Soltek SL-86SPE-L 865PE Motherboard

Company: Soltek
Product: SL-86SPE-L
Street Price: Unavailable
Date Reviewed: May 27, 2003
Reviewed By: Joey Chao

BIOS Configuration:

The BIOS is filled with some good options for overclocking and other performance settings. It was a little difficult to navigate at first but after getting familiar with it, changing parameters was a breeze. The first menu we want to take a look at is the Frequency/Voltage Control menu found in the Advanced BIOS Features. Here is where you can find all the options for overclocking. The system bus can be adjusted up to 300 MHz which should be high enough for most overclockers with conventional air cooling. Also, the AGP/PCI ratios can be changed, but most users will just use the fixed 33/66.

The DIMM voltages can be adjusted from 2.5V to 2.8V. We have not seen higher options over 2.8 from other manufacturers. We would like to have somewhere around 3V for squeezing those few extra MHz out of our memory. The VCore can be set from 1.475V all the way up to 1.85V. We are pleased with this option because we feel that anything over 1.85V for a P4 is not really necessary and will only lower the life of the CPU.

The options to change the memory timings can be found in the Northbridge Configuration menu. All the basic timings are provided but other than that, there is not many options in this menu. The ABIT IS7 had a few more options for tweaking the performance of the rest of the system. An issue with this menu is the DRAM Frequency setting. These options can only be set to 266, 333, or 400. This is a bit confusing and would have could have been better if ratios were used instead.

The last menu we want to look at is the Hardware Health Configuration. This menu shows the system vitals like temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds. There are no options in this menu for setting up shutdown temperatures or fan failure settings. Most of the motherboards we have reviewed have had some sort of safety options in this menu but Soltek does not provide any. Also the DRAM voltages are not shown in this menu, which overclockers want to be able to see.