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Biostar T-Force TP35D3-A7 Dlx


Date
: 09/3/07 – 04:07:19 AM

Author
:

Category
: Motherboard

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
Biostar Microtech International Corp.

Price:
$169.99USD (Newegg.com)

The changing of the guard is in effect right now and will be again in a few months, then again a few months after that, and again a few months after that. The life cycle of computer hardware has never been that long and that trend has not changed over the last few years with new chipsets and technologies coming out seemingly every other quarter. Today, not only will I be looking at the latest in a long line of successful Intel chipsets, but also the latest in memory technology all wrapped up in one great looking Biostar package.

Biostar has danced around the pages of Overclockers Online a few times in the past in the form of AM2 motherboards and a couple different video cards. Biostar has been producing motherboards for a long time and built up a very successful business in doing so. With success comes the ability to produce specialized motherboards for a specific segment of the market and that has led to the creation of the T-Series from Biostar. The T-Series of motherboards has quickly created a reputation for some exciting platforms with every offering progressively increasing in ability and performance.

We have recently looked at a couple of AM2 based Biostar T-Series motherboards here at Overclockers Online but today I break that mold and dip my toe into the Intel paddling pool with the exciting Intel P35 based TP35D3-A7 Deluxe from the Biostar T-Series shelf. Aside from being based on the latest Intel P35 chipset, the D3 in the name (TP35
D3
-A7) denotes that this particular platform utilizes extremely cutting edge DDRIII memory. This will be my first foray into the world of DDRIII memory but from the looks of the TP35D3-A7 and the history of the T-Series from Biostar, I should have an excellent platform on my hands to get acquainted with DDRIII.

Page 2 : Package & Contents

Packaging for computer hardware, or any electronics for that matter, has almost become obsolete and an afterthought. In a world where on-line retailers rule the roost, it is a wonder that manufacturers don't just wrap everything up in a plain brown box. I guess consumers still like a pretty package to show up from their courteous FedEx driver.

The Biostar package, aside from being quite large, is a typical motherboard package with a unique design and some stickers representing the technology inside. As I mentioned, the Biostar motherboard boxes I have received are large measuring almost 16" in length. This means, they don't fit with the pile of other motherboard boxes that measure around 13" long. The size is my only gripe really as the design of the box is quite nice and elegant.

There is enough information on the front to provide the educated consumer with the knowledge of what technologies are incorporated into the hardware inside. The stickers shown here clearly outline the P35 chipset and support for all the latest Intel CPUs as well as being Vista ready, which at this point in the game, is a given.

The back of the package is quite baron with the design from the front spilling over to the rear. There is a little bit of information back here regarding a few of the "proprietary" features that Biostar has incorporated into this motherboard, but it certainly isn't a cluttered mess of specifications like traditionally seen on the backside of a motherboard box.

Last but not least, the leading edge of the package sports the retailer friendly "specification sticker" which provides a little more detail into what this motherboard has on-board. For those that know what they are looking for, this little sticker can provide a fair bit of information should you be shopping locally and not on-line and is really the only source of specifications on the package.

Upon removing the main package from the decorative sleeve and lifting the lid, we are greeted with two compartments neatly placed inside. Another instance of the T-Series logo is found here which is clearly the focal point of the Biostar package design team as this logo is on nearly every side of the package up until this point.

Inside each compartment we find a fairly robust selection of accessories and literature but there is nothing that immediately catches my eye as being a huge bonus. From what I can see here, it is a pretty standard accessory package that includes all the usual suspects including data cables, power adapters, a manual, a driver CD, and an external bracket.

Upon further investigation, I removed from the package the following:

• 1 x IDE Cable (rounded sleeve)

• 1 x FDD Cable
• 6 x SATA Cable
• 6 x SATA Power Cable
• 1 x S/PDIF External PCI Slot Bracket
• 1 x Real I/O Panel
• 1 x Driver CD
• 1 x User Manual

The six SATA cables and accompanying SATA power cables are a bit odd but at least Biostar wants to make sure you can use all of the six available onboard SATA headers right out of the box without getting hosed from local retailers charging 100x what it costs Biostar to throw these in for us.

Upon pulling out the accessory boxes, it immediately becomes evident as to why the package is so large. Biostar has sacrificed size for security of the most important piece inside, the motherboard. Securely surrounded by a one inch cardboard protective barrier, inside the anti-static bag, the TP35D3-A7 is definitely not going to be damaged in transport. I have never really seen damage to any motherboard because of a lack of packaging but this Biostar unit is certainly not going to be the first. Lets now take a closer look at the specifications and features of this motherboard and chipset.

Page 3 : Specifications & Features

The heart of any motherboard is the chipset and the Biostar T-Force TP35D3-A7 is based on the Intel P35 Express chipset, codenamed Bearlake. The term Bearlake covers a number of chipsets including the integrated graphic chipsets (G31, G33, G35), business orientated chipsets (Q33, and Q35), as well as P35, and the soon to be released X38. The P35 Express is the latest mainstream chipset from Intel and the successor to the P965 Express chipset sporting many of the same features, and limitations, as the P965 with a few updates. The most notable of differences is the support of 45nm dual and quad core processors, official 1333MHz system bus speed support, and DDRII or DDRIII capabilities. The P35 is also paired with the ICH9R southbridge as opposed to the ICH8R that the P965 was mated with.

The chart above outlines all the capabilities of the P35/ICH9R and if you were to compare this to the P965 map, it wouldn't look much different. Obviously the TP35D3-A7 utilizes the new DDRIII support but Biostar has also released a DDRII version of this motherboard but the DDRIII model I am looking at today is clearly the flagship from Biostar of the P35 line-up. We will now see how Biostar has incorporated the above P35 features into the T-Force TP35D3-A7.

The Biostar Web Site does an excellent job outlying all of the specifications and features of the TP35D3-A7 so I will simply borrow information from it and present it here for you. This is the complete list of specifications:

MEMORY

• Support Dual DDR3 667/800/1066/1333 MHz

• 4 x DDR3 DIMM Memory Slot
• Max. Supports up to 8GB Memory

This should be the standard memory support for all DDRIII P35 motherboards so there are no surprises here, how the board handles 4 sticks of memory filling all of the slots is another issue all together. If enough DDRIII memory shows up before I wrap this review up, I will be sure to see how it handles a 4x1gb setup.

EXPANSION SLOT

• 2 x PCI Slots

• 3 x PCI-E x1 Slot
• 1 x PCI-E x16 Slot

The lack of a second PCI-E x16 slot doesn't really bother or surprise me all that much. Some users may complain and wish for the second physical x16 slot for ATI Crossfire support but I don't find it necessary. You see, the P35 Express chipset, like the P965 chipset, lacks the ability to run both physical PCI-E x16 at even dual x8. Instead, it runs them at x16 and x4 which leads to significant performance loss for high end ATI GPUs. The probable reason for this is marketing as the flagship chipset, X38, will obviously be the only chipset that Intel wants running dual x16 PCI-E slots.

I/O

• 1 x PS/2 mouse

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard
• 6 x USB 2.0 Ports
• 3 x USB 2.0 Headers
• 2 x LAN Port
• 6 x Audio Port
• 6 x SATA2 3Gb/s Connector
• 2 x eSATA Connector by Marvell 88SE6162
• 2 x eSATA2 3Gb/s Connector
• 1 x IDE Connector by Marvell 88SE6162
• 1 x Front Audio Header
• 1 x CD-IN Header
• 1 x S/PDIF-IN Header
• 1 x S/PDIF-OUT Header
• 1 x CPU FAN Header
• 1 x North Bridge FAN Header
• 1 x System FAN Header
• 1 x Printer Header
• 1 x Serial Header

I won't go into too much detail with this list as I will cover all of the connections here while going over the layout, but I would like to at least mention a great big thank-you to Biostar for not cutting out the PS/2 mouse connector like some "other" manufacturers have done with their P35 based motherboards. While forcing consumers to use a USB mouse may sound like a good idea, there is absolutely nothing holding back mouse development by sticking with a PS/2 connection and KVM users such as myself won't be left out in the cold with our rather expensive multi-port PS/2 KVM switches.

INTEGRATED AUDIO

• Realtek ALC888 8+2-Channel HD Audio

  GbELAN

• 2 x Marvell 88E8056 – Integrated 10/100/1000 Transceiver

  Integrated audio is handled by the Realtek ALC888 codec and the dual gigabit network connections are powered by dual Marvell 88E8056 controllers which have features such as virtual cable testing and wake-on-LAN support. I will mention that the dual gigabit LAN connections are an upgrade from the single gigabit network connection offered with the P965/ICH8R chipset.

  HARDWARE MONITOR FUNCTION

  • CPU Voltage

  • CPU Fan Speed
  • DIMM Voltage
  • CPU Temperature

  It appears that there will be an appropriate reporting IC somewhere on the motherboard that I will no doubt search out on the next page when we look at the layout. The key point listed here is that the vDIMM will be able to report to Windows. Unfortunately that will only be readable by the Biostar software which likely won't be too screenshot friendly, perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised.

  RAID

• Support RAID: 0,1,0+1,5

  The RAID options of RAID0, RAID1, RAID 0+1, and RAID5 should satisfy all of those out there looking for greater redundancy or speed in their storage solutions without having to go to additional expansion cards. Whether or not the RAID functions perform at an acceptable level will be determined in testing.

  OS SUPPORT

• Support Windows 2000 / XP / XP 64 / Vista / Vista 64

  SIZE

• ATX Form Factor Dimension: 24.38cm X 30.48cm ( W x L )

  As the package showed with one of the stickers in the lower right hand corner, Windows Vista is fully supported by the TP35D3-A7 and I am happy to say that Biostar already has appropriate drivers for all of the onboard hardware for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista and XP.

  
  Page 4 : Layout
  

  We have looked at enough photos of the package and talked enough about the specifications and features, it is time to finally take a good look at the motherboard itself and see what it has to offer. I know, I know, it is about time…let's see what we have here.

  

  Right out of the gate I can safely say that this layout is excellent. There are obviously a couple concerns with the heatpipe setup around the socket but overall, everything is where it should be. All connectors are towards the outside edges of the board and the memory slots appear to be off on their own, perhaps slightly too close to the x16 PCI-E slot but it shouldn't be a big issue.

  

  As always, I will start the fly over at the CPU socket area and work my way around the board in a clockwise fashion. The 8-pin EPS connector for CPU power is right at the top of the board tucked in-between the rear I/O connections and the PWM heatsink near the edge of the board where it should be. The heatpipe/heatsink setup that engulphs the socket area may come into play with CPU cooler installation but from this overhead shot, I am starting to think it should be alright.

  

  Removing the heatpipe assembly provides us with a better view of the 8-phase PWM. I am hoping this motherboard overclocks like it should so I can get this motherboard in sub-zero conditions pushing the frequency of my E6600 because this is one of the better PWM setups I have had as of late. Notice in the above photo there are quite a few MOSFETs that never got touched with the thermal material along the left hand side of the image, this leads me to believe that the heatsinks aren't quite necessary and are only there to dissipate heat from the chipsets.

  

  The floppy connector and 24-pin ATX connection line the edge of the motherboard beside the 4 DIMM slots. We also have access to the CMOS battery right here which is ideally located for a change. As mentioned earlier, the only thing that concerns me about the memory slots being so low down on the board is the proximity to the x16 PCI-E slot but from this image, they don't look as close as first thought.

  

  Crawling further south we find one of the busiest areas of the motherboard with the majority of the I/O generating from this area. There is a Marvell 88SE6121-NAA1 controller which is responsible for the single IDE connector at the right edge of the motherboard. We also have the six SATAII connectors in this area that are run off the silent heatsinked ICH9R southbridge towards the top of this image, as well as an IT8718F-S which has been the standard super I/O controller on mainboards for a while now. To top this corner off, it is loaded with USB 2.0 headers, 3-pin fan headers, front-panel connectors, the Winbond WV25X80V 8MB Serial Flash Bios chip, and last but not least, onboard power and reset buttons for the losers like me who never put a motherboard in a case.

  

  Moving on we find ourselves staring up at the PCI expansion slot dorm. I personally like this layout as there is one useable x1 PCI-E slot up top with the single x16 slot right below that. The second x1 slot will be useable no matter what video card is used and two very useable PCI slots reside on the bottom floor. I would also like to mention that along the bottom edge of the board, a printer port header and firewire onboard header reside here.

  

  At the very top of expansion slot hall resides the northbridge and all that comes with it. This includes another cluster of solid capacitors of varying sizes, a couple MOSFETs, and the interesting ITE IC that I have highlighted. Unfortunately, the ITE web site seems to be completely void of this part number and the closest thing it spits out is an IT8266R which appears to be some sort of overclocking related controller, so I guess I will leave it at that.

  

  Underneath the massive heatpipe/heatsink assembly that dominates this motherboard, we find the P35 northbridge to the left and the accompanying Intel southbridge. Both chipsets made excellent contact with the heatsinks and the material looks quite good to be honest.

  

  Looking at the backside of the heatsinks after removal, we can again see how half of the PWM MOSFETs don't even contact the heatsink and those that do don't contact very much, except at the edges. The northbridge had perfect contact as did the southbridge.

  

  Audio central is powered by the highlighted Realtek ALC888. There is just too much to cover as far as features of this latest offering from Realtek but I will say that the major feature of the ALC888 seems to be the ability to simultaneously stream independent audio to the rear 7.1 outputs as well as a separate 2-channel header for front panel use. For the rest of the features, feel free to browse the Realtek web site, just click here for that.

  

  The last bit of hardware before the rear I/O panel are the dual Marvell 88E805X-NNC1 controllers that provide dual gigabit enthernet connections for the TP35D3-A7. You can clearly see the setup for both controllers and just how much space is taken up by them.

  

  The rear I/O panel is fairly straight forward with no silly serial or LPT ports, just stuff we use these days. The audio stack is obviously to the far right and the PS/2 ports, thanks again Biostar, are to the left. In the middle sits a total of 6 USB ports, 2 eSATA connectors and the two gigabit ethernet connections.

  

  I thought I would throw in an overhead shot just to clear up any questions some users may have about the layout as far as how far certain parts are apart from each other like the x16 PCI-E slot and the memory slots. The Biostar web site also has a pretty decent sized image from overhead and guess what? It looks very much the same as this one.

  

  The last of the layout photos will be a quick shot of the backside. Lately I have noticed some of the P35 boards from other manufacturers have been putting MOSFETs and or heatsinks on the backside of the motherboard. Thankfully Biostar has not had to resort to that sort of frivolous heatsink placing behavior.

  
  Page 5 : Installation
  

  With such an elaborate heatpipe/heatsink setup cooling this motherboard, Installation of CPU coolers could be quite interesting, so I will be focusing on that.

  

  I start off with the Rosewill RCX-Z2-EX which isn't very tall and doesn't have a huge wingspan, but it does have a pretty large footprint. In this orientation, the RCX-Z2-EX fits like a glove in amongst the heatsinks and cornered in by the memory. This cooler would actually work incredibly well on this motherboard cooling the PWM heatsinks.

  

  Turning the RCX-Z2-EX around doesn't allow it to be mounted as the heatpipes interfere with the rear PWM heatsink. It really is irrelevant since it fits so nicely the other way but I figured it was worth showing.

  

  Changing gears to a more upright cooler, the Thermalright Ultra-120 is next on the test fitting list and I am happy to report that it fits without an issue. The height of the Ultra-120s cooling fins easily clear the heatsinks on all sides.

  

  Again, rotating the Thermalright Ultra-120 provides no obstacle. The memory does sit slightly underneath the cooling fins hanging out to the right so a heatsink with the same wingspan not so high off the motherboard may cause interference issues but I think cooling manufacturers have realized this possible confrontation between memory, heatsinks, heatpipes, and their coolers and have designed accordingly.

  

  The last of the heatsinks I will be test fitting is the one that I will be conducting the testing with, the Rosewill RCX-Z775-EX. From this angle, it looks again like it fits the heatsink corner like they were designed together.

  

  From above, we can see that it definitely is a tight fit but the heatsink shows no signs of being problematic. So despite the large array of heatsinks and heatpipes connecting them, large CPU coolers don't appear to cause issues on the TP35D3-A7 Deluxe. Of course this is just with a few of the CPU coolers I happen to have but the height of the heatsinks appears to be below the standard height of larger CPU coolers.

  

  Before getting into the BIOS, we will take a quick look at how the GPU fits in this motherboard. The large heatsink on the Biostar 8600GTS completely removes any use of the PCI-E X1 slot directly below the 16X slot. The next slot down appears to be clear and able for use. The PCI-E 1X slot above the 16X slot is spaced nicely and should be useable as well.

  

  The 8600GTS is not the longest card out there but we still get a clear image of how any large GPU will fit on this motherboard. The memory slots give the backside of the GPU plenty of room and the SATA connectors have more than enough room. With an 8800GTX or the like it may be a tight fit but the SATA ports look far enough down they shouldn't interfere.

  
  Page 6 : BIOS
  

  The BIOS is always one of the most important sections for an overclocker as without a decent set of BIOS options, overclocking will be a tooth pulling experience despite the advances in overclocking software. Let's see what Biostar has setup for us with the TP35D3-A7 Deluxe.

  Main BIOS Categories

  

  The TP35D3-A7 Deluxe uses the standard AwardBIOS layout which should make the various options familiar and easy to find with enthusiasts familiar with the Award BIOS.

  Standard CMOS Features

  

  Advanced BIOS Features

  

  Everything is pretty self explanatory here in the Advanced BIOS Features page. Most boot options are located here including the boot order and boot logo options. The CPU Feature list provides us with the ability to enable or disable CPU Thermal Control, PPM Mode, Limit CPUID MaxVal, C1E Function, Execute Disable Bit, Virtualization Technology, and Core Multi-Processing.

  Advanced Chipset Features

  

  Only a couple options are available in this section including the ability to disable the BIOS from being cached or forcing the PCI-E 16X slot to run at 1X.

  Integrated Peripherals

  

  The Integrated Peripherals section is home to exactly what the name implies, any peripherals that are integrated into the motherboard such as audio, the gigabit network connections, and IDE devices among others. The Super IO Device menu provides us with options for the floppy controller, serial port, and parallel port. The USB menu allows us to enable or disable the use of USB keyboards and mice as well as the options for USB storage devices. When a thumb drive is plugged into the system, we can use this menu to tell the system to see it as a floppy drive or a hard drive which is essential for those that want to boot to a USB drive.

  Power Management Setup

  

  The Wake Up Events allow users to set the standard "wake on" features including the ability to start the computer with an alarm, or keyboard shortcut of various options including a user define hot-key.

  PnP/PCI Configurations

  

  PC Health Status

  

  The Health Status page is a one page home for any and all information about our system. As we can see, the information available here includes voltages, temperatures, and fan speeds. We even have the option of showing the data during POST although most of the time the system POSTs so fast that you barely see it.

  OverClock Navigator Engine

  

  Here is the home of the overclocker, and where we will likely spend most of our time. In Normal Operation mode, everything is grayed out and the system is set to the defaults of each component.

  

  When switching to Automate Overclock, we are provided with three overclocking options. These options are V6 which slightly bumped our system up to 270*9 DDR1080 8-8-8, V8 set our system up to 280*9 DDR1120 8-8-8 with a slight voltage bump to the CPU, and V12 provided settings of 285*9 DDR1140 8-8-8 with no further vCORE adjustments. I am not a fan of automated overclocking because every CPU/RAM are different and require different voltage adjustments to overclock and should be done systematically through the manual selection in my opinion which is what we will happen to look at next.

  

  Before describing the memory ratios available to us, I will mention that the CPU clock selection goes up to 700MHz and the PCI-E frequency allows adjustments from 100MHz to 200MHz. The System memory multiplier options shown above give us selectable ratios of (starting from the bottom) 1:1, 5:6, 4:5, 2:3, 5:8, 3:5, and 1:2. The 3.33 selection is unknown as I have never been able to boot the system on that ratio.

  

  On top of the memory ratio selection, the memory timings are also available from the Overclocking section of the BIOS. I really like how this BIOS is setup with everything in one section. Biostar has done a great job on the layout and make it very easy to jump in and out of the BIOS making overclocking changes for us enthusiasts.

  CPU Voltage

  

  The CPU voltage selection is simply an addition of small increments over the default voltage of the CPU. Every C2D may have a different default voltage and with the E6600 used for testing, that default voltage is 1.2625v. With the +0.787v provided here, we can select up to and over a whopping 2.0v to the CPU. On air I was only willing to test up to +0.500v and in the BIOS, the vCORE was being reported as 1.74v with temperatures higher than I am comfortable disclosing so clearly the entire gamut looks to be possible and the vCORE options are obviously enough for even sub-zero cooling and extreme overclocking without a voltage modification.

  FSB Termination Voltage

  

  MCH Voltage

  

  The MCH voltage selection of only 1.55v is pretty low compared to other motherboards that offer up to 1.7v and more. The overclocking at certain Performance Levels will be hindered by this lack of MCH voltage. Perhaps the silent cooling on the TP35D3-A7 Deluxe is not adequate enough for further MCH voltage and that is why Biostar has limited it to 1.55v…pure speculation on my part though.

  Memory Voltage

  

  The last voltage option is the memory voltage. With DDR3 JDEC standard voltage set at 1.50v, I found it interesting that the TP35D3-A7 Deluxe defaulted vDIMM to 1.55v. With the +0.35v increase available here, that gives us a maximum of 1.90v which is significant for DDR3 but there are already high-performance memory kits available that require 2.00v+ to run at spec means that this Biostar board is going to come up short for a lot of the higher-end DDR3 memory. Perhaps Biostar can rectify this with enabling more voltage in future BIOS updates.

  There is one option listed at the bottom of the OverClock section of the BIOS that is listed as Integrated (spelling error) Memory Test. This feature allows us to simply enable it and jump straight into Memtest86+ upon a reboot with no need for a floppy or boot CD. The version of Memtest is 1.65 on the latest BIOS that we were using from Biostar. Features like this really make me believe that Biostar is striving hard to cater to the enthusiast and overclocker with their high-end motherboards.

  CMOS Reload Program

  

  The last section I will touch on in the BIOS section is the CMOS Reload Program which allows us to save up to 10 BIOS configurations. Each set of settings are date and time stamped as well as provided with a very large Remark section so you can describe what each set is comprised of. This feature is quite welcomed for guys like myself who can then setup various kits of memory and save each configuration for quick changes. The Biostar CMOS Reload Program is by far the best BIOS saving utility that I have seen on a motherboard.

  
  Page 7 : Test System
  

  For testing the Biostar TP35D3-A7 I will be using one of my standard open bench setups. Here is the complete list of hardware used for the benchmarking and overclocking sections:

  CPU: Intel C2D E6600 (L629B383)
  CPU Cooling: Rosewill RCX-Z775-EX
  RAM: 2x1GB OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 Platinum Edition
  RAM: 2x1GB Buffalo FireStix PC2-9600 – for DDR2 motherboards
  GPU: Biostar 8600GTS 512MB DDRIII 675MHz / DDR2000 ForceWare 162.18 WHQL
  PSU: OCZ GameXStream 700W
  HD: Seagate 7200.9 SATAII 80GB 8MB NCQ (the same model was used for RAID benchmarks)
  OS: Windows XP SP2 (with all updates)

  Motherboards:

  Biostar T-Force TP35D3-A7 Deluxe – Intel P35 / ICH9R

  Asus P5B Deluxe Wifi-AP – Intel P965 / ICH8R
  Abit IP35-Pro 'Snake' – Intel P35 / ICH9R

  My benchmarking process is pretty simple and straight forward. Each motherboard gets a fresh Windows XP SP2 installation with all of the latest updates rolled in. Upon first boot after the install, the chipset drivers are installed, followed by the video card drivers. Before rebooting I defrag the hard drive. After the driver installation reboot, programs and games are installed and a defragment followed by a reboot before benchmarking begins. Each benchmark is run 3 times and averaged out for the results on the next few pages.
  

  The above image outlines how the system looked throughout benchmarking and testing. The active fan over the memory also helped with cooling the northbridge heatsink but the PWM area received no additional cooling. Throughout testing, the PWM area didn't feel warm on top of the board but I lifted the board up a couple times and underneath it was extremely hot. I am thinking it is from sitting flush with the foam pad on the box but none of the other motherboards I have ran like this get warm at all underneath. I am sure this heat will be alleviated a fair amount when mounted in a case with a gap of air underneath it.

  

  I would like to take this time to talk about the onboard audio. I tend to use SkypeOut often, okay, so that is an understatement. I use SkypeOut a ridicules amount on a daily basis. Having unlimited long distance in the US and Canada is priceless in this business. So as you can imagine, I like to do a quick test call on every motherboard and have a look at the CPU usage during that call. The above screenshot shot shows the CPU graph which floats between 3% and 10% on both cores during the call. On average though the CPU usage was about 4%. Obviously this is just based on what I observed and not recorded anywhere but that is the average that is seen on most motherboards using onboard sound.

  The Audio quality on the board is excellent with no background noise or other interfering noises creeping up during music listening or gaming. I ended up playing a lot of Battlefield 2142 on this motherboard with the onboard sound and my headphones. Not once did I ever encounter a pop, crackle or skip in the audio track of the game. The Realtek ALC888 provided excellent sound quality, depth, and crispness.

  
  Page 8 : Overclocking & Software
  

  I had some big plans for the overclocking section since this motherboard looked like it was ready for big things. The layout, BIOS, and my previous T-Series experience with the AM2 570 U Deluxe. Unfortunately my hopes were quickly dashed with a few issues leading to disappointment. I will start with a quick look at the FSB clocking ability of the TP35D3-A7 Deluxe.

  FSB Overclocking

  With the new P35 chipsets, the most important factor in FSB clocking is the Performance Level. The PL has been visible to us since Memset 3.2 and higher. The PL seems to be closely tied to chipset latencies and the lower the PL, the higher the performance. I usually am just concerned with PL6, PL7, and PL8 as they are usually the performance levels used between 400 and 500 FSB with some motherboards going higher than 500 FSB at PL8 or even PL7. Here are a couple of screenshots at the highest FSB available at PL6 and PL7…PL8 did not provide any further FSB overclocking. I simply tested stability with dual 32M SuperPi as the overclocking wasn't very exhaustive and there was no real reason to pursue the abilities of this motherboard further. Here are the screenshots:

  420FSB PL6 1.55vMCH Dual 32M SuperPi

  

  437.7FSB PL7 1.55vMCH Dual 32M SuperPi

  

  The maximum FSB I could reach on this board at any time was only 450FSB. This may be more than acceptable for the average overclocker that boosts their system slightly. For the enthusiast involved with overclocking, this is disappointing. The limit of 450FSB is not a limit of the CPU I am using as this CPU continually reaches 550FSB+ on a number of motherboards without much effort. 450FSB was obviously not stable and only attainable at PL8 and 1.55v.

  The next point worth mentioning is that the PL is associated to the memory divider like many other motherboards. I really wish manufacturers would start removing this limitation and providing a selectable PL in the BIOS, like any other timing. The good news is that 400FSB at PL7 is absolutely rock solid stable with the motherboard voltages set to the minimum in the BIOS. For the average user, this is more than enough and should provide an adequate FSB overclock for higher multiplier CPUs but not for those with a 7X or 8X multiplier such as the E6300/E6320 and so on.

  Memory Overclocking

  This section is pretty much going to be void of any useful information because I only have a single kit of DDR3 memory and I have to be honest when I say it isn't the best kit for overclocking. Because of this I am un-sure as to whether the DDR1400 limitation I found is memory or motherboard related but this memory is . Either way, DDR1400 is the highest memory frequency I could reach on this motherboard at any timing set. Whether the main timings in the BIOS were set to 7-7-7, 8-8-8, or 9-9-9…this memory just could not clock much higher than DDR1400…this is the same screenshot as above.

  DDR1400 7-7-7-20 1.89vDIMM Dual 32M SuperPi

  

  Like I said, there was a brick wall found at this point with the memory regardless of timings, PL, memory ratio, and memory voltage. I have all but ruled the Biostar motherboard out as the issue as I have had this memory on an Asus P5K3-Deluxe which has be renowned for its memory overclocking ability and found the results to be almost identical to the TP35D3-A7 Deluxe. Perhaps at some point in the future I will have a much better kit of DDR3 that can push the Biostar TP35D3-A7 in the memory overclocking ring.

  Voltages

  The voltage options in the BIOS aren't incredible but do offer a good selection of available options for vDIMM, and more than enough for vCORE. vMCH is a little low offering only 1.55v as the max but the overclocking shows that it doesn't much matter anyway. We saw the available options in the BIOS section earlier but I would like to mention one thing. When setting higher vCORE than Auto, it didn't always register. Sometimes it would but often after a reboot, vCORE would go back to default. Then the next reboot, it would register what you selected. I have talked with Biostar about this and they are working to resolve this issue.

  Software

  Like all Biostar products, they package overclocking software. Normally the software I have used functions perfectly but graphically is an eye sore with fancy graphics and a cluttered confusing interface. Nothing has changed with the TP35D3-A7 Deluxe.

  

  The main screen of the overclocking software is slightly elaborate but not all that confusing as far as buttons and function go. There are only 4 buttons at each corner of the program. One for The voltage and overclock function, one for the hardware monitoring, an about button, and a button that looks like a power button for closing the software.

  

  The overclock and voltage options are pretty straight forward. There are sliders for the FSB, Memory, PCI-E and PCI frequencies although I am not sure that the Memory slider does anything. The voltages at the bottom are for vCORE, vDIMM, and I think vMCH although had no way to confirm. After changing any of the frequencies the software has to pass a built in quick test before anything is set. With voltages, they just automatically change.

  

  When I first saw the interface for the hardware monitor I thought it wasn't too bad but quickly realized all the readings are incorrect. A little more work is necessary on this bit of the software.

  Overall, the software does what it says but again, the graphics are just too much. I don't work in the Biostar marketing department and perhaps the over the top graphics test well in their research but I for one think their software is a little bit much and don't like using it because it is not screenshot friendly. I invite Biostar to have a look at Asus PC ProbeII, or even Abit uGuru as their software is done very well, works very well, and makes for easy additions to screenshots. Take a look in any North American forum, my opinion on the Biostar software is not alone.

  
  Page 9 : Memory Benchmarks
  

  With all the benchmarks, I ran each motherboard at the stock 2.40GHz frequency of the E6600. I teamed that CPU frequency up with the default memory frequency for each standard. For an added comparison, I also threw in an overclocked result from the Biostar TP35D3-A7 to show how performance scales with a fairly substantial overclock.

  We will start off our benchmarking portion of the program with a look at a few memory bandwidth and memory latency benchmarks.

  

  I used both Everest 07 Ultimate and SiSoft Sandra XI lite for testing the memory latency. SiSoft Sandra returns fairly similar results amongst all motherboards at the stock settings and so does Everest 07 but there is some slight variation in the latency of Everest. We can see a tiny advantage given to the P5B-Dlx and the Biostar TP35D3-A7. So far, DDR3-1066 7-7-7 seems to be up to the task of taking on DDR2-800 4-4-4.

  

  Looking at the Everest Bandwidth numbers, we again see a very tight race in the Copy and Write categories but the Biostar TP35D3-A7 at DDR3-1066 7-7-7 shows a measured advantage over both DDR2 motherboards with quite a gap between itself and the other P35 based motherboard in the list, the IP35-Pro.

  

  SiSoft Sandra bandwidth numbers paint a bit of a different picture with the results in almost reverse order giving the P965 based P5B-Dlx a noticeable lead in bandwidth. I am not sure I completely trust SiSoft Sandra in memory bandwidth. I also just noticed that SiSoft Sandra has been updated to XII version, perhaps there might be something to find with the new version at a later date and these motherboards.

  

  The last program used for measuring memory bandwidth was ScienceMark 2.0. Like Everest, ScienceMark shows the TP35D3-A7 out front with the P5B-Dlx edging out the IP-35 Pro. This again confirms that Sandra may not be measuring actual bandwidth and just calculating it like I have suspected for a while. The margin is a lot smaller with ScienceMark but the gaps are close to the same percentages. Let's now see how the memory bandwidth and latency affects other system benchmarks.

  
  Page 10 : System Benchmarks
  

  We saw the slimmest of advantages going to the DDR3 based Biostar TP35D3-A7 in the memory benchmarks. It will be interesting to see if that correlates into an advantage in some system wide performance tests.

  

  Again I rely on SiSoft Sandra for testing the processing power of the systems. The results above show a dead heat race If I have ever seen one. Yes there are some slight variations but the difference in results are miniscule percentage points. What we can draw from these results is that all the motherboards seem to be on par with CPU processing power and up to the task.

  

  The multi-media based calculations show an exact replica of the previous Arithmetic benchmark. Yes there are slight differences but the differences are less than even the benchmark margin for error equating to a virtual tie amongst all three systems. We can clearly see that there are no bottlenecks or un-seen issues with the Biostar TP35D3-A7 in the processing power department because it is easily keeping up with a pair of heavy hitters in the Abit and Asus motherboards.

  

  Both the Molecular Dynamics and Primordia calculations show very similar performance but again, the IP35-Pro is slightly behind. This is the result most closely matched to the Biostar TP35D3-A7 because they have the same P35 chipset powering them. As always, the differences are very small but we are seeing a very nice picture of the TP35D3-A7 on par or marginally better than a DDR2 P35 based motherboard that is well known and widely used.

  

  We are now sliding over to more application based testing with PCMark 05. The overall score is calculated from a number of tests including multi-thread testing, hard drive performance, audio performance, and much more. The overall scores are almost identical between the two P35 boards with the P5B-Dlx again, slightly ahead.

  

  The next benchmark I turn to is the built in benchmark in WinRAR. I simply timed how long it took each system to reach the 500MB mark. Clearly there is very little difference between all motherboards but like we have seen a number of times today, the Biostar board is slightly ahead of the Abit and even a smaller margin behind the Asus.

  
  

  I don't like to admit it, okay so maybe I do, but when asked what computer games I play I usually respond with SuperPi first. It is true, I am a SPi junkie and benchmark SPi like its going out of style. The ability to tweak a system to run SPi faster is an art form and I can't put the brush down. In the graphs above, we can see a dead heat between the TP35D3-A7 and the P5B-Dlx both in 1M and 32M calculations. When I initially picked the memory frequency of DDR3-1280 @ 7-7-7-15, I had no idea that it would basically be the equivalent of DDR2-800 @ 4-4-4-8 but that is clearly what we are seeing here.

  

  Since all of the motherboards tested utilize either the ICH9R or ICH8R chipset which are both pretty much the same, hard drive performance was expectedly similar. Even RAID0 and RAID1 results are almost identical.

  That is about all for system benchmarks, we will now see how this system performance pours over into 3D performance with a few gaming benchmarks and the standard look at the 3DMark series from Futuremark.

  
  Page 11 : 3D Benchmarks
  

  We saw a ridiculously close comparison between the three systems in the previous two pages. Let's now see if these three systems handle a fairly adequate 8600GTS 512MB DDR3 graphics processor.

  

  The 3DMark numbers are a bit interesting. Based on the memory bandwidth and other benchmarks we have seen so far, I was expecting to see similar results. The TP35D3-A7 seems to be a little behind in all generations of 3DMark applications which seems to show a slight performance hit in the 3D arena. Keep in mind that all 3DMark versions aren't entirely based on 3D performance, especially 3DMark 01 which relies on the system quite a bit, and that is where the TP35D3-A7 seem the weakest despite beating the IP-35 Pro in every other benchmark. Let's see how this translates in a couple games.

  

  First off, Battlefield 2142 is completely dependent on the GPU for the result. The custom time demo resulted in almost the same average FPS even with the overclocked settings on the TP35D3-A7 so any difference here is simply the margin of error in the benchmark. The HL2 results are most telling as there is a solid 9 FPS difference between the P5B-Dlx and the TP35D3-A7 which again confirms what the above 3DMark results showed. In the end, the differences are miniscule at that but the Biostar TP35D3-A7 appears to lag slightly behind in 3D performance.

  
  Page 12 : Conclusion
  

  We have taken a rather intense look at the Biostar TP35D3-A7 Deluxe and there have been plenty of highlights along the way. The layout of the TP35D3-A7 couldn't be improved upon in any way in my opinion. Perhaps ninety degree SATA connectors hanging off the edge of the motherboard would be nice but the location of the current SATA ports should not cause an issue so I digress. The color scheme and overall appearance of the motherboard would be great in any windowed case and all the CPU coolers I tried fit in amongst the heatpipes like they were designed by Biostar.

  

  The looks and layout were not the only impressive points. The system performance was easily on par if not better than another P35 DDR2 based motherboard and the hard drive performance was certainly "playing ball" with all contenders. Of course, not all that glistens is gold. The TP35D3-A7 was a bit of a disappointment in the overclocking ring. I of course am a tougher customer to please when it comes to overclocking but I don't feel it too much to expect a well built P35 motherboard to reach 550MHz front side bus with ease. Many others do it with the correct processor but the TP35D3-A7 didn't come close. The memory overclocking performance is also yet to be determined but the initial results I found did not seem to be favoring the Biostar motherboard.

  Overall though, the Biostar TP35D3-A7 Deluxe is an excellent performer that would be a perfect choice for an average overclocker looking to get into the DDR3 game. There isn't a lot of competition right now for motherboards that support DDR3 but the TP35D3-A7 will only hopefully improve with further BIOS work and flourish into all that it can be, near the top of the P35 DDR3 pile.

  Advantages

  • Great Layout

  • High quality components and design
  • Silent in operation
  • On par with DDR P35 motherboards in performance
  • Great looking price tag on a fully featured motherboard

  Disadvantages

  • Front side bus overclocking was not impressive for the P35 chipset

  • PWM area gets extremely hot at the top of the motherboard

  Overclockers Online would like to thank Biostar Group for making this review possible.