Biostar TA890FXE Review
Overclocking
Published: 14th September 2010 | Source: Biostar | Price: £106 |
Overclocking
We found overclocking the TA890FXE to be somewhat hit and miss. As always, we started with trying to determine the maximum reference clock frequency (HTT) that the motherboard is willing to accept. My particular AMD Phenom II X6 1090T is not the sharpest tool in the shed and so these results could be considered to be a "worst case scenario" if you will.
Following a fairly uneventful set of clockspeed increments, we hit a hard wall at 270MHz. This means no amount of further refinements could assist the system to boot at this frequency. Eventually we settled with a maximum stable frequency of 265MHz.
Next, we had to determine the maximum attainable CPU frequency. This endeavour had a more favourable outcome where we were able to reach our less than steller 1090T's goal of ~3.90GHz.
In general, overclocking with the TA890FXE was a satisfactory experience. However on the basis of our experiences, those with non black edition processors (particularly the 1055T) will be in for a disappointment, being left nowhere near the 4.00GHz mark.
The board's ability to recover itself from failed overclocks leaves much to be desired as well. While similarly priced alternatives such as the M4A89GTD PRO can recover with ease, we found the TA890FXE hanging with C6/C7 POST errors without even attempting to cycle power or revert to a previous setting. Perhaps I've been spoilt by todays hardware but frankly I recall my DFI LanParty nF4 Ultra-D motherboard from 2005 recovering from sour overclocks better than this.
With an overclocked configuration applied, it's now time to hit the benchmarks. Read on...
Most Recent Comments
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Originally Posted by tinytomlogan
Edited, although the link is the same, it is working now |
just thought i should warn you
it is weird with the pcie slots all being together thoughQuoteFirstly the colour scheme is horrid. Red and black? win. Red black and white? lose.
The slot layout is absolutely awful meaning you could (as has been pointed out) only get away with dual double slotters, meaning the whole excercise is a bit pointless.
And the price? 'sa bad kitty.. The MSI fuzion thing reviewed last week costs less, looks a metric ton of poo better and is an MSI. I know it only had two PCIE slots (full size) but you ain't giving up anything considering this one here is laid out so that you can only use two at once any way.
I mean, who would want to fit single slot cards into a high performance PC?
So the MSI wins the day here for me. It also has Lucid and costs less (though arguably not by much) but when you consider that Lucid chip and the royalties cost a pretty penny? It just packs the mud down even harder over the grave of the Biostar's sealed fate.Quote
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