Biostar TPower i55 – Super Middle Weight Contender
by Rajinder Gill on November 25, 2009 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gaming-
FarCry 2
Featuring fantastic visuals courtesy of the Dunia Engine, this game also features one of the most impressive benchmark tools we have seen in a PC game. We set the performance feature set to Very High, graphics to High, and enable DX10 with AA set to 2x. The in-game benchmark tool is utilized with the Ranch Small level as our test of choice.
FarCry 2 CrossFireX
Left 4 Dead
This game is still a blast to play and addictive to boot - provided you like killing hundreds of zombies while trying to take care of your teammates and sustaining high blood pressure rates. We enable all options, set AA to 2x and AF to 8x, and play back a custom demo of a game session from the Runway Finale chapter within the Dead Air campaign.
Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II
We are big fans of the Warhammer franchise, especially Dawn of War II. One of the latest RTS games in our library is also one of the more demanding titles on both the CPU and GPU. We crank all options to High, enable AA, and then run the built-in performance benchmark for our result.
Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.
While not a true flight simulation or even serious air combat game, it is a lot of fun and looks visually stunning on a 30” monitor with all options turned up. In our case, we set all options to high, enable 2xAA and DX10, and then use FRAPS to time a custom demo sequence.
Crysis Warhead
We utilize the Ambush level for our game test. We set the resolution to 1680x1050 with 2xAA, DX10, and 64-bit enabled.
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dia - Thursday, November 26, 2009 - link
The fan header information is on page 3
"Fan control is only offered for the CPU fan header, offering full temperature range and speed control which is great. Unfortunately the SYS fans cannot be controlled independently from the CPU FAN header. "
There is also reference to software level control via TOVERCLOCK/TPOWER.
jackylman - Friday, November 27, 2009 - link
It's still unclear to me. The quoted section only seems to refer to the BIOS setting. The screenshot shows a fan RPM tab for TPOWER, but I don't see any reference to whether it actually controls the fans or just reports RPM's (I suspect the latter).The question we really want answered is whether the non-CPU headers support PWM and can be controlled with SpeedFan (e.g.). If not, it would really be a shame to see another good board skimping on cheap PWM hardware.
Rajinder Gill - Saturday, November 28, 2009 - link
Both TPOWER and TOVERCLOCKER can change fan speed and offer monitoring. The SYS FANS cannot be controlled at all, so they are 'full on' all the time.I've changed the page 3 comment to reflect this.
regards
Raja
jackylman - Saturday, November 28, 2009 - link
Raja,That is much better. Thank You.
Rajinder Gill - Thursday, November 26, 2009 - link
In terms of overclocking, the BIOSTAR handles 8GB memory better than the MSI GD-65 (memory clocking in general is easier). Sleep mode is also a little more robust, allowing recovery from higher BCLK's. Other than that, one of the marks against the Gd-65 was the incompatibility of OC GENIE with several PSU's.As for the rest, thx for the feedback - I'll add what I can within the timeframe of test. there are some things we miss on due to oversight. It's not possible to keep everyone happy unfortunately, as with all things.
regards
Raja
marc1000 - Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - link
No conclusion page on this review? Am I wrong or the conclusion is on the first page this time? =Delivebuy - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - link
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ElderTech - Thursday, December 3, 2009 - link
RajaContrary to others, I find the new layout most efficient and a desireable journalistic change. As you point out, read the first page (or two) and determine if you want/need additional info. Also, your heading for the conclusion/summary section is clear and succinct. However, it doesn't surprise me that some may find it confusing, as there is a tendency to settle into a complacent pattern with much of life when we're able. But you'd think the younger average age of your readers would portend flexibility, but that's obviously not the case!