Overclocking Results:

stock max. oc motherboard speed: 200 mhz 265 mhz igp video speed: 500 mhz 775 mhz if you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers: Overclocking the CPU and Memory Overclocking the Videocard

Unlike most integrated motherboards PCSTATS has reviewed, ATI has enabled IGP overclocking with the AMD 785G chipset. The default clock is 500MHz, so it will be interesting to see what impact a 200-250MHz overclock will have on IGP performance.... anyway's let's begin.

As always, overclocking starts off by dropping the multiplier on the AMD Phenom II x4 955 Black Edition down to 8x, and disabling features like Cool'n'quiet, CPU C1E power states. A set of DDR2-1600MHz memory modules from Corsair was locked into the ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO and set to run in DDR3-800 mode so it won't hold the CPU back - in this first test we're trying to find the highest support bus speed.

The bus speed of the ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO motherboard was then bumped up from 200MHz to 250MHz.... and 275MHz which caused the system to crash while loading Windows Vista. A megahertz too far? After a bit of fiddling, the bus speed was reduced to 265MHz, allowing Vista to boot properly. Not the best overclock PCSTATS has squeezed from an AMD 785G board, but not too shabby.

Inside the BIOS

ASUS main system settings BIOS page allows for both manual and automatic overclocking, as well as voltage control over the ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO's CPU, AMD 785G northbridge, and DDR3 memory. The core clock of the Radeon HD 4200 IGP can be overclocked easily by keying in the speed here.

The Radeon HD 4200 IGP's video memory can be expanded through the BIOS as well. Increasing the memory buffer will improve graphics performance, at the expense of having less system memory available.

Memory timings can be adjust by clock cycle, which makes it possible to tweak timings to their tightest possible settings. Since this motherboard supports low-latency DDR3, it's especially important to get the most efficient timings possible. Power draw tests and test systems specs are up next, then it's right into the benchmarks!