The P/N MOS drive strengths control the overall drive strength of the CPU's Memory I/Os. This will only affect memory overclocking and nothing else. The earlier Rev CG and Rev D CPUs didn't have much control of memory I/O drive strength. The Rev E CPUs had some control over data drive strength (listed in CMOS as a percentage reduction in drive strength). The Manta board offers the ability to change the total drive strength of all memory I/Os using the P and N mos settings for ALL CPUs. It also allows independent control of P and N mos allowing the possibility of asymmetric drive strengths. The Manta reference board is the only motherboard of it's kind with such sophisticated drive strength controls. No other board has it. The benefit?? You can always hit the optimal drive strengths for whatever CPU you have. Other boards allow finite control in steps. These steps are fixed and usually "tuned" to a specific CPU and memory type. Now you know what people mean when they say boards are "tuned" for specific memories.On Manta, all possible drive strength settings are possible so you can always pick the absolute best for your parts (CPU + RAM). The problem with boards that are "tuned" for specific parts is that another newer CPU always comes out and the memory drive strength is different than the previous ones. Even worse, CPU's will vary across their production lifecycles and the same settings that work on one person's board don't work best for another with the same CPU type. So we found that the best way to address the problem is to allow the user to select all settings, therefore he/she can always pick the best ones...assuming he/she spends the time to do it and knows what they're doing.
Originally Posted by learners permit
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