Computex 2003 - Day 4: XGI, Motherboards, and cheap Itaniums

Biostar

Biostar is still primarily a motherboard company, as was made quite apparent at their booth this year. However, like almost every other manufacturer that attended Computex, Biostar is expanding their market reach into SFFs (Small Form Factors), laptops, and full desktop systems. Lets first talk about Biostar’s upcoming motherboards.

Pictured above is a Biostar motherboard based on the ATI IGP 9000 chipset, comprised of the IGP 9000 North Bridge and IXP 150 South Bridge. Interestingly enough, it seems as if motherboard makers are finally starting to see some value in ATI’s chipsets. While not a discrete chipset (i.e. no graphics), Biostar believes that this particular chipset will do OK due to its good stock performance and excellent onboard graphics (easily besting nForce2’s IGP in DX8 gaming and most DX7 games). We’ll be examining this motherboard or a motherboard like it in about 3-4 weeks.

The above motherboard is Biostar’s PT800 board, based on VIA’s PT800 chipset. This single channel DDR400 is slated as a low cost solution for Pentium 4 users. However, we’ve heard from multiple manufacturers that PT800 has been quite troublesome, especially with various types of memory. Apparently this is being fixed in a revision sometime down the road, but exactly when is unknown.

The two motherboards shown above are Biostar’s Athlon 64 motherboard solutions. The motherboard on the top is Biostar’s VIA K8T800-based motherboard, and the motherboard on the bottom is Biostar’s NVIDIA nForce3 150-based motherboard. Right now, if you’re an overclocker, we suggest a motherboard based on nForce3 150 or 250. If you’re not much of an overclocker and simply desire a cheap, stable and fast Athlon 64 motherboard, either nForce3 150/250 or K8T800 will do just fine.

The SFFs you see listed above are all Biostar creations. They’re all ODM (Original Design Manufacturers) designs, but Biostar claims that they offer additional performance and price advantages with their choice of parts. Some of these SFFs are based on the yesterday’s newly announced single channel DDR Athlon 64 3200+ processor, and some are Biostar’s somewhat “old” 845PE and nForce2 creations.