This time we received from Biostar two motherboards that are at first glance identical. Their model names differ in one number and they belong to Biostar T series: TP43D2-A7 and TP45D2-A7.

Layout

PCB is, as expected for Biostar T series, colored in blue with aluminum heat spreaders on south and north bridge. Layout of both motherboards is, generally speaking, good especially since these are low-cost motherboards. Area around CPU socket is pretty clear, so it won’t be any problems with mounting larger cooling solutions on CPU. Nearby is located 4-pin P4 power connector under which is located 4-Phase power unit.

As expected, on the right side of motherboard, in line with CPU socket, are 4 memory slots and 24-pin ATX power connector. Below ATX connector are located six SATA 2 connectors. We find that this position of SATA 2 connectors is very convenient. Second generation of PCI Express X16 slot is located between two PCIe X1 slots but there is enough room for mounting graphics cards with bigger cooling solutions (dual GPU). Under these are 3 PCI slots that can be very useful. BIOS battery is between PEG and PCI slots while Clear CMOS jumper is located below ATX connector. On bottom edge of motherboards are located I/O, front panel audio and 6 USB 2.0 connectors. Above those is IDE connector. Power and Reset switches are positioned in lower right corner which is nice touch from Biostar since these are low-cost models. Back panel is consisted of: two PS/2 ports, LAN, 6 USB 2.0 connectors and audio connectors (5.1 HD audio solution based on Realtek ALC662).


Differences

Difference between these two models is used chipset or more precisely southbridge. TP43D2-A7 is based on P43 while TP45D2-A7 is based on P45 chipset. This means that TP43D2-A7 supports “only” 8GB of RAM memory while TP45D2-A7 supports 16GB. Of course this difference isn’t that important to end users because of the fact that if someone want to insert all 16GB of memory on P45 model (TP45D2-A7) he would need to obtain four 4GB modules. These modules are pretty rare and expensive and usage of these modules on low-cost motherboard doesn’t make much sense.
BIOS on both motherboards is identical. All vital settings are located under O.N.E submenu. If manual settings are chosen, user can set: FSB in range from 100 to 800MHz and setting that determines after how  many unsuccessful boot ups  BIOS will reset FSB to default values (range is from 1 to 8 times). Strap can be also set to manual values (200, 266 and 333MHz). Memory test that is executed on each boot can be disabled here also. Voltage settings are disappointing but that is expected since 4-phase power unit is used. CPU voltage can be raised in percentages of default CPU voltage (+5%, +10% or +15%). Voltages of NorthBridge and FSB bus (VTT) can be changed in range from +0.1 to 0.3V with +0.1V increments. PPL voltage can be set in range 1.5-1.8V with increments +0.1V.

Since there were no differences in BIOS we hoped that we will achieve some significant differences in performances but we were wrong. Test results are very similar. Some benchmarks give advantage to TP43D2-A7 and some to TP45D2-A7 but differences in results are insignificant. Both motherboards were stable during our tests. This is very important fact since we used 4-core Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 CPU in regard to power unit. 4-Phase power unit looks feeble but despite its looks it performed very well in this situation. Never the less we don’t recommend this combination for everyday overclock of quad-core CPU.
What surprised us was warming up of chipset so we recommend usage of computer case with significant “draft” (air flow) since it looks like aluminum coolers on southbridge and northbridge are not too efficient.