Asus Republic of Gamers OC Station control box

Bios tinkering made simple and sweet?

By Leo Waldock • Get more from this author

23rd June 2009 08:02 GMT

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You can also use the OC Station to act as a fan controller and an alarm system to keep tabs on the temperatures inside your case just as you can if you’re working with Hardware Monitoring in the Bios.

Connect and control your fans as well as the Bios

The Performance option looks as though it should give access to the preset CPU profiles that are part of the Asus RoG Bios. However, with the OC Station connected to an Asus Crosshair III Socket AM3 Phenom motherboard, this section of the menu was empty. This highlights the point that the OC Station is an accessory for a family of motherboards. As a result, it works in conjunction with the combination of hardware and Bios that you have installed inside your PC so you can't be sure how it will work on your set-up until you've seen it in action.

Once you’ve finished changing settings with the OC Station, you can turn the unit off. It’s not necessary to have the screen blazing away at all times.

In our experience, the OC Station is a unique product. It is well made, looks good and functions well with the promise of more to come. The problem is that you can achieve the same functionality with manual changes in the Bios. Neither does it deliver any new features, unless you count the ability to view a slideshow of pictures on the 3in monochrome screen. We don’t.

Instead, the OC Station acts as an interface to save the enthusiast owner of an RoG motherboard from the clunky old Bios screen at a cost just shy of £125. The thing is, we have already seen an answer to this particular problem with the MSI P45D3 Platinum, which was updated with UEFI to an interface that responds to pointing and clicking.

You pay for convenience

We would far rather that Asus went down the same route and made the switch from Bios to UEFI instead of coming up with an expensive piece of hardware that skirts around the issue instead of dealing with it directly.

Verdict

The Asus OC Station is an intriguing piece of kit but it seems like an expensive luxury. Our view: if you’re so scared of tinkering in the Bios, just leave it well alone. ®