DFI ICFX3200-T2R/G: Overclocking and Tweaking Guide

[Tony]

If you want to reproduce part or all of my guides, please all I ask is you give credit to the original author and the site it was taken from with a direct link back....TTR needs the traffic just as much as you do.



Its been a long time in the works but finally we have an enthusiast level board featuring the AMD RD600/SB600 chipsets.


DFI are known to make tweaker friendly boards and this is no exception, in fact this will overwhelm many as the options are very extensive.

At time of writing I know 50% of the options and what they do, I will add to this article to explain more so please check back often to gather more info. For now I will show the best way to over clock the board and how to push to 500fsb.

Genie Bios

As always with DFI SBios files this is where all the over clocking options are found. The main Genie bios page has the following options under the sub headers for Performance and Northbridge ASIC CFG

CPU Vid Control we all know this controls the VID state on the CPU, max available is 1.6V

CPU VID Special ADD This controls a fixed percentage of voltage added to the VID you have chosen. The max voltage would be 1.6+121.25%= 1.9+Vcore for the CPU

DDR2 Ram 1.8 Voltage Options are 1.5 to 3V in tiny Steps, the board can do more but for the sake of killing memory using extreme voltages this is limited to 3V. Safe working is around 2.5V max....please keep this in mind.

CPU VTT 1.2V Increasing this voltage can help FSB overclocking, max is 1.59V

NB Core 1.2V 1.3 to 2.18V, this option has a profound effect on overclocking, increased voltage is needed for 500fsb, 2V is VERY high though so make sure you have very good cooling if you are pushing the voltage high. Around 1.5V will get you 450fsb.

NB PLL 1.8V 2v and up for serious overclocking is needed, around 2V will get you 450fsb.

NB PLL 1.2V 1.21 to 1.46V, again higher voltage helps at higher FSB speeds.1.38 is my sweet spot.

NB PCIE 1.2V 1.22 to 1.6V, 1.34 is my sweet spot

NB core 1.2V convert from This controls the voltage the 1.2V NB core voltage is stepped down from. As you rais the NB1.2V you should raise the Convert from voltage for max efficiency. 2.14V is my sweet spot

SB core voltage 1.23 to 1.59. 1.34 does well under high clocks for me

Clockgen voltages 2.92 to 3.4V, higher for high FSB's

GTL REF Voltage control Oskar has done a good job of finding what works here but if you must tweak set to enable.

CPU Core 1/2 GTL REF Volt From Oskar "change the cpu bus GTL reference point" which is the CPU bus reference voltage. This option is directly linked to FSB drive which I will talk about later. It is advised for 1/2 and 3/4 you set from 0 and work upto 48 in 3 or 5 point steps. 48 though works very well.

North Bridge GTL REF Volt 128 is default, try decreasing or increasing in 1 point steps to a max of 5 either way. Remember 128 has been tested and proven to work well though.

More Info regarding GTL voltage tweaking here

CPU PLL overide, default is enabled and best left alone.

Conroe P state Multiplier Here you can set the multipliers the CPU can work with.

[Tony]

First option is:

NorthBridge Selections

There are only 4 options on this whole page you need to be aware of.

Burst length 4 or 8, 8 is more efficient.

Bank0 Map NB thru Bank2 Map NB These options are the most efficient values as advised by ATI(AMD) At this time I have no idea on effect so tweak with caution.

Please leave all other options on this page on defaults

[Tony]

2nd Option is:

Memory Timing Menu

CS Output Timing Auto and delay 1/4 clock. Set delay 1/4 clock especially with 1T overclocking.

Dual channel Split mode Auto and disabled, leave on Auto

ADDR/CMD Driving Pre-AMP Enabled or disbaled. Disable especially for 1T overclocking.

ADDR/CMD Driving strength 0 to 15, 0 being weak and 15 strong. For high 1T clocks 14 or 15 is best.

Address/Command Timing. 1T 2T 3T. All work but 3T may have some issues just yet. 1T is really where the performance is best but 2T allows for high DRAM bus speeds.

memory Timing Select manual for tweakers, Auto = SPD and Oskar's presets.

If you set manual...from here on in it all depends on what DRAM you are using.

CAS 2 to 7 CAS2/7 are not officially supported, test at your own risk.

Read TRCD 0 to 15 2 and above are usable,

Write TRCD 0 to 15 2 and above are usable, try setting 1 notch lower than read for high performance.

TRP 0 to 15, from 2 and up are usable.

TRAS 0 to 255 keep 25 the max you use, around 6 to 18 is best

TRC 0 to 255 can be set real low on this chipset when trying tight timings and low dram speed. I have tested 4 thru 28 with lower having a huge effect on bandwidth at the cost of stability.

TRFC 0 to 255 test up from 14 to 50 dependant on TRC. 42 seems nice for high dram bus speeds.

TRRD 0 to 15 1 thru 5 with 5 for high clocks

TWR 0 to 15 3 to 6 is the best, 3 gives a huge gain in bandwidth but at the cost of stability

Read- Write 0 to 15 2 thru 6 are best, 6 for high clocks

Write -Write 0 to 15 2 thru 4 are best, 4 for high clocks

Write-read 0 to15 3 to 5 with 5 for high clocks

Write Read-CS 0 to 15 2 and 3 seem best, loser for high clocks

Read-Read CS 0 to 15 2 and 3 seem best, loser for high clocks

Read data transfer 0 to 15 3 and 4 for tight timings low clocks and 4 thru 7 for lose timings high clocks.

Leave the remaining options at bios defaults

[Tony]

3rd option is:

FSB IO Strength

Defaults here are 10h, Oskar advises +-3 either way of his defaults with 4X N and PMOS being the most important. You can also try NMOS tweaks independent to PMOS, just remember to not stray to far.

[Tony]

Performance Options

Memory clock Frequency Auto, Sync, 133, 166, 200, 266, 333, 400, 533. keeping this simple if you set sync you will run 1:1 with the CPU FSB, if you set anything else you will be fixed at that speed, IE 533 with give 1066DDR, 400 with give 800DDR etc. Please note to run Async you have to set either the value higher or lower than the ram speed you wish to run, IE if you want to run 433 on the ram set the 533 mode and use the memory overclocking option to set the frequency down to 433 manually***.

Control CPU Frequency Set manual for CPU FSB overclocking.

NB FSB Strapping This looks to be the reset points for the NB PLL, I suggest you set 300 or 333 if you are looking to run 300+fsb on the CPU.

PCIE Overclocking Set what the video cards can handle, 100 is default and the standard frequency.

Software reset clockgen enable so the board recovers better from a bad overclock.

Memory Overclocking***enabled opens up the memory frequency to 658. Options jump in 3 MHZ steps although using the AMD system tool in windows you may set 1MHZ steps.
Leave this option disabled for use of sync mode

[Tony]

The ICFX has the ability to increase and decrease GTL voltages for both dual and quad core CPU's straight from bios. The effect tweaking these voltages has can be quite profound as seen by Kris's article showing a quad core CPU at 460fsb. Increasing values within bios does actually increase voltages, here I will try and give some guidance as to what does what so you know how and what to tweak and when certain voltages need to be tweaked in preference to others.

Kris has already shown how GTL reference tweaks have a profound effect on overclocking most motherboards do actually have to be hard modified at this time to adjust the GTL voltages but DFI have given us the ability in the ICFX to do this straight from bios.

Now the burning question is what do the values 0 to XXX actually do? There is no way to see the voltages adjusting thru bios readout, so we have to rely on DFI to give us some answers.

Looking here for the original information we see the actual settings give minute changes in voltages. For the sake of clarity I have reproduced DFI Wiki page here to integrate into the guide.



To start with you have to Enable GTLRef to have the setting take some effect, Oskar has preprogrammed good auto settings but they can be improved on as each processor does respond in different ways to voltage tweaks.

In my original guide Oskar had informed me to tweak up from 0 to 48 for the CPU GTL voltages, we have now found this is not the best option. Thru the work of many end users using dual and quad core CPU's we have found increasing over 48 is best to increase the FSB the cpu will run on. Also please rememer DFI have locked core 0+1 and 2+3 together for adjustment, they did this as this is how they are latched onto the FSB. Here are some points to remember.

1 If using a quad core you should only need to increase GTL for core 2+3, signalling to 0+1 is usually OK at auto unless you are seeing a huge FSB hole.

2 Increase GTL values BEFORE CPU VTT, this is VERY important, only increase VTT if GTL has zero effect or makes things worse.

3 Increase GTL voltages in preference to NB Vcore voltage. While an increase in NB core voltage does have a huge effect on FSB overclocking you do need to keep the NB core voltage as low as you can to ensure the NB has a long life.

Now the final question....What is the optimal settings for the highest FSB?

The answer is every CPU is different, some have found setting between 70 and 80 best on the CPU, some have even run 120+ so it all depends on what the CPU cores need to open up the FSB. be prepared for a lot of tweaking and testing...but as Kris has shown it is possible to gain quite a few MHz if you are willing to put in some time testing.