Biostar TA990FXE
Before we take a look
at Biostar’s new 990FX motherboard, let’s first go over what this new
AMD chipset has to offer. There aren’t a whole lot of differences
between the 890 and the 990 chipset. The main difference between the two
has to do with new technologies that are supported. One of the main new
technologies that are supported with this new chipset is support for
nVidia’s SLI technology. This is great news for AMD and nVidia fans
because it has been quite some time since SLI was supported by an AMD
motherboard. Since nVidia has gotten out of the chipset business it was
probably only a matter of time till they would allow support across both
the Intel and AMD platforms.
AMD has increased the
amount of memory that is supported by this new chipset. Each ram slot is
capable of 8 gigs of DDR3 memory with speeds of up to 2000 MHz with
overclocking. This effectively doubles the amount of memory that can be
installed by raising it from 16 gigs to 32 gigs. Intel has been offering
this for a while now and it’s nice to see AMD stepping up to the plate
to offer this much memory support. For most users and applications this
is overkill, but for those that do high-definition video encoding and
photo manipulation, this is a necessity. For gamers and overclockers the
higher amount of memory support really isn’t such a big deal.
This new chipset also
features support for AMD’s latest socket and processor technology. This
is the all new AM3+ that supports their new Bulldozer processors and
it’s also backwards compatible with their older AM3 processors. This
will allow AMD fans to continue to use their previous generation of
processors until their ready to upgrade to the Bulldozer. Our testing of
this new processor has shown that it’s actually not much of an upgrade,
but hopefully AMD will work out the bugs with these processors and give
Intel some real competition. This is still great though that AMD is
allowing backwards compatibility because this will greatly reduce the
cost of upgrading for those that still want the features of the new
990FX. Along with this new processor support is support for Hyper
Transport 3.1. This increases the CPU bandwidth to 6.4 GT/s. To enable
this new technology you will have to use a new AM3+ processor.
Since we’ve now had a look at what this
new chipset has to offer, let’s take the board out and see what Biostar
has done to make it even better. One of the first things that I need to
mention though is the price that this board is being offered at. This
board comes in at an amazing 130 dollars! This makes this board the
least expensive way to get in on a 990FX motherboard. Throughout this
review please keep in mind how little this board costs because value is
something Biostar has become known for.
In terms of the boards
layout it’s pretty basic. Don’t let this fool you though because it
will still give most users all that they could ask for. When this board
was first released it did not feature SLI support. Due to a recent BIOS
update SLI is now fully supported. SLI was never a hardware issue
because all it really requires is nVidia’s licensing support. So vendors
don’t need to include it if they choose not to. Thankfully Biostar has
decided to enable SLI support on this motherboard. This will definitely
increase the amount of customers that are going to be looking at this
board for their future upgrades.
On the rear I/O there
are PS2 keyboard and mouse ports. Located next to these are your S/PDIF
and coaxial ports for audio. Next to these ports are a couple of USB 2.0
ports. Located next to these are two USB 2.0 ports, a Firewire port and
an eSATA port. Next to these is where you’ll find the gigabit LAN port
with two USB 3.0 ports. And finally next to these are your analog 7.1
channel audio ports. As you can see this is a very nicely populated rear
I/O, with enough ports for all of your connected devices. This board
has support for eight USB 2.0 ports via four on the rear I/O, and two
headers for the front panel of the case. It has support for four USB 3.0
ports via two on the rear I/O, and a header for the front panel of the
case.
For SATA connectors
this board has five SATA 3.0 ports that utilize the integrated
controller on the SB950 South Bridge chip. With these ports is support
for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10. This isn’t a whole lot of ports for those that
are using multiple hard drives and optical drives, but it should be
enough for most users. IDE support isn’t featured on this board at all
so any of your drives will need to be connected through the SATA ports.
Of course if you really need more SATA ports you can install an
expansion card to increase your available ports. Biostar developed this
board to give the best features at the best cost. Most users will find
that this board will provide them with what they need most and at a
reasonable price.
For those that are
looking at this board for multi-graphics support they will be pleased to
know that this board will support up to Quad Crossfire X and Quad SLI
support. You need to keep in mind though that there are only three PCI e
slots on this board. To use a quad graphics configuration the cards
will have to have dual GPUs. The PCI e x16 slots are set up with the
white slots running at x16 and the red slot running at x4. These are
spaced so that you can run two dual-slot cards at x16. To run a 3-way
graphics configuration you will be limited due to spacing and bandwidth.
This isn’t as good as some of the other vendor’s offerings, but it
should be good enough for most users. Biostar also includes a four pin
MOLEX connector on the board to provide extra power to the PCI e slots.
Biostar has
incorporated some enthusiast-level features onto this board despite its
entry-level price. This board has a Post and CPU temperature LED to
trouble shoot boot errors and monitor CPU temperature. It also has
onboard power and reset switches that are great for overclockers and
those that will be installing this on a test bench platform. Biostar has
also included On-Board LED Indicators for monitoring the CPU and North
Bridge power phases. When the LED is lit it means that the phase is
active and when it’s off the phase is disabled. This will give
overclockers a quick way to check how their processor is using the
various power phases. These are the kinds of little features that
enthusiasts love to see because it makes monitoring their hardware so
much easier.
You might question the fewer phases that
are used on this board as opposed to the other vendor’s boards. Don’t
let this change your mind about this board. Extra phases don’t really
mean better performance. We’ve found that this is more of a gimmick than
anything and the overclocking on this board is still really good. We
didn’t have any stability or installation issues with this board at all.
It performed flawlessly right out of the box. Once we updated the BIOS
SLI was immediately supported as well. We really didn’t run into any
issues with this board at all.
Setting up the BIOS
was really easy with Biostar’s UEFI system. All of the features of the
BIOS are easy to find and navigation is as simple as clicking on the
icon for the setting that you want to access. This isn’t the flashiest
looking UEFI BIOS that we’ve seen, but has been one of the least
confusing to use. It would have been nice if they had included an image
of the board with the various features that you could click on to access
them. We really liked the way that Gigabyte implemented this, but I’m
sure this would have also added to the cost of this wallet friendly
board.
Biostar includes
support for their TOverclocker software that allows for tweaking and
overclocking from the Window’s environment. This software also features
support for their Smart-Fan management using the three onboard fan
headers. This utility has three tabs for navigating between the
different features. They are broken down to CPU, Memory, OC Tweaker, and
H/W Monitor. What’s great about this software is that it will not only
allow you to change your settings but it will also let you monitor your
hardware for spikes in voltages or temperature. This is actually one of
the better Windows based software for overclocking and monitoring your
hardware.
This board also has
support for Biostar’s Green Power II Utility. This utility will allow
you to enhance your energy efficiency depending on the mode that you
choose to set for your system. There are four performance modes that are
broken into the following categories. First is Performance Mode, then
there’s Medium Mode, next is Maxi- Energy Mode, and lastly is Auto Phase
Mode. This utility works by disabling the CPU power phases that aren’t
being utilized which thus allows you to save energy. This utility uses a
very simple graphical user’s interface (GUI) that is easy to navigate
and understand. There is even a meter at the top of the interface that
will give you a quick reference for how your processor is being utilized
and a simple temperature monitor. You can even use this utility to
monitor your power consumption.
This is where the rubber meets the
pavement. We ran this board through our full gamut of testing and
benchmarks and it was a very surprising outcome. For a board that
retails for about 130 dollars and sells for about 60 dollars less than
the next higher priced board, you really wouldn’t expect too much. This
wasn’t the case at all.
When it comes to being
able to provide their customers with outstanding performance at an
affordable price, Biostar has the market locked down. This board proves
that they understand how to do this better than anyone else out there.
If you just look at our benchmark scores you would assume that this
board was near the 200 dollar price range. This is where it performed
and doesn’t cost nearly this much. Our most telling benchmark was
Cinebench. This benchmark stresses each core of the processor to
determine its overall performance. This is a very demanding benchmark
that also shows how well the board is able to provide the processor with
the power and bandwidth that it needs. Gigabyte’s high-end and Asus
high-end boards were the only ones that were able to surpass the
performance of this board. These boards all cost at least 50 dollars
more!
This board may not
have the flashiest looks or be capable of the most expansion
configurations, but when it comes to raw performance at a reasonable
price it just can’t be beat. Biostar has produced a board that really
gives the consumer incredible performance for the price. It doesn’t have
all of the bells and whistles of some of the other vendor’s boards, but
it does have some enthusiast-level features.
When you figure in the
price of this board and how much it would cost to upgrade your CPU as
well, the value of this board becomes quite clear. This board will allow
many users to upgrade their entire systems for a little more than one
of the higher-end boards would cost by itself. If you’re looking at
performance as well then this board really becomes an amazing value.
Biostar has been an industry leader for offering incredible performance
for a reasonable price.
