EVGA 790i SLI FTW Review

Closer Look:

The BIOS is where the base line settings for the operation of the board are set and adjusted. A good BIOS can crutch along a weak board with the opposite being equally true when that killer board has a really weak BIOS. The BIOS used on the EVGA is a Phoenix Award BIOS and is dated 7/30/08. The BIOS features many subcategories with the one most important to the enthusiast being the Frequency and Voltage control tab. No fancy name for it, just the basics of what can be adjusted under that subheading. I will look at each tab in turn so you can see just what is available.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standard CMOS Features:

The things that can be adjusted under this tab include the time and date as well as manually adjusting the hard drive parameters. You can tell the board wich errors to halt on, the most frequent would be the keyboard.

 

 

Advanced BIOS Features:

This section allows you to configure the order that the devices on the motherboard are chosen in the boot sequence (i.e. CD-ROM then HDD then removeable or any combination that works for your rig). If you llike to see what your hardware is doing when it boots up and POSTs you can disable the logo to watch the POST sequence.

 

 

Advanced Chipset Features:

This section is rather slim containing only two items, System BIOS cacheable and HPET (High Precision Event Timer) function.

 

 

Integrated Peripherals:

The Integrated Peripherals section allows you to enable or disable most of the onboard hardware. IDE channel configuration, USB motherboard and keyboard support, SATA and RAID configuration can be set up here.

 

 

 

Power Management Setup:

ACPI functionality can be enabled or disabled in this tab. Setting up the power-on functions can be set up here as well.

 

 

PnP/PCI Configurations:

Choosing the first type of video device to initialize can be accomplished here (choices are PCI or PCI-E). Resources Controlled By allows you to either manually choose the interrupt request or have the BIOS assign them automatically. PCI Latency Timer lets you manually configure how many clock cycles a PCI device may hold the bus.

 

 

PC Health Status

This section allows you to monitor the voltages, monitor and adjust fan speeds either manually or allow the BIOS to control them dynamically based on temperature. I prefer to manually control my fans for a cooler case.

 

These tabs allow you to set up the basic functions of the board. The Frequency and Voltage Control tab is where the enthusiast can get the most from this board.