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BIOSTAR TPOWER I55 Motherboard Review

BIOSTAR, a company often overlooked by enthusiast users, emerges with its P55 based motherboard. The TPOWER I55 packs enough power under the hood to put some fear in to the competition. This is not the first good enthusiast motherboard we have seen from BIOSTAR.

Introduction

BIOSTAR ranks among the long time, little known motherboard manufacturers here in the US. Based in mainland China, BIOSTAR has made a name for itself in the mainstream overseas market, with its products at times piquing the interest of the enthusiast crowd. In the last couple of years, it has delivered innovative designs paralleling those of ASUS and MSI and drawing the attention of the enthusiast crowd to them by doing this. Their newest motherboard follows this trend rather nicely.

The BIOSTAR TPOWER I55 board uses the Intel P55 chipset for supporting the LGA1156 based Intel processor. In using the Intel P55 chipset, the TPOWER I55 integrates the following technological support into its design: Intel LGA 1156 Core i7 and Core i5 processors, DDR3 memory operating in Dual Channel mode up to 1333MHz officially, and either NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFireX graphics mode using matching video cards.

BIOSTAR designed the following integrated devices in to the board: 6 SATA II ports (RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 capable) on the Intel P55 controller; 2 e-SATA ports (RAID 0, 1, and 0+1 capable), and 1 ATA-133 IDE port on the JMicron JMB363 controller; 14 USB 2.0 capable ports (8 in rear panel, and 3 onboard headers supporting 2 ports each); 2 IEEE 1394 capable port (1 in rear panel, and 1 onboard header supporting 1 port each); 1 Intel GigE Ethernet port and 1 Realtek GigE Ethernet port in the rear panel; Realtek 8-channel HD audio codec with integrated S/PDIF optical and RCA component output ports; integrated power and reset buttons; 2 digit diagnostic LED display; and a PS/2 keyboard port in the rear panel.

Main Specifications Overview:

Detailed Mainboard Specification List:

Packaging

BIOSTAR chose a simplistic eye catching gold reflective design for its box, with the board name and supported technologies prominently displayed across its front. Bundled in with the board are the following accessories: a ribbon IDE cable; SATA drive and power cables; the rear panel shield; 2-way NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFireX connectors; and the normal complement of manuals and drivers discs.

Board Layout

BIOSTAR did a fine job with the design and layout of the TPOWER I55, with no real overly tight areas, and sinks covering all major power centers and board chipsets. However, airflow was necessary over the heat pipe assembly in order to keep the temperatures under control. The board serial number is located on a white sticker just under the CMOS battery, located in between the primary and secondary PCI-Express x16 slots. The board revision is located to the left of the secondary PCI-Express x16 slot, silk screened to the board’s surface. The board revision tested was a version 5.1. BIOSTAR chose to use aluminum solid-state capacitors for the board’s power needs.

The CPU socket area is free of obstructions, with sinks and power components placed far enough away so as not to be an issue. As is standard for most P55 based boards, the TPOWER I55 uses the standard LGA1156 4-hole based mechanism to fix the cooler to the CPU. The 8-pin ATX12V power connector is located to the upper left of the socket, with the 4-pin CPU_FAN1 header located to its lower right. Note that LEDs indicating the board’s power phase are located to the right and above the CPU socket, numbered from PH_LED1 to PH_LED8.

The 4 DDR3 based memory slots are located just under the CPU socket area, with Dual Channel memory mode active with DIMMs placed in like colored slots. Note that the orange colored slots are designated as the primary slot set. Just below the memory slots are the 24-pin ATX power connector and the onboard ATA-133 IDE port.

The TPOWER I55’s P55 chipset is located underneath the 2 onboard PCI-Express x16 slots. The chipset itself is cooled by a large low profile sink, which also acts as a termination point for the board’s heat pipe cooling solution. The chipset controlled SATA2 ports are located directly under the chipset, with the ports rotated 90 degrees to make cable insertion and organization easier. To the right of these SATA 2 ports is the SYS_FAN2 header, while the onboard power and reset buttons are to their left. Just above the power and reset buttons is the 2-digit diagnostic display. This diagnostic display is useful in decoding system initialization and boot related issues, with a legend for the displayed codes located in the user manual. The front panel header is located in the lower left corner of the board, with the SYS_FAN1, USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 headers above it along the board’s edge. The CMOS reset jumper is located to the inside right of the uppermost USB 2.0 header.

BIOSTAR chose to incorporate 6 total card slots in to the TPOWER I55 - 2 PCI-Express x16 slots, 1 PCI-Express x4 slot, 1 PCI-Express x1 slot, and 2 PCI slots. Along the outside edge of PCI slot 2 are the floppy port, S/PDIF output and front panel audio headers. The CD_IN header is located just above the secondary PCI-Express x16 slot, while the CMOS batter is located just below the PCI-Express x1 slot. The battery placement makes it tricky to get to with a video card mated to the primary PCI-Express x16 slot.

The TPOWER I55’s rear panel includes the following integrated ports: 1 PS/2 keyboard port; 8 USB 2.0 ports; 2 e-SATA ports; 1 IEEE 1394 port; 1 Intel GigE Ethernet port (located closer to the digital audio ports); 1 Realtek GigE Ethernet port (located closer to the analogue audio ports); and 6 analogue and S/PDIF optical and RCA component audio output ports.

BIOSTAR Toverclocker

BIOSTAR chose to include their Toverclocker utility for Windows based board monitoring and feature tweaking on their driver disc, with version 0.9.0.3 shown. The application is very similar in appearance to CPU-Z, with its features divided in to a series of tabbed menus. The CPU tab contains general information concerning the boards various component speeds, BIOS information, and CPU specific information. The Memory tab displays specific concerning the current memory in use, with details provided on a per slot basis.

The OC Tweaker tab gives access to the various overclocking mechanism. The Frequency sub-tab allows for direct control over the base clock and PCI-Express bus frequencies, while the Voltage sub-tab contains options for controlling the various board voltage settings. BIOS controlled overclocking is available via the Mode sub-tab, with a total of 6 configurations available ranging from V3 to V15.

The HW Monitor tab houses statistics on all monitored device settings in a series of sub-tabs. The monitored voltages are listed in the Voltage sub-tab. The Fan Speed sub-tab contains speeds for all connected fan devices, as well as calibration settings for the CPU Smart Fan feature. The BIOS monitored device temperatures are listed within the Temperature sub-tab.