The BIOS:
The AMI BIOS on the ECS GF9300T-A Black Series motherboard has plenty of features you have probably seen on numerous boards over the years. In this section we'll just take a look at a few screenshots that may (or may not) be of interest.
The below left image shows the main page of the BIOS, which should look familiar enough. The only option that may be unfamiliar to you is for ECS' exclusive M.I.B. (Motherboard Intelligent BIOS) page. Selecting the M.I.B. option leads you to the page shown in the below right image. As shown, the system is in "standard" mode where all settings are in their stock state as dictated by the processor and memory. The processor and memory speed, memory and northbridge voltages, and a variety of other information is provided.
 
Switching from "standard" mode to "enhanced" mode is where things get interesting (as seen in the below left image). The processor now has its frontside bus and multiplier unlocked for overclocking, and by selecting "unlinked" the memory can now be overclocked independently of the frontside bus. The below right image shows a potential limiting factor in this overclocking adventure... The memory voltage defaults to the odd value of 1.88V, and your only options are to add 100mV, 200mV, or 300mV. Therefore, the highest you can go is 2.18V, which is well short of the 2.30V the installed 1142MHz Aeneon XTune kit requires to run at full speed.
 
Another issue I observed is when trying to set the system clock mode using an option that sets frequencies by a ratio of the FSB to memory speed. I think they got things backwards, and I don't see most of the settings being usable. 1:1 works just fine at certain FSBs, so if you set the FSB to 800MHz, the memory is set to 800MHz. But say you try 5:4 or 3:2, it is the memory that gets the higher number, and not the CPU. With a fast processor and any good DDR2 memory this won't work at all. Say you use a 1333MHz FSB CPU, the memory would be set to 1666MHz in 5:4 mode, and it would be set to 2000MHz in 3:2 mode. Good luck getting DDR2 running that fast. The ratio should be reversed so that with a 1333MHz FSB CPU, the memory would run at 1066MHz in 5:4 mode, and at 888MHz in 3:2 mode.
Moving away from the interesting M.I.B. screen, the below left image shows the Advanced Setup screen. Here you can configure typical things like boot device order and a few CPU related controls. The below right image shows the Advanced Chipset Setup screen where settings related to the integrated video are found. You can enable Hybrid SLI, and configure how the system memory is shared with the graphics. While you may be used to tiny amounts of memory being dedicated to the frame buffer, on this board you can select amounts like you would find on a modern stand alone card; 32MB, 64MB, 128MB 256MB, and 512MB.
 
The below left image shows the Integrated Peripherals screen, which is where drive settings are configured, and onboard features like audio and serial ports can be enabled/disabled. On the PC Health Status screen, shown in the below right image, you can monitor temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds, as well as setting up the automatic fan speed controls.
 
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