by Doors4ever
11/05/2009 | 03:43 PM
New platforms, chipsets, processor sockets and processors do not appear too often. After every announcement like that we try to test as many processor and mainboard models as we possibly can, so that our readers could have the most extensive info at their disposal and hence could make a thought-through reasonable choice. For example, you can read the reviews of LGA1366 mainboards from ASRock, Asus, DFI, EVGA, Foxconn, Gigabyte, Intel, MSI. In some cases we even reviewed several different mainboard models from the same manufacturer. Unfortunately, Biostar solutions didn’t get included into this list for the reasons that were beyond our control. However, now that the new LGA1156 platform has just been launched things have changed and we are glad to offer you one of the first reviews of the flagship solution from Biostar – TPower I55 mainboard.
Our today’s review will talk about packaging, accessories and software bundle, strengths and weaknesses of the Biostar mainboard, its functionality in terms of system configuring and overclocking, performance level and power consumption compared with the already tested solutions. We will also talk about the features that sometimes make us exclaim: “OMG”!
The board is shipped in a golden colored box, which is of about the same thickness as the boxes of other mainboards, although it is much longer and wider.
However, the mainboard itself is of pretty standard size and this large box is mostly determined by the peculiarities of the packaging. There is an external thin slip-cover box that serves informational and decorative purposes. Beneath it, there is a box of thick white cardboard. Besides a traditional antistatic plastic bag the board is additionally protected with a frame made of some porous material. This frame is the reason why the box had to be made larger.
Besides the actual mainboard, there is a smaller two-sectional box inside that holds all the accessories:
Not so long ago we talked about Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 mainboard, which is also based on Intel P55 Express chipset. Unlike many other mainboards that use the advantages of single-chip core logic sets with low heat dissipation, Gigabyte engineers made serious modifications to the initial reference design when they were developing their mainboard. The cooling system on Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 looks exactly the same as before, when the chipsets consisted of two chips called North and South Bridge according to their placement on the PCB. The North Bridge used to heat up quite significantly. Therefore, the cooling system included a chipset North Bridge heatsink, a chipset South Bridge heatsink, two heatsinks on the processor voltage regulator components that are all connected together with heatpipes. Of course, the board doesn’t have a South Bridge anymore. They simply moved the chipset to where the North Bridge used to be and covered some additional controllers with the former South Bridge heatsink. At first glance Biostar TPower I55 looks exactly the same: we see a traditional four-heatsink combination here:
However, the first impression is quite deceiving, as you can see if you look at the components layout of the Biostar TPower I55 mainboard: there is nothing where the chipset North Bridge used to be.
Although the developers of Biostar TPower I55 mainboard stuck to the reference design and kept the Intel P55 Express chip in the South Bridge’s spot, they have still significantly complicated the mainboard cooling system. They placed an additional heatsink where the chipset North Bridge used to be. As you can see from the layout scheme, it doesn’t cool anything, it simply works as an intermediate heatsink between the chipset heatsink and two heatsinks over the processor voltage regulator components, since all of them are connected via heatpipes. This excessively complex cooling system is obviously not a necessity but rather has marketing reasons behind it. In fact, a small heatsink like the ones that sued to be installed over Intel South Bridges would be more than enough to efficiently cool Intel P55 Express chipset. There is no need for heatpipes or additional heatsinks at all.
An extra heatsink is not the only drawback in the Biostar TPower I55 mainboard cooling system, but to better understand this we have to point out its obvious advantages first. The mainboard is equipped with a 12-phase processor voltage regulator circuitry: four phases power the CPU and another four – part of the North Bridge integrated into the processor including the memory controller. By the way, they use two-phase regulator for the memory modules. According to “Biostar Dura-MAX” technology, the board is made with contemporary high-quality electronic components, such as solid-state capacitors, for instance. They offer a number of advantages: longer life, more stable characteristics, more efficient use of energy. To ensure even higher energy-efficiency many today’s mainboards with multi-phase processor voltage regulators know to disable inactive phases depending on the processor utilization at the moment. Biostar have their own technology like that called “Biostar G.P.U.” (Green Power Utility). You can see the way this technology works with the help of twelve LEDs located around the processor socket. They light up when the corresponding phase is active and turn off when it is disabled.
Everything seems to be fine, but large heatsinks over the processor voltage regulator components cover these LEDs almost completely. Even inside an open system case like Antec Skeleton we had to be really creative to get a peek under the heatsinks in order to see how many processor voltage regulator phases were active. I have to say that this not very thought-through design of Biostar TPower I55 mainboard makes it nearly impossible to use this interesting feature. In fact, it is not really a drawback, but an example of a technology that is formally there, but in fact doesn’t work.
But let’s get back to the advantages of the Biostar TPower I55 mainboard. It has two graphics card slots that allow building ATI crossfire and Nvidia SLI configurations. The connectors and contacts on the board are color coded, there are Power On and Reset buttons, POST code indicator and even BIO-V (Biostar Voltage Point) control spots next to the 24-pin power connector. They allow you to manually monitor major voltages: processor core voltage, chipset voltage and voltages on different busses.
The back panel of Biostar TPower I55 has the following ports and connectors:
The complete list of Biostar TPower I55 mainboard specifications looks as follows:
As you may see, the beginning of our discussion of Biostar TPower I55 mainboard features and functionality got a slight negative feel. I would like to smooth out any sort of negative impression you may have got at this point. If you take an unbiased look at Biostar TPower I55, you will see a lot of advantages and very few pretty insignificant drawbacks. For instance, not the best location for the floppy drive connector shouldn’t even be regarded as one, because it has already become standard for all contemporary mainboards. Only three fan connectors is a drawback, but not a critical one. Difficulty with checking the status of Biostar G.P.U. technology is also a drawback, but it doesn’t interfere with the work of the technology and its ability to save power. Powerful cooling system may attract an unsophisticated user, but from a practical standpoint an excessively complex cooling system is in fact a drawback. Heatsinks may prevent you from using large processor coolers or interfere with their installation. There is no need for so many heatsinks of such large size and for the heatpipes between them, but we will have to pay extra for this extensive cooling solution when we purchase this mainboard. However, I have to admit that excessive cooling is still better than insufficient cooling. As for other drawbacks, we could also mention the absence of any LEDs indicating that the mainboard receives power at all.
To oppose these several drawbacks found by Biostar TPower I55 mainboard we can mention quite many great advantages. The design of this solution is pretty convenient for system assembly, the functionality of Intel P55 Express chipset has been extended with a number of additional useful controllers. Buttons, POST-code indicator, voltage control spots – all these little things are not a must but are always nice to have. They definitely make your experience with this mainboard much more convenient and make you feel more loyal to the manufacturer. In terms of technical characteristics and features Biostar TPower I55 is as good as the flagship solutions from other manufacturers and I personally liked it a lot.
Biostar TPower I55 mainboard uses AMI based BIOS. As it happens almost all the time, its BIOS has a number of unique peculiarities, but the first screen is simple and clear:
“Advanced” section is split into numerous sub-sections, many of which could have been combined together as they only contain one or two settings anyway.
When we first checked out the “CPU Configuration” sub-section, we were a little puzzled. We didn’t see the common parameter that would control extended processor power-saving modes called “C-STATE”. Intel Turbo Boost technology is closely connected with these modes, so does it mean that we no longer have the ability to limit the processor clock frequency multiplier increase when Intel Turbo Boost is activated? In this case we can state right away that it will not allow us to overclock our CPU to its maximum.
We were very pleased with “Hardware Health Configuration” sub-section when it came to voltages control. We know not only the processor core voltage and memory voltage, but also a number of other voltages, including the voltage of the North bridge part integrated into the CPU.
The settings for controlling the rotation speed of the processor cooling fan have been moved to an individual sub-section. Moreover, you can also calibrate it here. In this case the board finds out the maximum rotation speed of your fan, then the setting at which it starts spinning at all and then provides you with recommended settings for these parameters. You can use the recommended ones or change something on your own, or even set one of the pre-existing modes like “Quiet” or “Performance” without even going into calibration at all.
We don’t often check the “Boot” section, only if we need to. Of course, here you can arrange the order of boot-up devices that will be checked during system start as well as a number of corresponding settings that go with that. This time I would like to draw your attention to the last item here that allows turning off the speaker beeping after successful mainboard start. Biostar TPower I55 doesn’t have a built-in speaker, but if you have connected one during system assembly, the developers offer you the opportunity to disable it in the BIOS without opening up your system case.
I am extremely pleased every time I see the manufacturers pay such special attention to little things. Unfortunately, many mainboards with a built-in speaker-beeper, there is no option that would allow you to turn it off. If loud beeping annoys you or wakes up your sleeping baby, then the only way for you in this case is to solder it off or put a sticker over it.
Well, we have finally got to “O.N.E.” (Over-Clocking Navigator) section that contains almost all settings dealing with overclocking and increasing the system performance.
In Normal mode almost all parameters are set automatically. We can go to the sub-section called “Biostar Memory Insight” to check the memory timings recorded in the modules SPD.
Moreover, we can enable or disable power-saving technologies in the “G.P.U. Phase Control” sub-section: for the CPU and for the integrated part of the North Bridge separately.
The last parameter called “Integrated Memory Test” allows configuring the built-in memory test. You can launch it on every boot-up, remove completely or launch upon F11 hot key press.
“Over-Clocking Navigator” parameter can be set to “Automate OverClock” and in this case you can select one of the three preset overclocking profiles: “V6-Tech Engine”, “V8-Tech Engine» or “V12-Tech Engine”. In this case the base clock frequency will be increased to 135, 140 or 145 MHz accordingly. However, you can only get full access to all settings when you select “Manual OverClock” mode.
I assume you don’t have any questions about this section, everything should be pretty clear from the parameter names. Now we can increase the base clock, change the processor clock frequency multiplier and memory frequency. We should only check out a few remaining sub-sections. There is a separate “DRAM Timing Configuration” page where you can check out the current memory timings and adjust them to your liking if necessary.
The “Clock Gen Configuration” sub-section contains parameters related to the chipset operation.
The “Voltage Control” sub-section allows you not only to change voltages. Here you again see the current voltage settings and even temperatures, so that you don’t have to check them again in the “Hardware Health Configuration” section.
As for the actual voltages, the safe values are highlighted green, higher values – yellow, and dangerous values – red. Note that we do not set the actual processor Vcore here, but add the desired value to the nominal. In other words, even when you overclock your CPU by increasing its Vcore we should still have all Intel processor power-saving technologies up and running. There is also a parameter called “CPU Load Line” preventing the CPU voltage drop under heavy load.
The page called “Intel PPM Configuration” contains the parameters that disappeared from the “CPU Configuration” section and allow you to choose the processor power-saving mode.
Now to wind up our discussion of the Biostar TPower I55 BIOS features we only have to check out one more section called “Exit”.
Besides standard features, such as loading optimal BIOS settings, saving and exiting, or exiting without saving, you can also save and quickly load up to ten full BIOS settings profiles of your own. The date and time the profile was saved will be marked automatically, but you can also give the profiles their own unique names and descriptions.
I don’t know about you, but I am genuinely impressed with the functionality of Biostar TPower I55 BIOS. We have already come across all these parameters on other mainboards one way or another, but I can’t recall a single solution where we would see all of them together. We can change frequencies, timings and voltages, may select preset overclocking profiles, adjust processor cooling fan rotation speed and calibrate it, enable brand name power-saving technologies, save settings profiles with unique descriptive names, even turn off the speaker-beeper… You can check the timings recorded in the modules SPD and launch the built-in memory test. One has to get used to the parameters names and location, but the BIOS is overall very informative and extremely convenient to work with. I can’t think of anything that is missing in Biostar TPower I55 BIOS: everything you might ever need is right there, even more. Of course, we still have to see how all these functions actually work, but at this point there could be only one verdict: excellent!
We performed all our experiments on the following test platform:
We used Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (Microsoft Windows, Version 6.1, Build 7600) operating system, Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility version 9.1.1.1019, ATI Catalyst 9.9 graphics card driver.
Just like other mainboards, Biostar TPower I55 displays different info during POST. It is pretty unusual that here we have the whole bunch of options available by pressing hot keys from F9 to F12 including.
We already know about some of them: by pressing F11 you can launch the integrated memory test. Some other functions are pretty obvious: F9 displays a list where you can temporarily change the startup device. And what does “BIOSTAR easy OVER-CLOCK” stand for? I expected the opportunity to choose some of the preset processor overclocking profiles, for example, up to 3.6, 3.8 and 4.0 GHz. However, I was pretty surprised with what I saw after pressing F10.
We already know that Biostar guys like to use widely spread abbreviations and provide them with new unique meaning. For example, “G.P.U.” is not a graphics processing unit, as you may have thought, but “Green Power Utility” power-saving technology. Same way “O.M.G.” is not the abbreviation for “Oh, my god!”, but the short form for “OverClocking Matrix Genie”. We can change the base clock, PCI Express frequency and a few other parameters without even entering the BIOS.
Of course, this express-system can’t fully replace the original BIOS functionality. For example, we can’t change the memory frequency, which can become an issue during overclocking. However, it may still be useful while you are still figuring out the most optimal settings, when all you have to do is slightly lower or increase the base clock, slightly adjust the voltages.
Speaking of the fact that the BIOS of Biostar TPower I55 mainboard has everything necessary, I wasn’t completely honest. In fact, there is one thing missing: built-in BIOS reflashing utility. However, you can always launch it by pressing F12 on system boot-up. “BIO-Flasher” utility looks just like the older programs for updating the BIOS, which we used to run from floppies. Now everything is way faster, simpler and more convenient, you can even use a flash drive. The only thing this utility lacks is the opportunity to save the current BIOS version.
First of all, I would like to remind you that you can check out the basics, terminology and approximate overclocking algorithms in our earlier article called “Guide: Lynnfield Overclocking on Asus P7P55D Deluxe Mainboard”. Of course, we mostly focused on Asus mainboard and Intel Core i7-860 processor, but the basic overclocking principles typical of LGA1156 platform are the same on every mainboard and you will easily find the corresponding equivalents among the parameters of your mainboard and CPU.
Another thing I’d like to say about Biostar TPower I55 is connected with the automatic processor overclocking technology. I personally am very skeptical about mainboards functionality when it comes to automatic processor or memory overclocking. All overclocking modes of this kind on all mainboards are always a compromise between simplicity of use and efficiency that is why they are imperfect right from the start. Biostar mainboard is also no exception. However, I have to admit that I liked the way they addressed the implementation of this feature.
“Our mainboard will allow you to easily overclock your processor to 4.0 GHz without any effort of your part!” – you can often come across slogans like that is reference to other manufacturers’ solutions. I agree, it can overclock, but what will actually happen in this case? Base clock frequency increases to 200 MHz, the clock frequency multiplier locks at 20x, voltages are pushed up, memory frequency is pushed down, the rotation speed of the cooling fans increases to maximum. As a result, it is possible that we will end up with a system working at 4.0 GHz CPU frequency, but it will be noisy, the memory frequency will be lower, its timings will be higher just like the voltages, and all power-saving technologies will not work properly. If I only didn’t know that overclocking can in fact produce completely different results, I would totally hate it after automatic experience like that.
And what do we get from Biostar TPower I55? Yes, “V6-Tech Engine” mode when the base frequency increases from 133 to 135 MHz – is simply ridiculous and can hardly be considered overclocking. As we know from our ASRock P55 Deluxe review, ASRock engineers do not consider even 141 MHz frequency an overclocking. However, the “V8-Tech Engine” or “V12-Tech Engine” are way better in this respect. You will see the performance increase not only in benchmarks. Moreover, you will still have Intel Turbo Boost technology as well as Intel and Biostar proprietary power-saving technologies all available to you. Of course, you can achieve even better results during conventional overclocking: you can raise the processor clock frequency higher as well as the memory frequency, maybe you will even be able to lower the memory timings… But we did warn you that all automatic overclocking algorithms are imperfect to begin with, but we really like the way Biostar implemented their vision of automatic overclocking. The user doesn’t lose anything, he only gains and is rewarded with a noticeably faster working system. It not overclocking at any rate for the sake of record-breaking numbers, but real overclocking, though not very high one. If you want to achieve maximum possible speed in these particular conditions or the most optimal system performance, then you must overclock manually.
This process kicked off to a very cheerful and optimistic start. The mainboard worked fine at base clock frequency increased to 210 MHz with a lower multiplier. And after that everything stalled. I tried to overclock the processor to 3.95 GHz – the result we got for the same processor on Asus and Gigabyte mainboards – but I couldn’t get even close to the desired result. Even with a way lower overclocking without touching the voltage I couldn’t achieve stability, just like I couldn’t during numerous overclocking attempts with significantly increased voltage setting. Finally, I noticed that although the processor Vcore was set higher in the mainboard BIOS, it remained suspiciously low in reality. “CPU Load Line” function preventing the voltage from dropping under heavy load was on, but I decided to undertake a very paradoxical move and disable it. And that solved all the problems. It turned out that there is the gravest but pretty silly typo in the BIOS: Vdroop protection is on when “CPU Load Line” is set to “Disabled” and is off when it is set to “Enabled”. And I was even surprised to see this feature enabled by default. In reality it was disabled all along although it looked just the opposite.
Now that we have disabled “CPU Load Line”, which in fact enabled the Vdroop protection, the board started acting normally. Biostar TPower I55 still couldn’t work stably with the CPU overclocked to 3.95 GHz, but only 50 MHz lower result, 3.9 GHz, is still very good.
The mainboard kept all Intel processor power-saving technologies up and running, even despite overclocking. Both, the CPU multiplier as well as Vcore, were lowered in idle mode.
I would like to point out a few other things connected with “CPU Load Line” function. When it is enabled, “Biostar G.P.U.” power-saving technology dealing with the processor voltage regulator phases partially stops working, although dynamic adjustment of the active phases for the integrated North Bridge stays up and running normally. And one more thing. When this protection is disabled, the mainboard doesn’t increase the multiplier of our Intel Core i7-860 processor to 22x under heavy load leaving it at the nominal 21x. During overclocking we enable this protection that is why this peculiarity doesn’t affect the performance in any way. However, Vdroop protection is disabled by default that is why we noticed that Biostar TPower I55 was falling tangibly behind other mainboards. However, we are going to talk more about performance and power consumption in the next parts of our review.
We have already discussed Intel Turbo Boost technology many times and said that it can adjust the Lynnfield processors’ clock frequency multiplier within a very wide range. In fact, we can say that our Intel Core i7-860 CPU never really works with its nominal multiplier of 21x. when only one processor core is utilized, its multiplier may increase up to 26x, when all cores are loaded equally, the multiplier increases only to 22x and in idle mode drops to 9x. However, when our CPU worked with Biostar TPower I55 mainboard, we did notice a few differences. If the Vdroop protection is off and it is disabled by default, the multiplier doesn’t increase under heavy load and remains at the nominal 21x.
I don’t know which behavior pattern should be considered correct, maybe we have to test our Intel processor in an Intel mainboard first. However, it is obvious that under heavy operational load our CPU working in Biostar TPower I55 mainboard in the nominal mode will run slower than on other mainboards. Let’s compare the performance of two systems built around Biostar TPower I55 and Asus P7P55D Deluxe mainboards to get a better idea of the performance differences. We chose the Asus board, because it plays fairly, just like Biostar solution, and doesn’t increase the base clock like Gigabyte and especially ASRock.
The average lagging between Biostar TPower I55 and Asus P7P55D Deluxe is about 2 %. Performance difference is maximal and reaches 5% in heavy applications loading processors seriously, like Cinebench and Fritz. However, we see Biostar TPower I55 falling behind even in SuperPi. So, it looks like the CPU doesn’t often work with 26x multiplier on Biostar TPower I55 mainboard either, does it? But things change when we enable Vdroop protection. In this case, the CPU on Biostar mainboard works just like it would on any other board. We don’t need to enable Vdroop protection in nominal mode, that is why let’s only check out the results obtained during CPU overclocking. This time Biostar TPower I55 will compete against ASRock P55 Deluxe, since both these mainboards allowed overclocking our processor to the same 3.9 GHz:
As you see, both systems perform almost equally fast. The only noticeable difference is in the multi-threaded Custom PC Bench 2007 test. It is hard to say what caused it. The test archives some data during simultaneous video playback. The results could be affected by different HDD modes set by each of the boards, or it is simply a measuring error from the benchmark. However, almost identical results obtained in all other tests indicate clearly that Biostar TPower I55 mainboard performs just as good as other mainboard.
Now it is time to check out the performance numbers and perform the comparison in two different system modes. First of all we would like to see the boards’ results in nominal mode, when the boards set the most optimal parameters on their own, without any help from the user. Due to Turbo Boost technology the clock frequency multiplier of our Intel Core i7-860 processor could increase to 26x. The second comparison was performed during maximum processor overclocking. This time we disabled extended processor power-saving modes in the mainboard BIOS using “C-STATE” parameter, which limited the maximum processor clock frequency multiplier setting with 22x. In this case the CPU could work at higher base clock than with 26x multiplier, which means that we end up with higher resulting performance although it happens at the expense of higher power consumption in idle mode. Our today’s hero will be competing against previously tested ASRock P55 Deluxe, Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 and Asus P7P55D Deluxe. The mainboards are listed on the diagrams in the order in which they were tested. The results of Biostar TPower I55 mainboard are marked with a little darker color for your convenience.
In the previous part of our today’s review we have explained why Biostar TPower I55 falls behind its competitors in nominal mode but performs just as fast during processor overclocking, that is why we are not surprised with the obtained results. Lower performance and lag are no good, but we are not discouraged by these results. We know that Biostar TPower I55 will perform just as fast as other mainboards even in the nominal mode if we enable protection against processor voltage drop under heavy load. However, our power consumption tests showed that things are in fact not so simple.
We measured power consumption using Extech Power Analyzer 380803 device. This device was connected before the system PSU, i.e. it measured the power consumption of the entire system without the monitor, including the power losses that occur in the PSU itself. When we took the power readings in idle mode, the system was completely idle: there were even no requests sent to the hard drive at that time. We used LinX program to load the Intel Core i7-860 CPU. For more illustrative picture we created a graph showing the power consumption growth depending on the increase in CPU utilization as the number of active computational threads in LinX changed in nominal mode as well as during overclocking. Besides Biostar TPower I55 we also included the results for all previously tested LGA1156 mainboards.
Look what an interesting situation we see on the diagrams. Even during CPU overclocking Biostar TPower I55 mainboard is more energy-efficient than its competitors. Only in idle mode ASRock solution catches up with it but under any type of operational load Biostar board consumes less energy. In nominal mode the difference between the tested mainboards becomes even more obvious. Vdroop protection is disabled because we don’t need it in nominal mode, but in this case Turbo Boost technology works on all mainboards even under heavy loads and it increases their multiplier to 22x. The boards usually increase the processor core voltage a little bit to ensure that it remains stable at higher clock speeds. Biostar TPower I55 leaves the multiplier at 21x that is why it is slower than all other mainboards. But it also doesn’t increase the CPU Vcore that is why the difference in power consumption is so dramatic especially under heavy load.
And what will happen if we enable Vdroop protection in the nominal mode? We don’t have these results on the diagrams, but we did run this experiment. The mainboards will perform equally fast and their power consumption will also become the same, and under maximum load Biostar solution will consume even more power than the others. So, should we or should we not enable “CPU Load Line” on Biostar TPower I55 in the nominal mode? You will have to answer this question yourselves depending on your preferences and typical usage model. If you are looking for an energy-efficient system and a 5% lower performance in heavy applications compared with other mainboards is not an issue, then you shouldn’t enable this function. If you would like to have your system run as fast as systems on other mainboards and you are not concerned with higher power consumption under maximum work load, then you’d better enable this protection.
The CD disk that comes with Biostar TPower I55 mainboard contains all necessary drivers, electronic versions of all manuals and additional applications and tools. There you can find DirectX, Adobe Reader a trial version of BullGuard Internet Security, however we are primarily interested in Biostar’s brand name programs. The first utility that we checked out was “Biostar Flash”. WE used it to save the current BIOS version because the built-in BIOS reflashing tool called “BIO-Flasher” doesn’t allow to do it. Biostar Flash can search for updates on its own that is why if you are using Microsoft Windows it is pretty easy to work with.
The next program is called “BIOScreen Utility” and is designed to help you replace the boot-up logo. There is not much we can say about it. It is all very simple. You load the image, the program adjusts its resolution and color depth. After that you save the file and insert a new logo into the BIOS.
As for the “Green Power Utility” program, we didn’t like it that much. It is not as useless as the similar ASRock utility, it allows changing power-saving modes, but look how bad it actually looks! Confusing interface, washed out lettering – very untidy implementation.
When we tried to minimize the program it didn’t disappear but started to show graphs. This is what the minimized version of it looks like:
I didn’t really understand right away that by clicking on a large white square in the upper right corner of the screen I could bring the utility back to its normal size and humongous “X” sign would in fact close the program. Has it been made for users with poor eyesight or for those who are not completely sober to ensure that they will get it on first attempt?
The next program called “T-Power2” brought us even more negative experience.
It combines four utilities. We have already seen one of them – it is called “Biostar Flash” for updating the BIOS. The second utility is called “eHot-Line” and it helps you contact technical support service.
This utility collects system info and then you can add anything else you consider important to it and describe the problem you are having.
The third program is called “OC Tweaker” and it is intended for overclocking from Windows. You know that I am very cautious about utilities like that, but I would never trust my system stability to such a sloppily designed tool.
However, the worst one was “BIO-Watch” monitoring program. As soon as I launched it, the utility started calibrating the CPU cooling fan and left it at 1850 RPM. Trust me, it is too high and too loud and I was absolutely happy with the results of fan calibration I had previously performed from the BIOS. It provided quiet operation in idle mode and sufficient processor cooling during overclocking.
Overall, “T-Power2” set of tools is extremely bulky, inconvenient to work with and sloppily implemented. They do offer alternative program skins that they hardly make things any better.
Besides, skin changing feature also doesn’t work too well: you can notice that some windows retain the old color scheme anyway.
The best utility could probably be “T-Overclocker”, if they finish it off nicely.
As you see, there are no annoying extras, the program doesn’t overload you with useless animation or crazy colors.
They should pay a little more attention to the fonts, use the available window space in a more optimal way. In this case the program will not be just useful but also pleasant to work with.
Of course, ease of use is not the only thing we are interested in. we also care about the credibility of the info and proper operation of the offered functions. For some reason, I have hard time believing that our Intel Core i7-860 processor could in fact work at 30 MHz frequency. In other words, they still have a lot of homework to work on with their “T-Overclocker” tool.
Well, this is the complete list of applications and tools that come with Biostar TPower I55 mainboard, but far not the full list of comments about Biostar software. Why can we only download “Green Power Utility” and “T-Overclocker” from the official company web-site? Where are the other tools and utilities? Where can I find them if I lost or damaged my CD disk? Why don’t the programs ask where to install before installation? What if I would prefer to install them on drive E: or D:? Why don’t they confirm if the utilities should be installed only for the current user or for all computer users? I don’t think I will be happy if my little son will have the opportunity to update the BIOS or change the power-saving modes whenever he wishes. Moreover, after successful installation I couldn’t find a way to launch “BIOScreen Utility”. It was not in the list of installed programs, there was no icon on the desktop, so I had to find where it actually got installed and launch it manually. Overall, I have to admit that at this point Biostar’s brand name software makes it difficult to have a positive experience with Biostar TPower I55 mainboard.
Despite everything Biostar TPower I55 mainboard makes a very good overall impression. I didn’t like its enormous “golden” box, but you can always put it away and it is definitely not the reason to lower the total score for this product. Biostar has a lot of issues with their brand name software, and even though “T-Overclocker” tool does have some potential, it hasn’t been yet implemented properly. However, no one can make you use these utilities, there are a lot of suitable alternatives available these days. Nevertheless, the board has very good design if we disregard a few insignificant drawbacks and an overcomplicated cooling system. As for the BIOS functionality, they seem to be quite common and familiar, but the fact their remarkable combination is something truly unique. Yes, there is a serious issue with the “CPU Load Line” parameter, but in reality it is none other but a silly mistake. The actual function works perfectly fine and fixing it shouldn’t take much time.
Things are a little more complicated when it comes to performance and overclocking. The mainboard did formally good during overclocking having achieved the same maximum frequency as ASRock solution and just a little lower than Gigabyte and Asus solutions. Its performance is at about the same level as that of the competitors, but it is a little confusing that we have to enable “CPU Load Line” to achieve it, otherwise, the specific implementation of Intel Turbo Boost will cause the board to run slower. This lower performance is compensated by higher energy-efficiency, so you will have to choose between speed and low power consumption, even though you will definitely want to have both. Maybe they will eventually optimize these complex and not quite obvious connections, but at this point it makes more sense to use Biostar TPower I55 as a basis for an energy-efficient system for use in nominal mode. Although in some cases its performance may be a little lower than that of similar solutions, but it will consume way less power. Moreover, it will be a perfect fit for CPU overclocking too, as in this case it is both: pretty fast and economical. Overall, Biostar TPower I55 is a good mainboard!