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Written by Dusan Srbljak
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Saturday, 02 June 2007 |
Biostar made quite some turbulence with its “T-Series” of motherboards. Accessible, but high-quality motherboards truly made a “boom” on the Intel platform. They also had a considerable reputation for their AMD-based boards, one of which we have under the scope this time – TA690G motherboard with an AM2 socket.
We already wrote a lot about AMD's 690 chipset, so we won't go all over it again. Let's just say that it's a reliable chipset with a fine integrated graphics processor. As you can deduce from the model name, Biostar TA690G model is based on that very chipset, with all its possibilities.
| | BIOSTAR TA690G | | Chipset | AMD Radeon Xpress 1250 (NB 690G + SB SB600 ) | | Memory | 2 x DDR2 (Max 4 GB) | | Sound | Realtek ALC888 7.1 Audio Codec | | SATA | 4x SATA2 + 1xPATA | | LAN | Realtek 8111B LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s | | RAID | Serial ATA RAID 0, 1, 0+1 | | Connectivity | 1 PCI Express x16, 1 PCI Express x1, 2 PCI, | | | 10 USB 2.0, D-sub, DVI, D-Sub, HDMI |
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MicroATX boards are generally hampered with a bad layout, but we can only congratulate Biostar engineers, since they did the best layout we have seen on a microATX board so far. Every single connector is on a place providing easy cabling, which will certainly please owners of not-so-roomy cases.
The very warm Northbridge cooler made sure that not everything is perfect, but the stability of the motherboard was uncompromising even after overclocking, so no need to worry. It also has Power and Reset micro-switches.
The graphics solution is the great X1250 graphics chip. The board possesses every possible video connector you will ever need. Beside the standard D-Sub and DVI connectors, there are also an S-Video and the increasingly popular HDMI. This AMD / Biostar's move will be saluted by those in need of a multimedia PC. 10 USB ports and 4 SATAII connectors with the possibility of creating RAID arrays round up this motherboard quite nicely.
Realtek 7.1 audio codec is decent at least. A Gigabit network adapter is something already very common nowadays. AMD 690 was conceived so that it enables the user to enter the multimedia world without much pain. However, the Biostar engineering team decided to expand the motherboard's possibilities even further by implementing AWARD BIOS, full of options that every enthusiast will value much.
Beside the automatic OC options (V6, V8, V12) which we already familiarized you with, there are some noteworthy “manual” OC options this Biostar's motherboard has. The maximum CPU voltage settable is 2.135 V. Our sample processor worked stably at 2.7 GHz. The memory can go up to 2.65 V with the FSB at 600 MHz. The integrated MemTest86+ in the BIOS itself will tell you whether or not your overclocked RAM is stable.
Memory timings and subtimings settings are as various as on a DFI board. There is even an option to overclock the X1250 GPU, whose clock can be increased from the referent 400 MHz all the way up to 500 MHz. Nevertheless, stability of such an overclocked GPU was not an issue.
| Results (1024x768) | BIOSTAR TA690G | | | | | Sandra 2007 | | | Processor | 17.465 / 14.749 | | Multimedia | 45.295 / 49.301 | | Memory | 6.334 / 6.307 | | Latency (less is better) | 74 ns | | 3DMark 05 Final / CPU score | 1059 / 5.101 | | Quake 4 ( 800x600 LowQ) | 16.8 fps | | FarCry ( 800x600 LowQ) | 62.7 fps | | Cinebench 9.5 (more is better) | 655 | | WinRAR 3.60 (more is better) | 1.127 KB/s | | Nuclearus 1.0 (more is better) | 5.798 | | DivX 6.2.5 (more is better) | 96,8 fps | | Photoshop CS2 ( less is better) | 65,3 sec |
Testbed: AMD X2 4600+ @ 2.4GHz, 2x1GB TwinMOS
DDR2-800 (2T 4-4-4-10), Windows XP Pro SP2 |
In everyday work, Biostar TA690G board proved to be more than reliable. It's hard to define its target market in a word, but that is exactly what's so special about it. No matter whether you are a multimedia addict, an enthusiast, a gamer (provided that you install a more powerful graphics card), or simply looking for a reliable motherboard, Biostar TA690G is sure to fulfill your expectations. A “congratulations” is something that this board definitely deserves.
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