AMD 690 Chipset Update: More Power, More Performance
The BIOS and Overclocking
Most of the performance optimizations AMD has made to the 690 chipset's BIOS software lie under the surface. Some motherboards like the Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H, however, will get a fresh assortment of tools specifically designed for overclockers.
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We snapped off a few pictures of the GA-MA69GM-S2H motherboard's BIOS to give you all an idea as to how it was organized. As you can see, the main BIOS menu options look much like any other 690 chipset-based motherboard that uses an Award BIOS derivative, with options for enabling or disabling the on-board peripherals and tweaking settings related the IGP, among other things. What different about this board's BIOS are the overclocking tools visible in the last couple of shots.
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1.5GHz HT Frequency with an IGP
The GA-MA69GM-S2H gives users the ability to alter the CPU multiplier, memory speeds and timings, and HyperTransport and IGP frequencies. It does not, however, have any voltage options available. The lack of voltage options didn't hinder the board's ability to overclock though. As you can see in the screenshot above, we were able to increase the board's effective HT frequency to over 1.5GHz (5 x 310MHz), which is very good for an IGP-equipped platform.
