Megatrends HX83 - 66X3MHz P200MMX - MrBios 3.31 vs. HX83V1.6 vs. HX83V1.7

64M Micron EDO (2-32M Simms) Imagine 128-2 (4M VRAM) 2940UW Cheetah ST34501W(FAT32) OSR2

Note: The HX83V1.7 BIOS is a clear improvement over V1.6. The manual settings in V1.7 affect performance in ways predicted from earlier BIOS versions. V1.6 is unpredictable in Manual settings. It took me the better part of a day to tweak V1.6. When running at Intel specifications the system would not complete WinBench97 Business Graphics tests. There was a predictable freeze during the WordPro test. I was about to give up on V1.7, despite good measures in all other marks, and go back to MrBios. I refuse to benchmark a system that I know is unstable. On a lark, I enabled Turn Around Insertion (TAI). To my knowledge, this has little to do with anything. Regardless, with TAI enabled the system never locked again at either 3X66, 3X75, or 2.5X83. This was with wide open timing (x222/x222/6534 CAS 2, etc). Possibly this is a quirk with my configuration. Time will tell. All and all, I prefer MrBios 3.31. This BIOS is especially useful when testing various configuration of the system board. The summary statements in the BIOS setup give useful information not available in the AMI BIOS. However, HX83V1.7 might be a bit faster.

• Top bar: MrBIOS 3.31 Memory timing = 55nS - BIOS Settings, Disclosure
• Middle bar: AMI HX83V1.6 Memory timing = 60nS - BIOS Settings, Disclosure
• Bottom bar: AMI HX83V1.7 Memory timing = Manual - BIOS Settings, Disclosure