by Doors4ever
01/31/2008 | 05:55 PM
Only the person who has spent a few dozen years in spoor may not know anything about Intel processors. The chipsets they make for their own processors are not any less popular either. You may believe that Intel mainboards based on Intel chipsets designed for Intel processors should be a work of art. However, this is not quite true and although we have always paid a lot of attention to Intel CPUs and chipsets, we kind of left out their own mainboards for a while, despite their gigantic production volumes.
<%BANNER[article]%>There is nothing too tricky about it. The answer is very simple: Intel mainboards have nothing really interesting about themselves. They serve their purpose of proving stable system operation perfectly well, but that’s about it. BIOS has not advanced system configuring options, almost all settings are adjusted automatically depending on the processor and memory modules installed. In fact, we could put up with absent overclocking friendly features if these boards were priced low enough. However, this is not the case: Intel mainboards are often even more expensive than the similar solutions from other mainboard makers.
So, it is quite understandable why overclocking fans and computer enthusiasts are not very excited about Intel branded mainboards. In fact, it used to be quite understandable, but now the situation is changing. For example, we started to see very decent results of successful processor overclocking on Intel D975XBX mainboard also known as BadAxe, and then on its updated version called BadAxe 2. Despite our amazement it was an indisputable fact: Intel mainboards finally allowed impressive CPU overclocking experience!
Well, we cannot let the shroud of prejudice hide a really interesting product from us. So our today’s article will be devoted to a new flagship mainboard from Intel – Intel DX38BT featuring advanced overclocking friendly features and designed to satisfy overclockers’ needs.
As you may have understood from its name already, Intel DX38BT also known as BoneTrail is based on the latest Intel X38 Express chipset. The mainboard belongs to the Extreme series and came to replace its predecessors based on the morally outdated Intel 975X Express core logic.
Following our good tradition let’s take a closer look at this solution starting with the first thing you see: the package and accessories bundle.
Intel DX38BT is shipped in a modest black box with a sticker saying that there is a full version of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 game inside. The front side of the box states that it is designed for Intel Core 2 Extreme processors. The same is written on the sides of the box. Only on the back side of the box where they placed a mainboard photo and a list of its peculiarities we found our with great relief that Socket LGA775 supports not only Intel Core 2 Extreme processors but also Intel Core 2 Quad and Intel Core 2 Duo.
The warning message in several different languages on the back side of the box insists that the mainboard should be installed by a professional. Besides, there is also a list of bundled software and accessories inside the box.
Intel DX38BT mainboard comes with the following:
Besides, there are two plastic parts of unknown purpose.
The thing on the right turned out to be a decorative cover that sticks to the South Bridge chipset heatsink (just remove the protective film from its bottom and press it against the heatsink top).
The other one appeared to be a very useful thing actually. It is a retention bracket for the additional fan to be installed on top of the chipset North Bridge heatsink. The fan itself is not included, but you can use any 40mm fan for that purpose.
Besides that, Intel DX38BT mainboard comes with a bunch of marketing and informational materials. They include a leaflet with a reminder where you can download the latest drivers and BIOS Updates, a booklet describing all bundled software, a story about highest quality of Dolby Home Theatre audio solutions, the details about the infra-red and eSATA ports available on the board. However, we were mostly impressed with the tag like the ones you would put onto your hotel door knob. It is supposed to be hanging on your door warning unwanted and technically inexperienced visitors that you shouldn’t be disturbed for trifling reasons. Not really functional, not really reasonable, but pretty funny.
The mainboard PCB is made of black textolite and looks very strict. Black connectors and heatsinks are hardly noticeable against the black background that is why it is easier to study the PCB layout consulting the PCB layout scheme from time to time.
Let’s start with the top of the PCB, where the processor socket is usually located. There is a Parallel ATA connector in the upper right corner of the PCB provided by an onboard Marvel 88SE6121 controller that is also responsible for two eSATA ports laid out on the mainboard rear panel. Right beneath it there is a 24-pin power supply connector.
Five-phase processor voltage regulator circuitry just like the entire Intel DX38BT mainboard uses common capacitors as well as the new solid-state ones. The power comes to the 8-pin ATX12V connector, the MOSFET transistors are covered with wavy-shaped heatsinks, and at first glance this part of the PCB shouldn’t give us any causes for concern. However, note that capacitors are lining up too close to the processor socket, especially the three top ones. It is quite possible that CPU coolers with broad base may be hard to install, for example, solutions like Scythe Mine or Mugen (Infinity). During our test session we used Zalman CNPS9700 LED, because its base is not too big, however, we still had hard times fastening it to the board.
There are no electronic components on the reverse side of the PCB right beneath the processor Socket LGA775 that can hinder cooler backplate installation or close some of the contacts if the plate is made of metal. However, the pins of the closest capacitors are noticeably far beyond the imaginary line connecting cooler retention holes, these pins did give us hard times during cooler backplate installation. Zalman CNPS9700 LED backplate is made of plastic and we did manage to install it in the long run, but we have to admit that Intel DX38BT mainboard is actually compatible with a limited number of CPU cooling solutions.
There is an LED indicator right next to the 24-pin power connector. It lights up when the boards is powered, which is an important and useful feature. The documentation supplied with the board helped us locate two more diodes near the processor Socket.
LED indicator A signals if the processor voltage regulator got overheated, and the LED indicator B – lights up when the CPU itself gets overheated. CPU temperature is monitored with a built-in thermal diode, however we couldn’t find any mention of the thermal diodes next to MOSFET transistors. We wonder how they determined if overheating takes place? Besides, it could be much more convenient if these two LEDs were a little apart, because both of them are red and when the board is inside the system case you may have hard times figuring out which one is actually lit.
The chipset North Bridge is cooled with a large aluminum heatsink.
There is a plastic bracket attaches to the board and the heatsink sits on top of it. A special metal plate at the bottom of the PCB ensures sturdiness of this construction.
Intel X38 Express chipset consumes more power and certainly dissipates more heat than its predecessors that is why it would be better to install a fan on top of the heatsink even when the system runs in its nominal mode. It is not for nothing that Intel DX38BT mainboards comes with the special fan retention for that.
The expansion slots including two blue PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots, one black PCI Express 1.0a x16 slot working at PCI-E x4 and two PCI slots are located in the lower part of the mainboard PCB. The slots are very close to one another. There is a sufficient gap only between the blue PCI Express x16 slots, so that a graphics card with a massive cooling system installed into the first one doesn’t block other expansion slots.
The distance from the first PCI Express x16 slot and the North Bridge chipset heatsink may seem pretty small, however, it should be enough for most graphics card cooling systems. Even some VGA coolers like the ones from Arctic Cooling with standing out retention screws should fit in there easily. However, you will have to remove the graphics card in order to install or replace the memory modules, because it will not let you open the DIMM slot latches right next to it.
You can see numerous connectors along the lower edge of the mainboard PCB including four-pin fan connector, audio connectors (8-channel Sigmatel 9274D codec), additional VGA power connector, color-coded block of front panel connectors, internal USB connectors and IEEE1394a connector (Texas Instruments TSB43AB).
Intel DX38BT doesn’t really have a Clear CMOS jumper. There is a so-called config-jumper instead. In default position the mainboard uses current BIOS settings and password. If you reset the jumper the mainboard goes into configuration mode, boots with default settings and offers access to additional menu where you can reset the password, for instance. If you remove the jumper cap completely, the board will boot in BIOS restoring mode, which may be useful if BIOS reflashing failed.
There are no PS/2 connectors for keyboard and mouse on the mainboard back panel. They are missing not because there is not enough space for them: there is enough empty space between two eSATA and the first pair of USB ports.
Instead there are 8 USB ports on the rear panel. Besides, there is an IEEE1394 connector, network TJ45 connectors and a block of audio-jacks including an optical SPDIF.
By the way, speaking of present and missing connectors. You may have noticed that not only PS/2 connectors are missing on the Intel DX38BT mainboard, but there is also no FDD connector. Unlike Windows Vista, which is only one year old now, Windows XP came out six years ago and is still used widely. This operating system doesn’t recognize USB flash drives, it requires a floppy disk to upload the RAID driver when Windows XP is installed onto a RAID array or when SATA HDD is used in AHCI mode. So, some Intel DX38BT owners working in Windows XP may face some problems. Of course, this is not a crucial problem, as all you need to do is buy a USB FDD drive, but you would certainly prefer to save the time and trouble.
Moreover, it is pretty strange that although there is no FDD, IDE connectors are still there. Of course, it would be worse if they made it the other way around, but at least it would have been more logical, as Intel chipsets stopped supporting IDE starting with P965 Express. That is why they had to use an additional controller to get IDE support onto Intel DX38BT mainboard. Therefore, the following question arises: didn’t South Bridges lose Parallel ATA support too soon, considering that even the initiator of this innovation still uses additional onboard controllers on their mainboards? What was the reason for this decision: technical difficulty with keeping the necessary components in the South Bridge chip, aggressive lobbying from the IDE/SATA controller makers, or an obsession to push computer users somewhere towards technological progress despite the absence of real economical reasons for that? Well, this is a rhetorical question, I assume.
All in all, Intel DX38BT PCB layout is not a bad one, but not a good one either. “Satisfactory” would probably be the best word to describe it.
We would like to wind up our discussion of Intel DX38BT peculiarities with a summary table of its technical characteristics. The table once again shows that despite the confusing statement on the package the board does in fact support not only Intel Core 2 Extreme, but also Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo and Pentium Dual-Core processors.
However, I have to ask this last question: how will this mainboard help us enjoy new visual effects of the Microsoft Windows Aero interface? I have always thought that the mainboard doesn’t really matter and graphics card is the most important component in this case, but, I guess, I was wrong.
Soon after we started testing Intel DX38BT mainboard, a new BIOS version came out and we replaced the BIOS version 1016.1510 dating back to 10.16.07 with version 1217.1401 from 12.17.07. Although there was no built in BIOS reflashing utility and no floppy disk drive, the whole procedure was very simple. There are three different variants of the same BIOS version on the company web-site. You can reflash it using a CD disk, a USB-flash drive or directly from Windows. The last way was marked as preferable, so we decided to go with it. To perform the reflashing procedure you have to launch installation file, agree to the license agreement and then your system will reboot automatically, the BIOS will be reflashed, and next time you launch Windows OS you will receive a notification that BIOS has been successfully updated. As simple as that.
It is quite possible that Intel mainboard BIOS is developed by company’s own specialists or is based on AMI BIOS code. At least, the top menu where you can switch between Main, Advanced, Performance, Security, Power, Boot and Exit is very similar to that from AMI BIOS. The interface colors as well as the BIOS accessing are also the same.
When the system boot, you can press F2 to get into the Menu section.
Here you get all the info on the current BIOS version, CPU, system memory, can change the date and time.
Advanced section consists of several subsections. The first one is Boot Configuration.
This is pretty strange name for a subsection, where you can enable/disable keyboard Numlock and enable/disable fan rotation speed management. There are no detailed settings, everything is done on the software level, and Lowest Fan Speed parameter may be set to Slow or Off. In the first case if the temperature is low enough the fans will rotate slowly, and in the second case – they will shut down completely.
The contents of other subsections correspond to their actual names: Peripheral Configuration, Drive Configuration, etc. We, however, would like to draw your attention to Hardware Monitoring section.
This page looks pretty scarce; there are no settings over there. It serves solely informational purposes. The manufacturers would sometimes display some monitoring data in other sections for additional convenience. For example, the current processor Vcore, Vmem or Vchipset may be displayed in the section where these voltages are adjusted. It is not the case with Intel DX38BT mainboard, however, so Hardware Monitoring page contains the full list of parameters that can be adjusted in the BIOS. We could probably be pleased only with the fact that this board allows adjusting rotation speeds of four fans out of five that can be connected to it.
The next section is called Performance. It is actually the most interesting one from overclocking prospective. However, before you get to play with it you receive a heart-freezing warning about all the troubles you will be up to once you decide to get into the whole overclocking thing. They threaten you with loss of system stability, degradation, shortening of the hardware life span, physical damage, loss of data integrity and even performance drop! Well, I guess the guys who wrote this BIOS could probably be real good at writing thriller scripts.
However, if you are brave enough or unreasonable enough to veer away from the nominal work mode for the sake of rocky overclocking path, you will get access to very modest contents of the Performance section.
Processor Overrides subsection contain everything you might need to overclock your CPU.
You can select processor Vcore from the drop-down menu. The supported interval ranges from 1.2875V to 1.6V. The increment is pretty small and equals 0.0125V and the voltage may even be set below the nominal value if necessary. CPU Voltage Offset allows adding another 300mV, and Enhanced Power Slope should ensure more steady current flow for the CPU power supply. The mainboard also offers pretty extensive options for FSB and chipset voltage adjustment. Front Side Bus Voltage Override can vary from 1.1V to 1.5V with 0.025V increment, and MCH/ICH Voltage Override – from 1.25V to 1.7V with the same increment.
Intel DX38BT mainboard allows changing the processor clock frequency multiplier only for those CPUs that have an unlocked one. The FSB frequency can be adjusted in the interval from 133MHz to 500MHz with 1MHz increment. Processor Speed information string will report the resulting CPU frequency once you change the FSB speed. Current Processor Voltage reports the set processor Vcore (it will report the nominal value if you didn’t change it).
No way to change the processor clock frequency multiplier and 500MHz maximum FSB speed are not very serious drawbacks, and all other options of the Processor Override section are outstanding! Now let’s move on to the next section called Memory Override, where we can adjust memory frequency, timings and voltage. Just like in the previous case the set of available options is impressively rich. The entire bottom part of the page serves informational purposes and reports memory capacity, operational mode, nominal frequencies and timing settings. However, there is still one evident drawback we should point out.
Memory Frequency parameter can be set at 800, 1066, 1333 or 1600MHz. however these values are available only for the default FSB speed. However, as we have already mentioned above, Reference Frequency parameter allows setting the FSB frequency to 200, 266, 333 or 400MHz. In this case the memory-to-FSB ratio changes, too, and different dividers will be used. And taking into account that we are overclocking the system and increasing the FSB speed at the same time, the memory frequency will depend on three different parameters. There is nothing dramatic about it, any other mainboard works exactly the same way, but it would be nice to have an informational string reporting resulting memory frequency after all these changes have been made.
The absence of this information string that would report the resulting memory frequency makes overclocking very inconvenient. Other than that the options of the Memory Override section are more than sufficient. The board allows adjusting the memory frequency, major timings and voltage from 1.5V to 2.5V with a small increment of 0.04V.
As for the last subsection on the Performance page called Bus Override, there is only one parameter that could be of interest to us here. It allows adjusting the PCI Express bus frequency in the interval from 101MHz to 109MHz.
Other sections’ names speak for themselves. Security:
Power:
Boot:
BY the way, the Boot section also has a lot of features. There you can set the boot-up devices order, enable/disable boot-up from optical media, network, USB. Booting the system from a USB device, what could be simpler? Just enable or disable it and done! Nope, it is a little more complicated than that. USB Boot enables or disabled booting from a USB device; Boot USB Devices First allows booting from a USB device once one is available, no matter what the boot-up order is; USB Mass Storage Emulation Type sets the type of this device. You can set it to Auto, you can always use FDD or HDD emulation, you can set the type in accordance with the storage capacity. For example, USB-FDD will be set for all flash drives with up to 256MB storage capacity, and USB-HDD – for all devices with larger storage capacity.
The Exit section also has one very interesting feature, besides the standard “save”, “don’t save”, “load optimal settings”. Save Custom Defaults allows saving the current settings and Load Custom Defaults – loading them quickly afterwards. In other words, the board allows saving one complete BIOS settings profile. Just one, and without any description, though this is still better than nothing. There are not that many mainboards out there that boast features like that.
When we described the PCB layout of our Intel DX38BT mainboard, we mentioned a configuration jumper. If you reset it, then you can access the Maintenance page on the next boot-up.
Summing up everything we have just discussed about the Intel DX38BT BIOS, we can conclude that it looks very unusual and the logic behind its structure is not always evident. For example, why would we need two sections with similar names: Boot Configuration and Boot? Then why does the former contain fan rotation speed management options? There are a few individual drawbacks, such as the absence of the info string with the resulting memory frequency, which makes changing it very inconvenient; the low maximum for the FSB frequency of only 500MHz, which may not be enough for successful overclocking of slower Core 2 Duo processors using x7 multiplier; unknown current voltage setting for the CPU, memory and chipset… However, overall, the Intel DX38BT mainboard offers all the tools necessary for CPU and memory overclocking. Let’s see how this theory finds its way into practical experiments.
We performed out overclocking experiments in an open testbed built with the following components:
According to the package, Intel DX38BT mainboard is first of all designed for Intel Core 2 Extreme processors that is why we chose this particular CPU for our overclocking experiments: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (2.66GHz, 266MHz FSB, 8MB, Kentsfield rev.B3). This particular sample can overclock to 3.4GHz with Vcore increased to 1.44V, but if we use x10 clock frequency multiplier, we will be able to achieve this speed at 340MHz FSB already. This is actually a very simple task, even non-overclocker mainboards can do it. To make things a little more interesting, we dropped the processor clock frequency multiplier to x7. So, we reduced the clock multiplier, set the minimal memory frequency of 800MHz, increased processor Vcore, Vmem, Vchipset and FSB bus voltage, set the FSB at 450MHz. However, Intel DX38BT mainboard refused to boot in this case.
I have to say that Failsafe WatchDog function works perfectly well. After a few failed booting attempts, Intel DX38BT mainboard restarts on its own with safe BIOS settings, stops after POST and offers to access BIOS Setup to correct the parameters. In this case the BIOS settings to not get reset to their nominal values. This work mode is very convenient when searching for the most optimal parameter combinations during overclocking. Sometimes the board would start looping the failed boot-ups, but to resolve this issue we could simply reset the config-jumper to access the BIOS and make all necessary changes without losing the previously set parameter values. It is much more convenient that using a Clear CMOS jumper offered by many other mainboards out there.
It is interesting that if you access the BIOS after a failed boot-up and just confirm the settings without changing anything, Intel DX38BT mainboard will boot and load Windows normally. However, the FSB frequency will for some reason drop down to 322-325MHz. And after restart, the board will not be able to boot again. This phenomenon got my attention, so I lowered the FSB speed to 325MHz and started the OS normally. I was very surprised to see that the memory frequency equaled 650 (1300) MHz. Of course, the mainboard couldn’t boot with higher FSB frequencies because the memory speed was way too high. It was my honest mistake: I set the memory frequency to its minimum of 800MHz. However, the CPU with default 266MHz FSB uses an increasing divider, so memory would turn into a limiting factor preventing further overclocking because it simply cannot work at frequencies beyond 1600MHz. So, actually, the mainboard has nothing to do with it.
Now let’s leave the memory speed at 800MHz, but set the Reference Frequency parameter to 400MHz. In this case the FSB:Mem ratio should be 1:1. To check it out we restart at a guaranteed operational FSB frequency of 325MHz. The result is that the memory frequency equals 325 (650) MHz. Now it is working the right way. So, we change the FSB frequency to 450MHz and the board would boot again! Yes! Unfortunately, we were celebrating too soon: it turned out that the mainboard dropped the FSB speed down to 325MHz again.
I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to go into details regarding every failed overclocking attempt we undertook. We reflashed the BIOS with the newest 1217.1401 version, played with processor clock frequency multipliers, checked out different Memory Frequency and Reference Frequency combinations, but we could only get one of the following: failed boot-up and an offer to correct the BIOS settings or system boot-up at the mainboard’s favorite 322-325MHz FSB. Surprisingly, but Intel DX38BT mainboard could still load Windows Vista OS even with the processor’s nominal x10 clock frequency multiplier and relatively low 340MHz FSB frequency, although the errors popped up immediately when we launched Prime95 utility for stability run. We have recently criticized ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2 mainboard for the budget segment for its poor overclocking friendly features, although, it could easily clock the CPU to 340MHz FSB. However, our today’s overclocker solution - Intel DX38BT – cannot do even that.
Ok, if the board likes FSB frequencies in the interval from 322 to 325MHz, then be it. Let’s try to make its life as simple as possible. Our Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor can work at 325MHz FSB with its nominal x10 clock multiplier without increasing the core voltage above the nominal 1.35V. We have already seen many times that Intel DX38BT mainboard can boot at this speed without any problems. This time it also did and even passed the stability check with Prime95 utility. However to ensure acceptable performance we have to use increasing multipliers even for DDR2 SDRAM at this low FSB frequency, not to mention the DDR3 SDRAM, where only high frequencies can make up for high latencies. Unfortunately, all our attempts to get the memory to work at high frequencies failed.
In this case we assumed that Intel DX38BT mainboard cannot succeed at overclocking because we are using an engineering sample of Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor. So we decided to repeat our experiments with a regular Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz, 266MHz FSB, 2MB, Conroe-2M, rev.B2). This CPU can work stably at 490MHz FSB with the Vcore increased to 1.45V. However, all our attempts to get it to run at this speed on Intel DX38BT mainboard were vain.
Overclocking, like any other good occupation, should be fun. Unfortunately, it causes a lot of frustration when you try to do it on Intel DX38BT mainboard. After a number of failures you start perceiving the logo from the mainboard package and numerous marketing materials differently. Maybe it says something like that: Intel DX38BT mainboard will eat your brain and if you don’t give up overclocking you may end up dead :)
However, we still had a little chance to rehabilitate the board a little bit by trying to overclock a CPU from Windows using some of the available software tools. We are going to discuss this topic in the ongoing chapter of our article.
When we talked about the accessories bundled with Intel DX38BT mainboard we mentioned that it comes with a full version of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 game. However, there is quite a lot of cool stuff on the second DVD disk, too. Besides Adobe Acrobat Reader, Dolby Control Center, Windows DirectX 9 and a full set of drivers there are also the following programs and utilities:
You don’t see so many programs and utilities very often, we should definitely give Intel credit for their generosity. However we were primarily interested in the famous Intel Desktop Control Center utility offering overclocking options. It is listed among the bundled software, but is marked as Internet Download, i.e. in fact it is not there. It is no big deal, because it makes perfect sense to make sure you have the latest program version anyway, and not the one the manufacturer put into the mainboard box a while ago. So, we went to Intel’s official web-site, checked out the available software for Intel DX38BT mainboard, but found no Intel Desktop Control Center – only Intel Desktop Utilities. Could it be what we were looking for?
Intel Desktop Utilities is a set of utilities united under single interface that report the general system info and allow monitoring its major operational statistics. When you launch Intel Desktop Utilities you immediately see the general system info page.
You may get more details on the mainboard, processor, memory and hard drives if you wish.
The next page is called Hardware Monitor and as the name suggests it allows monitoring major system parameters such as voltages, temperatures, fan rotation speeds.
Besides, there is also more detailed info on the processor, power supply, mainboard, HDDs.
Options section offers to set safe intervals, so that you could receive a warning every time the maximum or minimum is surpassed. You can check the event log, change the temperature scale.
All in all, Intel Desktop Utilities is a common monitoring program with pretty standard features. It dates back to early 2007 that is why it recognizes DDR3 SDRAM as DDR2, although detects the frequency and timings correctly. And it certainly wasn’t the program we were looking for.
We finally found Intel Desktop Control Center using the traditional “Search” function on Intel’s official web-site. When you look at the screenshots thumbnails, you can hardly imagine how huge the actual window is going to be in reality.
The red indicator on the left reports the current CPU frequency and utilization. On the right-hand side you can see the same precise data on the bus frequencies and memory timings, although the voltages aren’t reported correctly, and there are simply no temperature readings.
By clicking the “+” button you can adjust the following parameters:
… the CPU:
… the memory:
… the PCI Express bus:
… the rotation speeds of system fans:
However, it is pretty hard to trust the program with adjustment of voltages if it cannot measure them correctly. And how could we change the fan rotation speed if the utility thinks it is 0rpm?
There are a few tabs on the right. One of them is called Monitoring. As you may have already guessed, it is absolutely useless.
The Tests tab offers to run performance and stability tests.
System tab displays general system info.
Preferences tab also offers nothing really useful.
Unfortunately, only part of Intel Desktop Control Center actually works and can hardly be an attractive feature for us. Reporting these issues to technical support will not help, which is mentioned on Intel’s official web-site because this utility is still in the beta status. Looks like Intel DX38BT mainboard we got for our tests this time is also still just a beta…
I would like to dwell separately on the quality of informational materials for this board that turned out surprisingly unsatisfactory. Intel DX38BT mainboard comes with no user’s manual booklet, the manufacturer suggests that you should use an electronic version on a DVD disk. From the environmental standpoint it definitely makes sense, but in this case we would expect them to be a little bit more consistent, however there is the whole bunch of absolutely useless marketing leaflets inside the box. We believe it is essential to always include a paper user’s manual with any mainboard, because if the user doesn’t have a second computer system available, then he will have to assemble and setup his system almost blindfolded.
So, let’s assume we can use the user’s manual from the DVD disk, however, there are still quite a few unclear things about it. If we download “Intel DX38BT mainboard technical specifications” from the company web-site it will be pretty much the same thing but with certain things explained in more detail despite smaller document size. However, this one also hardly has any description of the BIOS features and settings. It turns out that there is a glossary on Intel’s official web-site that contains all the BIOS terms with a brief description of each of them. Moreover, it is even available in two versions: with terms grouped according to the BIOS sections and in alphabetical order. However, this glossary works for a few dozens of Intel mainboards, i.e. there is a lot of extra info in it. At the same time, a few things specific for Intel DX38BT mainboard are missing from it, although they last updated it in December 2007.
The availability of numerous uncoordinated informational materials makes it hard to find what you need. Besides, different manuals sometimes use different terms for the same things and contradict one another. For example, the user’s manual mentions that Intel DX38BT will switch into Recovery mode for BIOS restoring if you remove the configuration jumper. However there isn’t a word about how the BIOS is actually being restored. If the BIOS gets corrupted it will be too late to look for answers. It turns out that before restoring the BIOS you need to create a restoration floppy disk. Very nice, considering that Intel DX38BT mainboard doesn’t support FDD. And only if we keep looking through these technical specs we will learn that the BIOS can also be restored using a CD-ROM or USB-flash drive, while USB-FDD, USB-HDD or just FDD will not do. But again there are no details and we are referred to another manual on the site.
Take another question, for instance: what temperatures does Intel DX38BT mainboard measure? The CPU temperature is pretty clear, but what do Internal Temp and Remote Temp stand for in the BIOS? Utilities mark them as Zone 1 and Zone 2, so where are these zones located? According to the technical specifications, Intel DX38BT mainboard measures not only the processor temperature, but also the chipset North and South Bridge temperatures. Great if this is really so. However, there is a note below saying that the minimal North Bridge temperature the thermal diode can register is 66ºC. The diode will always read 66ºC until the temperature exceeds this rate. As you could see from the BIOS screenshots in this article, none of the values there is even close to 66ºC. So the question remains open: what temperatures does Intel DX38BT actually measure?
Intel DX38BT mainboard features all the features necessary for CPU and memory overclocking. We did personally see screenshots proving successful overclocking results. However, this time I failed to even slightly overclock our system and I have no idea what happened to the board that it kept offering to correct the BIOS settings after a few failed attempts to boot with different frequencies. Even if you are lucky enough to get a mainboard sample that will overclock, there is one thing that doesn’t let us recommend this solution fro overclockers. The main problem is that Intel DX38BT mainboard doesn’t seem to be very user friendly.
I first tested Intel DX38BT mainboard last year and it was the first Intel X38 Express based mainboard that I worked with. Since then I have already checked out a few other Intel X38 Express based solutions from other manufacturers, one of them was Asus Maximus Extreme, and the difference between these two products is evident.
For example, it made absolutely no sense to set the memory to work at 1333MHz, not to mention 1600MHz, with a non-overclocked Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 processor. It turned out that the maximum memory frequency for a CPU with 266MHz nominal bus speed is only 1066MHz. Asus Maximus Extreme mainboard has the higher memory dividers removed. If you install a CPU with 333MHz bus (or overclock a CPU with lower nominal bus speed to 333MHz FSB), then you get the option to clock your memory as DDR1333. Intel DX38BT has these dividers from the very beginning, so I spent quite a bit of time trying to find a perfect combination of parameters that simply doesn’t exist at all.
Too low memory frequency may also hinder system boot-up, however, the lowest dividers cannot be removed: as the FSB frequency increases so does the memory frequency and these dividers may come in handy. Asus takes good care of their users, so there is a corresponding warning right in the BIOS Setup, Intel, in its turn, doesn’t even mention this potential problem anywhere.
If you are on good terms with overclocking techniques, then Asus Maximus Extreme will offer you extraordinary options for system fine tuning. But what if you are just starting on the overclocking path? – No problem! Thank you for purchasing Asus Maximus Extreme. You can use CPU Level Up and Memory Up options to boot the performance of your system. Just let the mainboard do the job. Once again thank you for being with Asus. Intel, however, has a different attitude: if you are a specialist - you will figure it out, if not – too bad for you then.
So, by looking at the screenshots I am ready to admit that Intel DX38BT does overclock processors. However, I haven’t figured out yet how it is supposed to be done. If you are curious, try to get an answer to that from Intel’s technical support or get yourself a board and play around with it for a while. As for me, I have seen a number of other real overclocker mainboards on Intel X38 Express that allow easy and efficient processor overclocking. Our ongoing articles are going to focus on a few of them, so stay tuned.