Something New: Asus Blitz Extreme And Super Talent DDR3-1600 CAS 7
In addition to being the only P35 motherboard that supports Crossfire configurations via two x8 pathways - rather than the odd 16x/4x combo on other boards - Asus made such strong claims of superior overclocking for its newest motherboard that it became the impetus for this article. To do a full motherboard review in an article that's focusing only on high-FSB CPU overclocking would be unfair to the other brands, yet because the focus is on overclocking, its BIOS settings became vital information.
| Asus Blitz Extreme BIOS Frequency and Voltage settings | |
|---|---|
| FSB Frequency | 200-800 MHz (1 MHz) |
| Clock Multiplier Adjustment | Yes |
| DRAM Frequency | 800/833/1000/1067/1111/1333 MHz Data Rate |
| PCIe Clock | 100 - 150 MHz (1 MHz) |
| CPU Vcore | 1.1000 - 1.9000 Volts (0.00625 Volts) |
| CPU FSB Voltage | 1.20 - 1.80 Volts (0.02 Volts) |
| Northbridge (MCH) | 1.25 - 2.03 Volts (0.02 Volts) |
| Southbridge (ICH) | 1.05 / 1.20 Volts |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.50 - 3.04 Volts (0.02 Volts) |
| CAS Latency Range | |
| tCAS: 5-10; tRCD: 3-10; tRP: 3-10; tRAS: 3-34; Command Rate 1T/2T |
One change compared to previous Asus "Republic Of Gamers" boards is that the top PCI Express x1 slot is able to support either the audio module or an expansion card. Previous riser cards used a strictly proprietary connection that was useless for any other purpose, but the new version returns the riser slot as a useful expansion slot when the audio module is removed.
Before we're accused of giving a disproportionate amount of attention to one product, let's consider what else is new!
DDR3 has risen to expected "mature" speeds far more quickly than most of us anticipated - Super Talent has made its 1600 MHz data rate modules available for a few weeks!
What's most impressive about Super Talent's fastest RAM isn't so much its incredible speed as its low latencies. These DDR3-1600 modules are available with CAS 7-7-7-18 rated timings, and have been setting DDR3 records all over the Web for both throughput and latency.
