nV News - Asus M3N78 Pro Review

The BIOS employed by the Asus M3N78 Pro is AwardBIOS from Phoenix Technologies, which contains the following menu options - Main, Advanced, Power, Boot, Tools, and Exit. The Main menu allows the date and time to be set. Storage devices, such as IDE and SATA hard drives are automatically detected by the BIOS. The amount of installed and usable memory is also displayed on the Main menu.

The Advanced menu allows the CPU and other system devices to be managed. Below are photographs of the CPU and Memory Configuration applets.

CPU Configuration

Note that memory timing cannot be adjusted.

Memory Configuration

The JumperFree Configuration under the Advanced menu contains overclocking options and allows device frequencies and voltages to be adjusted. CPU voltage ranges from 0.8000V to 1.6750V in increments of 0.0125V.

CPU Voltage Adjustment

Memory voltage ranges from 1.978V to 2.490V in varying increments. NorthBridge voltage is fixed at 1.213V, 1.313V or 1.409V as is HyperTransport voltage, which is fixed at 1.309V, 1.425V or 1.525V.

Memory Voltage Adjustment

An overclocking configuration can be set via the AI Tuning option, which consists of Manual, Auto, Standard, and AI Overclock. The Overclock Options, CPU Multiplier and CPU Frequency settings only become configurable when AI Tuning is set to Manual. Overclock options consist of a 3%, 5%, 8% and 10% overclock. The CPU Multiplier ranges from 5x to 11x in increments of 0.5x. The CPU Frequency is based on the processor installed and in some cases, may no be configurable.

Hybrid SLI can be enabled or disabled via the Chipset settings when a Hybrid SLI supported graphics card is installed. If the iGPU Frame Buffer Control is set to manual, the frame buffer size can then be set to 64MB, 128MB, 256MB or 512MB. The Onboard GPU setting allows the mGPU to be enabled or disabled. If the setting is Auto, the mGPU will automatically become disabled when a discrete graphics card is detected. The other option is to Always Enable the mGPU, even when a discrete graphics card is detected.

Chipset Settings

Hardware Monitoring is located under the Power Menu and controls fan settings and reports on voltage, temperature, and fan speed. Note that there is a distinction in regards to the type of fan being used - DC (3-pin fan header) vs. PWM (4-pin fan header). If the CPU Q-Fan Control is enabled, the CPU Q-Fan Profile can be set to Optimal (fan speed depends on CPU temperature), Silent (minimize fan speed), or Performance (maximum fan speed).

Hardware Monitoring

The Tools menu option features EZ Flash 2 and Express Gate (not pictured).

SYSTEM SOFTWARE

After installing the operating system, the first order of business was to install the device drivers from the included CD in order to receive full functionality from the motherboard. Note that some drivers on the CD may be obsolete and it is always a good idea to download and install the latest drivers from the manufacturer's web site. The main driver install menu is presented below.

Driver Installation Menu

In addition to updating the motherboard BIOS using the AwardBIOS Flash Utility or Asus EZ Flash 2, the BIOS can be updated under Windows using the Asus Update utility.

Asus Update

PC Probe II is a handy utility that monitors a variety of hardware related characteristics such as fan speed, CPU temperature, and system voltages. Alerts can be configured to automatically notify the user of a system problem such as low fan speed or elevated CPU temperature. Threshold values can be provided for each sensor readout. The monitor panels can be positioned at various locations on the desktop.

Asus PC Probe II

The Desktop Management Interface (DMI) browser, which can be launched from PC Probe II, provides system related information. The Windows Management Interface (WMI) browser and PCI browser are also launched from PC Probe II.

DMI Processor Information

AI Suite provides hardware monitoring capabilities along with the capability to launch AI Gear 2, AI Nap (reduced power), AI Booster (overclocking from Windows), and Q-Fan 2 (intelligent adjustment of CPU and chassis fan speed).

Asus AI Suite

AI Gear 2 provides four pre-defined system performance profiles - Performance, Auto, Medium Performance and Maximum Power Saving.

Asus AI Gear 2

Asus Express Gate is an interesting feature that gives the user with swift access to commonly used applications such as browsing the internet (Firefox), VoIP (Skype), and media playback without actually entering the Windows operating system. The M3N78 Pro features an embedded Linux distribution that makes use of Splashtop Instant-On Desktop.

Asus Express Gate