Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2 & Gigabyte 8I945P-G

Overclocking the 945P Two Completely Different Pictures

Overclocking Gigabyte's GA-8I945P-G:

We started our overclocking segment off with Gigabytes GA-8I945P-G.

SANDRA CPU 3.57GHz (14x255MHz)

SANDRA Multimedia 3.57GHz (14x255MHz)

SANDRA Memory 510MHz

Overall, we had no real issues overclocking our Pentium D 820 from 2.8GHz to an impressive 3.57GHz.  We achieved this by running the FSB at 255MHz while dropping the memory divider to 2.0.  Unfortunately, eventhough we've pushed this memory up to 672MHz with timings of 4-4-4-12 in previous articles, we had no luck here.  The system even reset with CAS 4-4-4-12 timings running at 638MHz with a memory multiplier setting of 2.5.  No other combination of memory ratio, voltage or timing settings helped us get past the 510MHz barrier.  In the end, the CPU overclocking score was quite good but the memory's results were unimpressive.  Certainly we can find a balance between CPU and Memory overclocking, but in the end, the CPU was more important.

Overclocking Foxconn's 945P7AA:

SANDRA CPU 3.12GHz (14x222MHz)

SANDRA Multimedia 3.12GHz (14x222MHz)

SANDRA Memory 594MHz

With the Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2, the picture was in complete contrast to the Gigabyte board.  Here we had no problem pushing our memory to 594MHz with room to go further.  The limiting factor here was the FSB which simply would not go past 222MHz no matter what we tried.  We've had shakey experiences with overclocking Foxconn boards in the past and we are still seeing less than stellar results.  Even when we set memory and PCI frequencies below their specified limits, the system simply would not break past 222MHz FSB.