Quick Boost Gigabyte Download
Sharmaine Kachmar
Quick Boost mode is a new feature that GIGABYTE introduced along with Ultra Durable 3 on their motherboards. It is a simple way for novice users to quickly overclock their systems without entering the BIOS. Once you click on one of the three boost levels, the utility will automatically optimize system settings according to your specific hardware combination. The program is based on algorithms of hardware that has been pre-tested by GIGABYTE engineers.
The combination that did not work properly happened to be with our standard test setup today. On the first setting, we wanted to take our 2.83GHz Q9550 to 3.2GHz. Sounds simple right? We hit the first boost level, rebooted, and Vista loaded without a problem. We checked our settings and sure enough, the system was operating at 3.2GHz with an 8x CPU multiplier, 400FSB, memory set to DDR2-1066 at 5-5-5-15. Voltages were all set to stock except VDimm was increased to 1.9V per the SPD. We started our first benchmarks and the system crashed. It crashed repeatedly as a matter of fact. The problem is that Quick Boost set the FSB strap (MCH Latch) from 333 to 200 in order to run the memory at 1066. However, it did not raise the MCH voltages to compensate for the additional load on the memory controller.
One of the most highly touted features from GIGABYTE is their Dynamic Energy Saver (DES) advanced power management solution. GIGABYTE provides a Windows-based software application to control DES. After installing the software (we highly suggest downloading the latest version) and a quick reboot, the application is ready for use. The control panel is powered down by default and it is up to the user to turn it on with a simple click of the DES button.
Computer worked fine until last night. Finished installing all my software yesterday (mostly games, but also some productivity software, stuff for statistical computing, as well as various pieces utility software, including Gigabyte's). Updated the BIOS to the F5 version, that went fine also. All was well with everything in stock configurations. I had downloaded CPU-Z and GPU-Z just to quickly look at hardware info to make sure everything was recognized correctly, and at this point every DIMMs info was correct in CPU-Z -- all the SPD info was 100% accurate -- along with all the other hardware's manufacturer data.
Specifically, I used it with the 'auto OC' option on the CPU, which adds 200Mhz to the all core boost from the baseline of 3.7ghz - nothing particularly noteworthy there - and I then used the auto OC feature for the RAM to turn on XMP. That was it, nothing else. It wound up actually being more like XMP-lite, because it didn't increase the RAM to 4000MT/s , I kept it synced with the FCLK and didn't raise that above 1800, so the XMP profile went to 3600MT/s - still well short of what the XMP spec for these kits is rated to.
Leichtman said Comcast is upping the basic speed for free to reinforce the perception that cable Internet is much faster than broadband services offered by phone companies such as Qwest, which have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to boost their speeds.
The 375 GB Optane DC P4800X Series SSD launched March 19 is shipping to select customers, with broad availability expected in the second half of the year. Intel claims the new Optane SSD will boost throughput, lower latency, enhance quality of service and improve endurance to as much as 30 drive writes per day over its NAND flash-based DC P3700 SSD.
Jim Handy, general director and semiconductor analyst at Objective Analysis in Los Gatos, Calif., said the 3D XPoint-based DIMMs could perform close to 1,000 times faster than NAND flash if the vendor's chip performance claims hold true. Until then, the Optane SSD's performance boost of five to eight times might appeal to enterprises with "cost-be-damned applications," such as high-frequency trading, he said.
Intel said the Optane P4800X add-in card lists at $1,520 at a capacity point of 375 GB, or $4.05 per gigabyte. Additional capacity points and form factors are expected to start rolling out in the second quarter. The list price for the 400 GB model of the flash-based NVMe PCIe P3700 SSD is $879, or about $2.20 per gigabyte.
Jeff Janukowicz, a research vice president in SSD and enabling technologies at IDC, said the price range for high-end NVMe PCIe SSDs is 80 cents to $1 per gigabyte out of the factory. But he said the NVMe PCIe SSD prices would likely be higher for end users purchasing them.
df19127ead