ABIT IC7-G (875P): Challenging the Overclocking Throne

ABIT IC7-G: Stress Testing

We managed to stress test the IC7-G in several different areas and configurations, including:

1. Chipset and motherboard stress testing was conducted by running the FSB at 270MHz
2. Memory stress testing was conducted by running RAM at 333MHz and 400MHz in dual DDR operation at the most aggressive timings possible.

Front Side Bus Stress Test Results:

As usual we ran a large load of stress tests and benchmarks to ensure the IC7-G was absolutely stable at each overclocked FSB speed we experimented with. We ran our usual array of stress tests, including Prime95 torture tests, which were run in the background for a total of 48 hours.

We also proceeded to run lots of other tasks such as data compression, various DX8 games, and light apps like Word and Excel while Prime95 was running in the background. Finally, we reran our entire benchmark suite, which includes Sysmark 2002, Quake3 Arena, Unreal Tournament 2003, SPECviewperf 7.0, and XMPEG. In the end, 270MHz FSB was the highest overclock we were able to achieve with our conservative overclocking setup without encountering any reliability problems.

Memory Stress Test Results:

The following memory stress test gauges how well the IC7-G is able to handle dual DDR333 mode with all memory banks filled. This has proven to be a simple task for the vast majority of Dual Channel DDR Pentium 4 motherboards based on SiS and Intel chipsets, so let's see if the IC7-G is any different:

As usual we see that a dual DDR400 desktop motherboard is easily capable of the most aggressive memory timings in dual DDR333 mode. This has been proven time and again in our past motherboard reviews, a complete index of which you can find over here. The Stress Testing sections of those reviews will contain memory timing results that you should be able to attain assuming you've put together a similar hardware configuration as listed in the Performance Test Configuration sections of those reviews.

The following memory stress test is obviously a bit more strenuous on the memory subsystem than most memory stress tests, as it tests the rare occasion that a desktop user will install four DIMMs running in dual DDR400 mode at the most aggressive memory timings available in the BIOS:

Yet again we see that an 875P motherboard is able to sustain excellent DRAM timings in dual DDR400 mode. These are the lowest possible timings available in the IC7-G BIOS (only Active to Precharge needed to be relaxed a bit), and is certainly impressive if you plan on maxing out your memory banks.

As usual, we ran several memory stress tests and general apps to make sure all these timings were stable. We started off by running Prime95 torture tests; a grand total of 24 hours of Prime95 was successfully run at the timings listed in the above charts. We also ran Sciencemark (memory tests only) and Super Pi. Neither stress test was able to bring the IC7-G to its knees.