Value AM2 testing: Biostar Tforce 550, Sempron 3600+, Mushkin HP5300

[JNav89GT]

Got the biostar board, just wanted to get some pics up of the package and contents before I start the build. Sorry to tease with the title, don't have results yet. But wanted to post this to motivate myself to keep it going instead of finding other projects to work on .

I feel that the sempron am2 will be a great budget gamers platform. While no Conroe or A64 crusher, most gamers are more bang for the $$$ people, hence the wild popularity of the 1700+AXP a few moons ago. Getting back to sub $100 cpus and affordable motherboards, let's find out if this setup can hold a candle to more top tier rigs.

Follow me in the coming days/weeks to see what unfolds.

Quickly I need to know what vid card u want me to put in this system:
choices are 6800gt, 7800gt, x800gto, x800gto2 flashed to 16 pipes(least I still think it's working lol). X850XT, X1800XT, X1900XT.
I'm leaning towards a x800gto or X850 as they are good all around performers and more indicitive of a budget oriented type card. Ideally I'd have a 7600gt or one of the newer midline ATI's but I do not have those cards.

Will run
super pi 1m
super pi 32m
3Dmark01
3Dmark03
maybe 3Dmark06 not sure yet

not trying to set the world on fire with benches, just show some basic difference between a full X2 AM2 version and this setup. See what differences are performance wise, and let u all be the judge of the price/performance.



starting with the board and initial pre-build impressions. I think I paid like $82 or so give or take a few$$$. Not shabby for a new board and new platform. To be honest I'm a bit ignorant about what differences are inherent between the 550/570/590 series boards, but nothing like a little curiosity to help cure an itch. The board appears to be nice and compact. Present is a little mesh bag that contains the cables, disks etc... Maybe usable as a little lan trinket holder I dunno. Gone are 2 comm/seriel ports, and the LPT1/printer port. One Seriel port is left, but tbh I wouldn't care if that left too. 6 USB ports are present, which should be enough for most users. However, USB whores may need to get a USB hub if they have >6 devices. Layout of the board is acceptable. Component quality seems fair given price point. I don't think we'll confuse this board with a flagship model, then again, it's light years ahead of certain cough cough ECS K7S5A boards of years ago LOL. One thing I really don't like about newer intel boards and AM2 AMD boards is the limitation of one IDE channel. Would it really be difficult to retain 2 IDE channels/ports on the board? This limits the end user seeking best performance for certain to a SATA drive as sharing an IDE HD and an Optical drive ie CDROM on the same channel is a recepie for disaster at least if you want to burn cd/dvd's. This is just my 2cents, and fwiw it may work well enough, but I wouldn't want to take the chance, maybe it's just me. Otherwise, I think we have a solid board, at least to look at. Color is agreeable, and wouldn't look bad with a case window to peer into this as a base board for a system. The box elludes to some overclocking tid bits, so let's hope the engineers at biostar didn't forget about us in the lunatic frindge. Woot!

[Absolute_0]

Use the X850XT, it covers X800GTO^2 flashed, and based on its performance it's easy to predict where the entire X800 and X850 lines land. It's about the right performance level for someone on a Sempy system.

Looking forward to the review, hope these sempies can clock.

[aspevacek]

With the luck I have had out of my Sempron and T-Force 6100, I am trying to locate the BioStar 590 Sli Deluxe for my next build. I expect good things to come from BioStar in the future.

[JNav89GT]

ok tons of pics to follow
bios is very easy to navigate, have rich rich rich READ DFI type adjustability. Also CMOS reloaded . Baby DFI =Biostar??????????
to save a bit of time I'll skip to the juicey parts
overclocking section



HOLY COW look at VCORE :O, Hopefully Opp doesn't get ahold of this board, AM2 cpus beware LOL

Decent voltage for ram, but wait we might have more later!!!!!!!!!!!

[JNav89GT]

more pics

[Vincentvega18]

looks nice, especially core voltage, so more memory voltages unlockable?

[JNav89GT]

more bios stuffs

[JNav89GT]

getting tired of posting LOL

[JNav89GT]

if bios didn't have so many damm timings LOL, I could quit posting

[JNav89GT]

ugh, still going!

[JNav89GT]

and more

[perkam]

Keep it coming !!

Perkam

[JNav89GT]

last few bios shots
sorry pics a bit out of order
1st shot view of the bios reloaded
2-4 to explain, max memclock allows you to select ddr2 divider as seen below
last should be integrated memory test opens up to memtest 1.6

[JNav89GT]

biostar no likie this cd rom


I get this error


Now this is interesting , wonder what it does, will check on it later

[perkam]

I love your 2007FPW Srry couldn't resist

I have this board as recommended for AM2 Value rigs here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=101396

A great value. Let's just see if it can perform

Perkam

[^s3]

Awesome stuff. Can't wait to see how it performs.

[danmoody]

i also think some good things will be coming out from biostar i love my 6100-939

[Lestat]

yeah the 6100-939 mATX board was a really nice little board but really was hurting above 275HTT for so many people.

that bios is Insane,, i mean seriously if a company like Biostar can put out a bios like that then god damn it there is no friggin reason in the world why everyone else out there cant do the same damn thing.

GO GO BIOSTAR!!!

i think we are all awaiting your test results with that crazy cheap Sempron!

keep us posted

[metro.cl]

great but show us some benchs soon

[stealth17]

YGPM JNav89GT

Should have said something about the onboard power and reset buttons!!! Very handy!

Looks like a decent board for the price. If it proves stabilty, it might be a nice board for an office rig. Then you will always have some options if you want to play too.

-=Off Topic=- Lestat, what's up man? You back on the horse?

[JNav89GT]

yeah forgot to mention the buttons, was going to but so much other stuff I overlooked mentioning it!

[DPGX]

My 3000+ just came as well, (Athlon 64). My board --- MSI K9N Platinum sucked thoroughly with SPD ram timings and default voltages (1.8v). Ive got Corsair XMS2 PC5400, and it just wouldnt take. Bumped the voltage to the recommended 1.9v and all has been well after manually setting my ram timings. My only complaint is this retail heatsink its pretty sad looking. I definitely need to do something about this -- wish zalman would offer a bracket so I could use my 9500.

[i found nemo]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...2&d=1149205477

lol that heatsink looks like the one that came on my fx5200 a while back.

also i see it says timings per dimm... so it's possible to run 2.5 cas ram with 1.5 cas ram without changing timings? each stick has it's own timing?

[JNav89GT]

few other items
Socket 939/940 heatsinks will work on AM2 IF IF IF they use the center clips of the heatsink retention bracket. I would think that heatsinks that use the 3 clips of the 939/754/940 bracket would work too, however, might not be optimal. Heatsinks requring anything to do with screwing into the old 2 hole space are a definate no go. Clipped heatsinks as above should all work, but might not if heatpipes hit the new bracket. Sorry to be confusing, it's readily apparent if you have one in front of you, just hard for me to describe.

[i found nemo]

a64 freezer should work perfectly long as the height of the yellow retainer is the same, or smaller.