Performance Tuning Guide

Intel DX58SO2/DX58OG Desktop Board Performance Tuning Guide

1 Introduction

Performance tuning of Intel

Desktop Board DX58SO2/DX58OG enables useful gains

that can enhance overall system performance for gaming, video editing, computation,

performance benchmarking, and other uses. Performance tuning can be done using

the board BIOS or the Intel

Extreme Tuning Utility.

The Intel Extreme Tuning Utility was developed for the user wanting performance

benefits while minimizing their time and involvement in the tuning process. A brief

introduction to this utility is provided in Section 1.1. Even those not considering use of

the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility for performance tuning will find the system monitoring

and stress testing features included with this software to be useful.

This remainder of this guide focuses on using the BIOS for performance tuning of Intel

Desktop Board DX58SO2/DX58OG. The main performance tuning focus areas include

the Intel

Core™ processors and the memory subsystem. The procedures and

examples included in this guide are for reference only and may not work in all

situations and system configurations.

The board is designed with a number of enhancements to support performance tuning.

These enhancements include:

• Fan speed control — the processor and system fan speeds automatically increase

when elevated temperatures are sensed.

• Processor thermal protection — the electrical current applied to the processor is

automatically reduced when the thermal protection temperature set point is

reached.

• IOH heat pipe (DX58SO2) or IOH heat sink (DX58OG) — these provide increased

cooling capability for the IOH component and the processor voltage regulator.

• Processor voltage regulator heat pipes (DX58SO2 only) — these provide increased

cooling capability to the voltage regulation system components.

• Eight-phase processor voltage regulator (DX58SO2) or five phase processor

voltage regulator (DX58OG) — component stress is reduced since overall electrical

load is distributed among multiple phases.

• Processor voltage regulator thermal protection — the voltage regulator current is

automatically reduced when the thermal protection temperature set point is

reached.