For our overclocking tests we used an Athlon 64 3500+ (2.2 GHz) with 512 KB L2 memory cache based on Venice core, which has a better overclocking capability than our Athlon 64 3800+ used on our benchmarking.

Even though it is an entry-level motherboard with on-board video, ECS RS482-M has some overclocking options.

ECS RS482-M (BIOS version: 1.2C – April 25th, 2006) overclocking options:

• External frequency: Can be adjusted from 200 to 250 MHz in 1 MHz steps.
• Clock multiplier: Can be set from 4x to 11x (processor-limited) in 1x steps.
• HTT bus multiplier: Can be set from 1x to 5x in 1x steps.
• CPU voltage: 0,825 V to 1,550 V.
• Memory voltage: Can be set from 2.55 V to 2.7V in 0.05 V steps.

This motherboard from ECS has basic overclocking options, but its base clock (HTT clock) goes only up to 250 MHz, while on its competitor from Foxconn we can configure it up to 450 MHz.

However for an entry-level product a 250 MHz limit would be a very reasonable one. Using our CPU that has an 11x multiplier, we could reach up to 2,750 MHz (250 MHz x 11), a 20% increase on its internal clock rate.

The whole problem is that this ECS motherboard wasn’t stable even configuring only 205 MHz, what was a big deception and prevented us from performing overclocking tests with this motherboard.

Another issue is the available timing settings. ECS only provided two adjustments: one for CAS latency and another for memory speed (100, 166, 200 and 250 MHz). In order to enable these options, you need to change this motherboard from “auto” mode (which uses the memory SPD to adjust memory timings), but when we changed this setting our motherboard became extremely unstable on our tests. What a bummer.