Which P965 boards allow you to lower the multiplier in the BIOS?

I’m trying to decide between buying an Asus P5B or Gigabyte GA 965P-DS3 to use with an E6400 that I already have. I want to be able to play with lowering the multiplier in the BIOS so that I can raise the FSB higher than I can when using the stock multiplier. Does either of these boards support this?
I realize that I can achieve the same thing with a Windows utility but I’d like the security of knowing that I can do it in the BIOS also.

To the best of my knowledge all Intel Chip multipliers are locked from the factory with exception to the Extreme Edition chips. So I doubt you will find a board that will allow you to change the multiplier.

~jtjuska

jtjuska said:

To the best of my knowledge all Intel Chip multipliers are locked from the factory with exception to the Extreme Edition chips. So I doubt you will find a board that will allow you to change the multiplier.

~jtjuska

Click to expand...

and Engineering Samples have unlock multi, rest of cpus have them locked.

All C2D's are partially unlocked. You can select multipliers lower then the stock multiplier but not higher. I believe both board will allow you to do this.

Gigabyte DS3 allows to lock in lower then stock multi, and I know this because I have one sitting on my test bench.

I stand corrected. I don't have personal experience with C2D (yet ). I figured someone knowledgeable here would correct it.

~jtjuska

RangerXLT8 said:

Gigabyte DS3 allows to lock in lower then stock multi, and I know this because I have one sitting on my test bench.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that, I’m going to order one this evening.

Many of the replies made me realize that there’s a lot of ignorance about multipliers. This surprises me considering that the majority of Intel’s and AMD’s desktop and mobile CPUs are multiplier unlocked between their max value and the minimum that is allowed by their under-clocking technologies: Speedstep for Intel and Cool ‘N’ Quiet (or PowerNow) for AMD.

AMD typically use a lower multiplier of 5 for a minimum frequency of 1 GHz, although in some cases it is a minimum multiplier of 4 for a clock speed of 800 MHz.
Intel has settled on a lower multiplier of 6 for all Core Duo and Core 2 Duo CPUs so far. This gives a low end frequency of 6 * 166 = 1.0 for Yonah, 6 * 266 = 1.6 for Conroe and 6 * 333 = 2.0 for Woodcrest. Lesson over, class dismissed.

I think the reason I didn't realize it is I haven't touched an Intel chip since I bought my 2.8C which was totally locked as were all Northwoods (excepts ES's and EE's) I actually enjoyed learning these things myself.

On another note, glad to see that you got the answers you were looking for smilingcrow .

~jtjuska