff. Near the bottom price range of the local market (aka cheap).
  • grug2k - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link

    The AsRock 939AX-M is NOT a ULi M1695 board. It's an old AGP-only board based on the ULi M1689 chipset.
  • lsman - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link

    Computex2005 show also has Jetway A695DAG, Chaintech S1695-2
  • WT - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link

    This board should be on the short list (hehe, so short there is only one name on it) of boards for the DIY builder looking to keep their current AGP card and move to PCI Express down the road. There are a lot of users that fit that description so this board makes sense in every way. The only downside will be whether the boards are actually produced by some quality vendors who are not stuck on the Nvidia bandwagon.

    My S754 setup is adequate for any game that I play, so I should be able to make another year on it. After that, S939 and a 3800+ x2 makes more sense, but after buying that, I won't have the $ left to splurge on a mid-high end PCI Express video card. My 6800 cost $295 when I bought it, so moving that to the S939 setup makes financial sense.

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