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Printed On: | September 6, 2008, 2:14 pm |
| Category: | Chipsets & Motherboards | |
| Type: | Reviews | |
| Posted By: | tUx | |
| Date Posted: | June 1, 2008, 11:30 am |
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The choice for budget-conscious users?
We have all read about the upcoming Intel P45 Express chipset and boards based on that, and we are all itching to own a piece of the high-end stuff like ASUS' P5Q Deluxe or Gigabyte's EP45-DQ6 motherboard, which sport double-digit PWM phases, beefy cooling solutions, and an almost endless list of bells and whistles.
With all the publicity surrounding the high-end offerings, your average Joe looking for a mid-range solution has been left out in the cold unfortunately. Biostar was the first motherboard manufacturer that sent us a mid-range Intel P45 Express chipset-based motherboard, the TFORCE I45 which is hot off the manufacturing line.
VR-Zone brings you on a mini-tour to find out more about what's exactly on this interesting-looking board.
Enter the Biostar TFORCE I45 on a very colorful note. The whole board is made of parts which sport different colours.
The board has a reasonable amount of storage ports, a decent PWM design for the processor, CrossFire capability with two PCI Express x16 slots, and other expansion slots like PCI Express x1 and PCI. With an array of expansion options, be it internal or external, the Biostar looks set to please users of the segment they are targeting at.
If you have noticed, this board utilizes only solid capacitors for extended durability.
Ample USB ports to connect more peripherals, or even expand your storage with the eSATA ports.
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Close ups of the TPOWER I45
The Biostar TPOWER I45 has copper-coloured aluminium heatsinks over the northbridge, southbridge and PWM.
Good news for users who are interested in some overclocking; the cooling looks up to the mark to handle some heat from the Intel P45 Express chipset and MOSFETs!
A 4-phase PWM feeds power to the processor.
Interestingly, this board makes use of jumpers to manually set the functionality of both PCI Express x16 slots. You can either enable a single PCI Express x16 slot that runs on full x16 width, or you could enable both PCI Express x16 slots but each runs on x8 width.
PCI Express x16 slots are controlled via the use of motherboard jumpers.
A handy feature that is present on this board is its ability to display CPU temperature on the board itself. Usually LED displays on a motherboard are used to display POST codes and errors, but Biostar has made better use of this two-digit display unit!
Three pairs of SATA ports stacked nicely. A Marvell chip controls the IDE port.
Having a set of power and reset buttons is becoming the norm, so naturally the Biostar has these switches too. There are also three sets of USB 2.0 headers and the standard front I/O headers lined up neatly in one row along the edge of the board. No excuses for poor cable management please!
Power and reset buttons are very handy for users who run an open-concept computer.
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More pictures...
Moving on to the finer details like controllers, we checked out the Biostar's clock generator chip, Ethernet chip and audio chip.
The ICS clock generator found on the Biostar TFORCE I45.
Gigabit Ethernet by Realtek's RTL8111C LOM.
The I45 uses Realtek ALC888S to provide 7.1-channel high-definition audio.
Biostar TFORCE I45
Decked out in a full solid capacitor outfit, a colourful yet neat layout, and a good set of features to offer, the Biostar TFORCE I45 should attract some attention from potential buyers.
Stay tuned, as we try to get you some general performance figures and find out how much potential has board has for overclocking purposes. This board might just be one of the few worthy contenders in the mid-range segment.
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