Print this article

Biostar TForce 570 U Deluxe


Date
: 08/25/06 – 12:23:33 PM

Author
:

Category
: Motherboard

Page 1 : Index

Biostar TForce 570 U Deluxe

Manufacturer:
Biostar Group

Price:
$??? (I cannot find it for sale anywhere)

Every month it seems that I have the pleasure of introducing yet another new face here at OverclockersOnline.com and for the month of August, that name appears to be Biostar. Certainly not new to the world of the motherboards but Biostar may be a fresh name in your head, and don't be surprised if it is. Only recently has my interest been piqued with the name Biostar but I will admit that I am an overclocker and my head is buried in that sand deeper than I am willing to admit for too long.

It was obviously a bit of a surprise to find out that Biostar has grown from a small firm in 1986 to a large international, hundred million dollar a year revenue, company. All of that in less than 20 years from birth demonstrates great strides in growth. Not only does Biostar design and produce their own motherboards, but they have been producing add-in cards, multi-media products, and other system devices for many years as well. Today I move my AM2 setup over to a motherboard from their T-series, the NVIDIA chipset based TForce 570 U Deluxe.

Biostar has engineered the T-series for the gamer and the enthusiast in mind who knows what the BIOS is and how to make changes in there to increase system performance. This same person generally would build their own system or just likes to tweak their systems through software. Through higher voltage support and better BIOS options, Biostar has tried to make the T-series a very overclocker-friendly board. I will certainly be capable of seeing if the TForce 570 U Deluxe can deliver in the overclocking department and look forward to manipulating my first nForce 570 Ultra motherboard.

Page 2 : Package & Contents

I did a really poor job of getting a photo that shows the size of this box. That is my fault but in the testing photos you will see what I am talking about. For now let's just look at the "Asus video card sized" package.

A large canvas gets a large graphic and very little else. You certainly can't call this box cluttered with only a few logos including the prominent T-Series one in the bottom left with the model number. There are also a few details down there in the way of graphics.

The specifications in the red box are self-explanatory but the icons just below the T-Series logo aren't quite as forward since they are not industry standards and Biostar proprietary. They deal with the overclocking abilities and some of the BIOS enhancement features.

The only other markings are at the corners with a small RoHS compliant sticker, Biostar branding, and the NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra logo.

Flipping the box around brings more of the same, or, should I say, less of the same. The information is even more scarce and after spending more than a "few minutes" staring at the graphics on this box, I can't for the life of me figure out what the Iridescent mechanical thing could even pretend to be.

Even though it's not a sleeve but an actual box that the exterior is printed on still puts it in the same class as the rest of the manufacturers that do this including both of the AM2 motherboards and the last 939 motherboard I have reviewed. Again I fail to capture the true size of this massive box in the photo above.

Once inside that box, the luxury continues with the single most impressive buffet of goodies I have ever received with a motherboard, or any computer component for that matter. I was caught off guard in large proportions upon opening the box and felt like a kid at Christmas… it has been far too long.

Tucked underneath the spread of treats is the tiny motherboard in this huge box. The box makes the motherboard look mATX but I assure you folks that it is a full size ATX board. I would like to see some sort of packaging to protect the motherboard down here as it can slide around freely with all the extra space.

The interior of the mesh bag is two-fold, with pockets on one side that house all of our accessories, then on the top side the CD and manual are housed in a zippered pocket. I can no longer say that I have never received a mesh portfolio bag with a motherboard now… thank you Biostar.

There is nothing fancy in the contents of the mesh bag but plenty of the regular stuff. Starting in the top left is a rounded IDE cable, an Audio Out extension bracket and the rear I/O faceplate. We then also get a regular ribbon floppy cable and what looks like a second IDE. The inclusion of the 4 SATA power connection adapters is very handy as many hard drives no longer come with Molex connections and mid-range power supplies don't always have enough SATA power connections. 4 SATA cables are also included in what I would call a premium package.

The inclusion of the microphone / headset is a nice addition that I will actually find useful as I only use Skype to talk on the phone so you can bet I will put it through its paces and report back in the testing section.

The last of the presents is this box of what appears to be a universal USB cell phone charger. That is the most I can make of it anyway but I will just wait until I get confirmation somewhere in the literature. There is nothing written on the box at all. With the box empty we can move on to a look at the specifications and chipset features.

Page 3 : Specifications

We start off with a look at the main specifications as listed on the Biostar web site. While going through the list keep in mind the specifications for the nForce 4 Ultra chipset.

There are obviously differences but the similarity is there aside from the DDRII memory instead of DDR and what comes with it. The single PCI-E X16 slot means a 3 and 3 stack of both X1 and legacy PCI expansion slots. Perhaps an X4 PCI-E slot could have been added? The rest of the feature changes I will be discussing in the Chipset section. Next I will list what comes in package accessories we have already seen.

The proprietary features that Biostar incorporates into the T-series are signified by the logos above. These include various BIOS restore/backup/update features, built in power/reset switch, VDIMM over voltage jumper, and overclocking software.

We already saw these items in the contents section and my suspicions are correct that the extra package I wasn't sure about is just a charging pack. I find it interesting but in some areas of the world, cell phones are more common than wallets are here… maybe they are here as well and I am just a dinosaur because I don't even have a phone. I will now go into a little more detail of what the NVIDIA 570 Ultra chipset brings to the table.

Page 4 : Chipset

The NVIDIA chipset is in its 5th generation, the 500 series. This includes 4 levels starting at the top with the 590-SLI, 570-SLI, 570-Ultra, and 550. I have already looked at a 590-SLI board in the Foxconn C51XEM2AA, which also happened to be the NVIDIA reference design. Today the 570-Ultra chipset is on show and while it may not have all the features of the 590-SLI, it is not far behind.

The only difference between the 570-Ultra and 570-SLI is the ability to run two PCI-E video cards in SLI. Much like nForce 4, that is all that is different. This then leads to some slight layout changes sometimes and smaller heatsinks on motherboards or less elaborate cooling. Let's have a look at what the 570-Ultra offers over the 550 which fits in just below the 570-Ultra on the food chain.

There are a few benefits that the Ultra caries over the 550 chipset including two extra SATAII connections and the ability to run RAID5 but also a second Gigabit network connection and all of the networking features of the higher up chipsets, starting with the 570-Ultra. Here are a few of the other features that the 570-Ultra boasts as described by NVIDIA:

I will be sure to have a look at all of the features that I can with the hardware I am afforded and in testing we will see if the performance can equal that of the 590-SLI chipset when I compare the Biostar TForce 570 U to the Foxconn C51XEM2AA. Next on the docket is some eye candy and a tour of land also known as the Layout.

Page 5 : Layout

The TForce is Biostar's enthusiast level motherboard which usually means it has some advantages over the mainstream or basic level such as a premium package like we have already concluded to be true for the TForce 570 U Deluxe. What also usually comes with a company's top offer is a color change from plain yellow or green PCB and components.

Obviously the blue PCB mixed with orange and lime green slots are not your standard motherboard colors and is an interesting color palette to say the least. At first it's a bit odd but seems to grow on you after a while. I personally prefer a dark and subtle color scheme but that is me and I am not the market for which Biostar is after. Think DFI LanParty crowd and you will be more on target.

No time to waste and there is plenty to cover I start at the power regulation area for the mainboard, which also happens to be the same place that all the power connects to the mainboard. This is a new setup for me and not something I am really sure about. Obviously, the design was required but I would like to hear, if any, benefits to having the 24-pin ATX connector here. Airflow from the CPU is now going to be hindered by the large cable having to bend sideways. It may help keep the rear of the hard drive tower clean in most systems but it will cause many headaches when building in tight cases around this power supply CPU area.

The power regulation is only a 3-phase PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) which is no real improvement from mid-range Socket 939 motherboards but the components used appear to be of good quality with the primary capacitors being Sanyo Oscon polymer capacitors and the secondary being decent Chemi-con KZG (1500uF 16v / impedance 0.013 / ripple current 2550 (2000 hours)). We also saw an 8-pin EPS connector for CPU power earlier and again here in the bottom left. A lack of heatsinks on the MOSFETs may be an issue but I will likely have a fan directed over this area if I can keep the 24-pin cable out of the way. Some heatsinks would be easy enough to apply for those looking to really push this board as the MOSFETs are placed neatly in-line.

There are various other brands of capacitors sprinkled throughout the board playing various roles for the slot they are hanging out by. Here we see some OST RLPs (Taiwan) capacitors congregating. They are not the best quality and can be bunched in with Teapo and the like but again, they are not playing key roles here but may see some heat in their lifetime being right behind the PCI-E slot.

The CPU socket and memory are quite tight as seen from above here. With the 24-pin ATX cable on one side and memory bunched up on the other, there isn't a lot of space for large CPU coolers that fan out. Keep this in mind when making that next Zalman purchase if considering this motherboard.

More OST capacitors are used for the memory voltage regulation and we can see more OST RLP (6.3V / 1000uF) but also some smaller OST RLG capacitors as well. I will keep an eye on these areas when testing memory and see if they seem to get hot or not. The lone IDE and FDD connections rest at this edge as well.

Just south of the parallel connections is the CMOS battery which is easy to get at. The clear CMOS jumper is in-between the battery and the out of focus chipset heatsink. That location could be worse but with a long PCI-E video card it may be covered.

The last of the sections before the bottom edge of the board is where we find the 6 SATAII connections, our LED diagnostic display, and the BIOS chip which is a socketed design for easy replacement and swapping. Right next to the SATA connections, and almost hiding, are the two buttons I like to see: Power and Reset. Onboard buttons are becoming more common and are welcome on any motherboard in this reviewer and system builder's eyes.

The bottom edge has some nice features with easily identifiable, color-coded front panel connections which I have enlarged below. Many motherboards lack this detail these days. A pair of USB headers and fan headers also populates the bottom edge neighborhood. Behind this row of occupants is also the Super I/O chip that provides access to so much information, the ITE IT8716F-S. This appears to be the same I/O chip as on the Asus M2N32-SLI I have. Hopefully that means accurate readings from SpeedFan for core temp and other onboard sensors.

The nForce 570 Ultra chipset is a single chip design so I guess this is the northbridge. The heatsink appears to be a slightly larger version of the standard square heatsink/fan on nForce 4 Ultra chipsets. These small fans are notorious for making noise and I will report anything of relevance in the testing section.

Under the heatsink is the nForce 570 Ultra marked core. The heatsink was mounted with actual thermal paste and not the same gummy adhesive all manufacturers use and the contact was good based on the imprint. The application of the thermal compound looks like it got out of control but no harm-no foul I guess. The cleaned up core is in the inset photo…it took a while to get clean.

The chipset is buried somewhat into the stack of expansion slots and this board has a plethora of them. With only the single PCI-E (sorry no modding the chipset for SLI here) Biostar was able to squeeze three X1 PCI-E slots and three PCI slots. I asked earlier about the three X1 slots as opposed to a physical X4 for one of them and the chipset section pointed it out if you missed it. The 570 chipset only has 20 PCI-E lanes, configured as X16, X1, X1, X1, X1. Hence the same layout on the motherboard.

Before heading up to the rear I/O panel we stop in the bottom left corner where the rest of the onboard headers are, including audio and a parallel header for those that still need a beastly dot matrix for printing out carbon copy invoices.

Having capabilities to run two physical gigabit network connections built right into the chipset, it would go to waste without two physical gigabit network controllers, and here they are. Both of the Marvell controllers appear to be linked through the PCI-E bus, perhaps that last X1 lane.

The last of the top-side photos is of the rear I/O panel. This is pretty much the standard layout for the high-end nForce 4 setup and will likely be what we see on most nForce 570 Ultra motherboards. PS/2 connections at the far left beside a serial port and again removed the parallel port in favor for an onboard header. In the middle are our 6 rear USB 2.0 connections and the pair of gigabit network connections. The audio rounds out the row at the far right with a twin bank setup to accommodate the 7.1 speakers systems. Digital audio output is handled by the expansion bracket via the onboard header in the bottom corner.

The backside of the motherboard is just a sea of blue with nothing but the backplate and a couple stickers. This concludes our trip around the great isle of the TForce 570 U Deluxe. We can now see how hardware installs on this motherboard and by the looks of the layout, it shouldn't be too tough.

Page 6 : Installation

Installing a motherboard in a case adds too many variables to make it useful to readers unless you happen to have the exact same hardware as me. Instead I will mount hardware outside of a case to get better photo angles to see how things fit.

We start installing components with memory and as you can see here, the first two slots are very close to the CPU socket. The other side however is just the opposite with plenty of space there for large CPU coolers and the 24-pin ATX cable that needs to snake its way over there.

With regular heatspreader-equipped modules, the IceTank won't fit as the heatpipes stick out. This means that a Thermalright XP-120 wouldn't fit either but a Thermalright Ultra-120 or SI-120 should without issue. Other large heatpipe CPU coolers like the IceTank and XP-120 may cause issues in this orientation as well.

Turn the cooler around, however, and all is well with the fins reaching out over the memory with room to spare. Taller modules such as Corsair Pro modules with LEDs on the top of the heatspreaders will not fit with coolers like this. Every other DDRII module should fit without issue. At the back end we can see there is plenty of room for the heatpipes over the PWM area and the 24-pin cable should be able to get in easily as well.

Again we can see that the clearance of the memory in the first slots is plentiful and with a bit of wiggling I can remove both modules without replacing the cooler. The open space at the rear of the motherboard above the PWM area will aid in a rear exhaust fan removing the heat generated in this area. I like this setup but the 24-pin cable still concerns me.

I just installed the HIS X800GTO that will be used in testing and we see it completely covers the first X1 PCI-E slot as well as the chipset cooler. I like test-fitting with this card as the cooler is of the largest you will get on a video card so it is a good gauge to see what will get covered up.

There is not getting around covering up this chipset cooler but with standard sized cards or a different cooler, the chipset would have plenty of room to breathe. We can also see all 6 SATA connections free of any video card interference. With only one PCI-E 16X lane I was anticipating this.

I have now hooked everything up to a bench setup just to see how the power cables will fit into the mix. I have to say I was surprised at how easy it was for me to find an acceptable route for the 24-pin ATX cable.

The overhead shot shows the 24-pin snaked in from the frontside of the motherboard, in-between the video card and the CPU cooler. If this was in a case this would be a very acceptable route because that 24-pin cable would be coming from right behind the drive tower and completely hidden. It is also not obscuring much in the way of airflow to boot.

This head-on angle shows just how in-obtrusive the 24-pin cable is. I am fine with this setup and will complain no more about the placement of the 24-pin connection, although I would still prefer it at the front edge. The 8-pin EPS connection was also easily attached and hidden from airflow path by tucking it under the PS/2 connections of the rear I/O panel.

Page 7 : BIOS

The BIOS can make or break a motherboard. If it is buggy and lacking in features then enthusiasts will shy away, but if it is too complex then the less knowledgeable builders could be intimidated as well. Let's see what Biostar has put together for us.

Phoenix – Award BIOS

There is nothing unusual about this BIOS and the main categories offered are pleasing with a single Overclocking section at the bottom of the left column.

Advanced BIOS Features

I skipped Integrated Peripherals because all it shows is that you can enable hard drive controllers and also set them to RAID or not. The Advanced section here provides options for a few small features such as the enabling the logo on startup as well as setting the boot order.

Advanced Chipset Features

This section allows control over certain features like the link-width from the CPU to the chipset and the CPU Feature section allows disabling of Cool'n'Quiet.

Power Management Setup

PnP/PCI Configuration

PC Health Status

The health status section gives us a full list of voltages, temperatures, and fan speeds. As you can see we are also given the ability to manually control the CPU fan speed from the BIOS eliminating the need for software controlled programs in Windows.

Overclock Navigator Engine

This is where the magic happens and it is nice to see all the options in one section.

Overclock Navigator

We have three options. Normal leaves everything at stock speeds. Automate does just that and allows for automatic overclocking and manual allows for us to manually setup the system. We look at the automatic options first.

Automatic Overclock

The automatic settings we get provide an engine analogy with the options for a V6, V8, or V12 overclock. V6 provides a 230HTT, V8 goes up to 240HTT. and V12 tops out at 250HTT. The memory is left to 1T command rate I believe and I was unable to get into Windows with the V8 and V12 options but was able to determine my CPU speed using Memtest as I was able to POST at both of those settings.

CPU Vid control

Many boards offer ridicules voltages but can't actually provide that juice to the CPU, we will be sure to see what this motherboard can offer. I won't be testing this high though as 2.310V would cook any CPU I have, and do it in a hurry.

Memory Voltage

This is really the biggest disappointment with this motherboard. The lack of voltage over 2.2v really hurts this motherboards ability as all of the newest, fastest memory kits require at least 2.2V to run. The BIOS only allows 2.1V, 2.2V is achieved via the jumper on the motherboard.

Chipset Voltage

HyperTransport Voltage

CPU Frequency

Again, like the CPU voltage, many motherboards make the claim but can they actually do it? I highly doubt we will see 450HTT from this motherboard but I will certainly see what is possible.

NPT Fid Control

K8<->SB HT Speed

Memory Clock Value

By setting the Timing Mode to manual we are able to now select the memory speed. This essentially selects the divider that the memory will run on and our standard AM2 choices are given. The next option goes into memory configuration and the last option in the BIOS lets us enable a built in version of Memtest 86+. Another nice little touch to finish off a very complete BIOS as far as overclocking goes.

DRAM Configuration

The DRAM configuration page looks great with plenty of options that look familiar and the BIOS uses a lot of the same terms as the Foxconn BIOS so I am assuming Biostar stayed close to the reference one. Notice the DDRII Timing Item about half way down. When you enable this, all the options at the bottom become available, but most of these options are also available in the memory timings page. I thought it was a bit odd to be given two places to select options.

Memory Timings

Like I was just discussing, most of the options on the last page are available here. I am not sure why they are in two spots but. Either way, there are a decent amount of options here and again, these are very much like the Foxconn BIOS so clocking memory should be do-able.

Drive Strength Settings

CMOS Reload Program

Look what we have here, a BIOS saving section where we can save and load complete sheets of BIOS options. The DFI LanParty series made this option famous and it looks to have caught on, thankfully. I love this feature and have trouble living without it. Especially with all the memory options we are given these days.

CMOS Reload Program

Saving a profile is simple and it looks like we get a few spots to fill, the manual says 50! Notes are also savable as seen above.

CMOS Reload Program

Loading a BIOS configuration is no tougher than saving and just as easy as reloading defaults. That finishes up the BIOS and I have to say that I am quite looking forward to the overclocking section because this BIOS is setup to let me work my magic. Now I take a look at the software Biostar as offered with the TForce 570 U Deluxe.

The last of the BIOS features I almost missed was the inclusion of the built in memory test, Memtest86+. Again, the DFI LanParty series was the first to do this but all of the AM2 boards I have used so far have had Memtest86+ as a bootable option.

Page 8 : Software & Accessories

There isn't a lot of software that comes with the Biostar TForce 570 U Deluxe but it does come accompanied by a driver CD that also has some windows monitoring and overclocking software so I will have a look at it. We start with the installation CD.

The interface is very straight forward with only four options to the right. I have made the screenshot show the labels all at once but normal you have to mouse-over them to see those labels. I don't expect much from the motherboard software, just enough to get the job done and it appears this should do the trick.

The drivers section just lists the drivers to install so I will skip that and go straight to the software section. We can see we have four programs at that are T utilities. These are obviously programs that Biostar has written and the names explain what they do fairly well. These utilities included an Overclocking program, hardware monitoring program, fan control program, and a live BIOS update program. I would prefer to see an inclusive program for OCing, fan control, and monitoring all in one but these three will suffice for most users.

After a few quick installs, the programs open right up. I will go in order that they were listed and begin with the OCing program. As you can see it is not very neat and takes a lot of screen space up. The controls are a bit clunky and I found that it implements the increase each step of the way. So when you click on the up arrow for CPU frequency, it increases by 2HTT immediately. This caused random lock ups when increasing frequency. I did not spend a lot of time with this tool as it didn't work as well as hoped but I found the newest version of Clockgen to work very well with this motherboard.

The hardware monitoring software is very similar in design theory to the OCing tool and is just as bulky and cumbersome. I found the labels tough to read due to the colors chosen but the program works flawlessly and is very handy for overclockers.

The best piece of software by far that is included with the TForce 570 U Deluxe is the fan control software. Again, designed very much like the others, the fan control software is simple and straight forward. The options are very easy to understand as well.

Setting it up couldn't be easier, just set your temperatures and the software will throttle the fans based on the temps. This is basically the same type of software that does what the BIOS already offers. I tested this software and the BIOS and found them to both work very well in controlling fans based on temperatures. That concludes my look at the software that came with the TForce 570 U. We can now get to work and do some overclocking the old fashioned way… through the BIOS.

Page 9 : Overclocking

If you are familiar with my reviews you will know that the overclocking section is usually my favorite. I tend to delve a little deeper than most reviews in hopes to shed some light on just what something is capable of, and with a motherboard that means finding out many limits. I will concentrate on five main factors starting with the
HTT Maximum
,
HT (Hyper-Transport) Maximum
,
Memory Clocking Ability
,
Voltage Maximums
including VCORE and VDIMM, as well as a final 24/7 stable overclock.

The hardware used in overclocking is the same that will be used for testing. The detailed list can be seen in the next section but in each screenshot, the programs will provide the information for most of the hardware used. I will keep descriptions of the overclocks brief but if there is any information about the overclock that I feel necessary to convey I will.

Max CPU Voltage (VCORE) = 1.80v+ BIOS / SpeedFan

This is where things get interesting and dangerous both at the same time. The CPU VCORE setting in the BIOS actually scales with what you choose to a T. In the screenshot above, I have chosen the maximum that I am willing to put into my 90nm single core 3200+ under water, and let's be honest… 1.8V is far more than anyone needs aside from those using cooling below zero. In any case, the BIOS picks up 1.82V as do windows programs. I could not confirm this voltage with a digital multimeter as my hold down plate interferes but with an air cooler I could confirm 1.7V going to the CPU when selected in the BIOS and showing in the BIOS.

Max Memory Voltage (VDIMM) = v BIOS / digital multi-meter

The VDIMM was easy to max out as the BIOS only goes up to 2.1v and the only way to get 2.2V is with the jump in the upper right hand corner. We can see here that the multimeter confirms a solid 2.19V going to the memory with the jumper in place. Having at least 2.5V would have been nice but that might be the largest benefits of the 590 SLI boards so far.

Max HTT Prime / 32M / 3D Stable = 374*8

This number is very impressive and rightfully so, but it wasn't smooth sailing to get it. The BIOS my sample shipped with is somewhat under-developed and doesn't allow setting HTT above 295. Simply booting below that and increasing HTT in windows is how this overclock was achieved. As soon as Biostar releases a BIOS that can handle booting at a higher HTT, this board will easily max out any Sempron on a 7X or 8X multi with air cooling and not having to resort to Windows programs to finish an overclock.

Max 4-4-3-5 32M Stable = 1080MHz @ 2.19V (Digital Multi Meter)

Unfortunately a combination of the poor OCing BIOS I was working with and the faults of the included Windows OCing software, left me with a fight to find the maximum memory clocking I was able to run the memory up to DDR1080 @ 4-4-3-5 which is very close to what the M2N32-SLI can do as well as the Foxconn C51XEM2AA can with this memory. Of course the 2.2v limit is what is holding back memory clocks.

Max Overall 24/7 Overclock = 2900MHz @ 1.68V / DDR966 4-4-3-5 @ 2.19V / HTX4 = 1160MHz

With all the information gathered above I came to the conclusion that the best overall overclock would be to run the memory at the tight 4-4-3-5 timings and a nice stable, cool running CPU clock of 2900MHz. This was achievable running
290*10 DDR667
. I could have run with less voltage I believe but I guess I forgot about it from when I was running a higher clocks. With the cooling it doesn't really matter but it is excess stress on the motherboard.

Page 10 : Test Setup

The benchmark pages are long enough so I will utilize a separate page to list the hardware used for the benchmarking as well as what was used for overclocking. This is the exact same setup used for the comparisons with the Foxconn C51XEM2AA with the exception of the power supply, which shouldn't play a role in performance.

Obviously everything is setup on a bench setup with some fans being used for cooling the PWM area as well as the memory. I always use active cooling on motherboard components and memory. It is just good practice, especially if you are a bench setup like mine.

For benchmarking a motherboard I use a number of programs that test everything from memory bandwidth to overall system performance as well as some graphic benchmarks including custom game time demos, and synthetic benchmarks. I will simply be comparing the TForce 570 U and the other AM2 motherboard I have looked at, the Foxconn C51XEM2AA.

Each motherboard gets a fresh Windows XP SP2 installation followed by chipset driver installation and Windows updates. Programs and games are then 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 couple of pages.

Page 11 : System Benchmarks

In this section I will get a good measure of memory bandwidth using Everest Ultimate 06, SiSoft Sandra Pro, and Sciencemark v2.0. My program of choice will also be included, Super Pi with both 1M and 32M digit calculations. Again, hard drives were scarce, so SATA driver performance results will be conducted via HD Tach and the last program that benches overall system performance, PCMark 04 and 05 will both be run.

Everest Ultimate 06 2.50.480

As expected, there is not a large difference between the Foxconn C51 and the Biostar 570 U. Both read and write bandwidth could be construed as identical for both motherboards at the same clocks based on these results.

The memory latency according to Everest shows the same outcome between the two motherboards. This is a good sign showing no loss of performance for the cheaper 570 chipsets, just less features.

SiSoft Sandra Pro SR3

The SiSoft Sandra CPU Arithmetic Benchmarks benches both SSE and SSE2 proficiency of the CPU and its sub-systems. Both motherboards perform very much the same and the results scale accordingly with increase of processor frequency as one would expect.

Another SiSoft Sandra benchmark reveals almost identical performance although the C51 appears to perform marginally better in this benchmark at the overclocked settings of 2.7GHz / DDR900. The TForce 570 Ultra is showing that there is no performance loss across the board when it comes to the NVIDIA chipsets with the same hardware.

I won't bother repeating myself but we can see that the 570 Ultra chipset performs very well and is no worse than the 590 SLI chipset motherboard I have compared it with. If you don't plan on running SLI or CrossFire, then this board is one heck of a cheap alternative to the big boys.

ScienceMark v2.0

I run both the Molecular Dynamics bench and the Primordia bench as well as the memory bandwidth test in ScienceMark. The results are more of the same but again, the C51 seems to hold the slightest of advantages over the TForce 570 U.

Super Pi Mod 1.4

Super Pi is very dependent on memory bandwidth and latency. It is a great program for testing memory performance because of this and the results here show the same thing the bandwidth and latency numbers showed in synthetic tests. Both motherboards appear to be performing very much like each other.

HD Tach 3.0.1.0

I decided to throw in the results from a few Socket 939 motherboards to show the consistent performance of the nForce SATA controllers from chipset to chipset. I did not have enough hard drives handy to get any RAID results but sometime soon that should change so my next motherboard review will have RAID performance numbers from both this motherboard and the Foxconn C51.

PCMark 04 v1.3.0/05 v1.1.0

The last of the benchmarks geared towards system performance is the PCMark series from FutureMark. I have run both PCMark 04 and 05 here with the default testing options selected so you can compare your system results at home to mine here. I will now run some gaming/graphics related benches and some actual custom time demos of game play from a few games.

Page 12 : Gaming Benchmarks

Like the system benchmarks, I ran all the benches on this page three times and averaged results. The custom time demos for the gaming results were setup, then run with BenchEmAll. We start with another series of programs from FutureMark, the 3DMark series.

The 3DMark scores are for the most part the same but the Foxconn C51 does appear to outpace the TForce 570 U in all the tests except the 06 version. The advantage is miniscule but more than we saw in the system benchmarks. Let's see if the same margin shows up in the time demo runs.

Unlike the 3DMark results, the games appear to show off an even playing field. This again sums up the fact that both of these chipsets perform almost the same. Aside from benchmarks I did some testing of other features such as the included headset and the audio performance of the Realtek powered HD Audio.

I empowered the use of my family and friends sprinkled throughout North America alongside SkypeOut to test the headset that was included with the motherboard. As you can see, in the photo I also thought I should at least test out the included cell phone USB charger so I found my connection from the universal selection and plugged in my Samsung A640. Immediately the phone started charging so I guess it works as advertised. I am still surprised to see such an accessory with a motherboard but many things about this package make me scratch my head.

This is the CPU usage during a call after a few minutes. The CPU usage jumps from 2% to 13% during a Skype call. Skype was using 2% out of that most of the time. The rest of the CPU usage would have been for audio processing. I asked all the people I talked to and the audio was crystal clear sounding just like a phone to most who didn't know I was calling from a computer. The Biostar TForce 570 U passes my audio test as no one complained from dozens of long calls and hours of gaming sounded good to me.

Page 13 : Conclusion

It was an interesting journey with this motherboard. It brought me elation with an astounding 374HTT, but also disappointment with a BIOS that won't POST over 295HTT. The memory clocking options are great and it seems almost as plentiful in there as the Foxconn 590-SLI BIOS. The only problem with memory overclocking is that high voltage is generally required alongside a BIOS that you can tweak with… missing the voltage, we couldn't get anywhere with high memory clocks.

As you can see with every large advantage there seems to be a drawback. All of the drawbacks happen to come from the higher-end of the overclocking world so for users who are just looking for a solid board at stock or mild overclocking, then the TForce 570 U Deluxe is definitely an option to look at. For the overclocking enthusiasts, don't rule it out, you just may need some help with memory voltage but everything else you're looking for is there.

With solid performance, a nice package of accessories, and the potential for an overclocking monster in there, I have to be pretty pleased with the Biostar TForce 570 U Deluxe on the whole and think it will fit a nice gap in the AM2 market for those that don't need SLI but still want a motherboard that can compete with only a single video card slot. I look forward to more Biostar motherboards as the TForce 570 U certainly shows signs of brilliance.

Advantages

• Very solid at overclocking
• Matches 590-SLI chipset in performance
• USB cell phone charger is mint

  Disadvantages

• BIOS needs a bit of work yet
• Some minor adjustments to the layout could really benefit

  Overclockers Online would like to thank Biostar for making the TForce 570 U Deluxe review possible.