BIOS (continued):
In the below left screen we have finally reached the bottom of the Ai Tweaker tab, but there are still a few areas worth taking a closer look at. In this area you will find the voltage settings for the usual components (CPU, DRAM), as well as others that may not be so familiar (northbridge, southbridge). The below right screen highlights the CPU voltage value, and by looking to the right hand side of the image you can see the range and increments possible within the range. You can go from 0.85V all the way up to 2.30V in increments of just 0.00625V. That is quite a range, and fine enough tuning that you should not have a probably dialing in the most efficient setting for any overclock (or underclock).
 
The below left screen takes a look at the DRAM voltage setting in order to show its range and incremental value. You can use tiny 0.02V steps to take your DDR3 from the JEDEC specified value of 1.50V, all the way up to 2.78V. Again, you are provided with extremely fine tuning, as many times 0.1V increments get the job done. As you can see, the BIOS is set to 1.92V. The default voltage of the memory installed is 1.9V, but it had been overclocked by about 100MHz. On a more typical board I would have been forced to use 2.0V, since 1.9V proved to be unstable, but as it turned out I really only needed to add an extra 0.02V.
 
Advanced CPU settings are available in the below right screen, but I use them mostly to confirm settings from the AI Tweaker page. The screen below shows the Onboard Device Configuration tab, where you can control the two Gigabit LAN connections, HD audio, Firewire, Marvell drive controller, and the serial port.
The below left screen shows the Hardware Monitor features. You get a quick look at the CPU and motherboard temperature, five fan speeds, four key voltage readings, and you can also take advantage of the ASUS Q-Fan Control. Q-Fan Control allows for BIOS level management of fan speeds, and more detail is shown in the below right image. CPU Performance mode has been my favorite over the last few ASUS boards I have owned, as the fan is near silent unless it really needs to ramp up. The chassis fans are set to run at 80%, also quite quiet, and supposedly only ramp up if the target temperature is exceeded (it hasn't happened yet).
 
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