Posted 05/25/09 at 09:50:17 AM by Paul Lilly

Biostar today adds to its T-Series motherboard lineup, this time with a hybrid board capable of running both DDR2 and DDR3 memory (not at the same time).

"Needless to say, the double DDR2/DDR3 design make it possible for users to enjoy better compatibility and cost saving on future memory upgrade," Biostar wrote in a press release. "This motherboard also supports Biostar's exclusive G.P.U. energy-saving technology."

The TP45E Combo motherboard dedicates two slots to each memory standard with support for up to 4GB of DDR3-800/1066/1333, and up to 8GB of DDR2-667/800/1066. Other notables include "whole solid capacitors," 1600MHz frontside bus support, 3 PCI slots, 2 PCI-E x1 slots, a single PCI-E Gen2 x16 slot, 6 SATA ports, and 5.1 surround sound.

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 05/19/09 at 09:29:34 AM by Paul Lilly

Biostar's second Core-i7 compatible motherboard, the TPower X58A, is now available for sale, and here's why the company believes you should look at upgrading to the platform, price be damned.

"Although Intel X58 chipset based motherboard is sold at a relatively higher price in the market, Biostar still has an excellent reputation for TPower series, in which TPower X58 and TPower I45 are very popular with a lot of power users," Biostar writes in its press release.

Alrighty then. But quirky marketing aside, the revised TPower X58A does come with some enthusiast features, such as adopting an overclocker-friendly 12+2 power phase design (12-phase CPU and 2-phase memory), Ferrite core chokes, all Japananese manufactured solid capacitors, support for up to 24GB of DDR3-1333/1600/2000, three PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots, eSATA support, and a 'Rapid Debug 3' POST LED display to help you figure out which device(s) might be failing.

It's worth noting that Biostar has made a major push in the past 12 months to shed its reputation as a budget option and compete at the high end, snagging overclocking and frontside bus world records along the way.

The X58A streets for around $240.

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Posted 04/03/09 at 10:29:31 AM by Paul Lilly

Maybe the world has gone topsy-turvy on us, but Biostar, the company best known for its budget motherboards, has set another overclocking world record, this time on AMD's Phenom platform. Say what?

Using Biostar's recently released TA790GX A3+ motherboard, Japanese overclocker "PcCI2iminal" and his team (Yoko) pushed AMD's Phenom II 955 processor to 6.16GHz and 6.20GHz, respectively, claiming the top and third spots for highest OC for that processor. In both cases, liquid nitrogen cooling was used to push the processor nearly 94 percent higher than its stock speed. The fourth highest OC sits at a distant 4.09GHz using air cooling.

Last summer, a Biostar board was used to set the frontside bus world record when an overclocker who goes by the name Youngpro manged to maneuver the Biostar I45 board's FSB to 725MHz (2,900MHz quad-pumped).

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Posted 06/25/08 at 04:22:21 PM by Paul Lilly

Decide for yourself which is more impressive - that someone managed to set a new frontside-bus world record, or the fact that it was achieved using a Biostar motherboard. In Biblical speak, this would be like David taking on not only Goliath, but several giants with names like Asus and DFI. But this time it wasn't one of the usual suspects, and an overclocker who goes by the name Youngpro managed to maneuver the Biostar TPower I45 board's FSB all the way up to 725MHz, or an effective 2,900MHz quad-pumped. It took a healthy dose of LN2 to get there, making the achievement impractical for anything other than setting records, but Biostar? Also impressive (though not record setting), Youngpro pushed his Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 up from 3.16GHz to 5.07GHz in the process.

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