BIOSTAR Releases T-Series TA990FXE Motherboard

[btarunr]

BIOSTAR Group, a world famous manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, industrial computing systems and computer peripherals, proudly announces the TA990FXE motherboard aimed at the most demanding overclockers and gamers.

The TA990FXE is made in the ATX form-factor on the flagship AMD 990FX chipset in combination with the most advanced SB950 Southbridge which guarantees the support of the latest technologies and ensures the unprecedented performance. The board supports all Socket AM3+ based Phenom II X6, Phenom II X4, Phenom II X3, Phenom II X2, Athlon II X4, Athlon II X3, Athlon II X2 and Sempron CPUs including top 6-core and 8-core AMD FX, AMD Phenom II and AMD Athlon II chips with the maximum thermal design up to 140W.



The board is equipped with four DDR3 DIMM slots and supports up to 16GB of dual-channel DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600/1866 MHz RAM as well as overclocking versions up to 2000 MHz. Today’s market features few motherboards equipped with three PCI-E x16 2.0 slots, and the TA990FXE is one of few boards supporting their configuration of x16, x16, x4. It actually means the support for the most complex graphics configurations based on several graphics cards. Additional peripherals are realized with two PCI slots and one PCI-E x1 2.0.

The board features a great deal of interfaces and peripheral controllers. It sports five SATA3 6Gbit/s slots supporting SATA RAID 0,1,5,10, three USB 3.0 ports, six USB 2.0 ports, FireWire IEEE 1394a, 10/100/1000 Mbit/s LAN and 8-channel HD Audio. There is also a bracket for a serial port and a connector for an external eSATA2 3 Gbit/s interface.

The TA990FXE board comes with modern high-quality solid capacitors and is ready to run stably under the latest Windows 7 family OSes. The board supports the maximum list of BIOSTAR’s proprietary technologies including the BIOSTAR G.P.U (Green Power Utility) for optimal power consumption at low system load, an exclusive overclocking system, the Rapid Switch for quick restart, the Rapid Debug for hardware debugging with the help of a LED light, the BIOS Flasher and the BIOS Relife for updating or recovering BIOS from a USB drive, and the BIO-Remote 2 for remote control of home media system components from Android and Apple mobile devices. Overclockers will be pleased with the T-overclocker utilities for Windows which provide fine system tuning for experienced users.
Features:

• Supported Socket AM3+ processors AMD FX/ Phenom II/ Athlon II processor
• Supported AMD Mutil Core(x8,x6)
• AMD 140W processor support
• AMD 990FX Chipset
• Support ATI crossfireX technology
• 4 DIMM supported DDR3-2000(OC)/1866/1600/1333/1066
• Supported SATA 6Gb/s 2X speed than current SATA 3G
• Supported USB 3.0
• BIOSTAR G.P.U ( Green Power Utility ) for green power saving your desktop

For more information, visit the product page.

[damric]

Does T mean that I should be terrified of the VRMs (looks like 4+1)?

[Volkszorn88]

Does this board actually benefit from extra power via 4-pin molex? I wonder how it compares to the other AM3+ boards, apart from horrid aesthetics.

[damric]

Originally Posted by Volkszorn88

Does this board actually benefit from extra power via 4-pin molex? I wonder how it compares to the other AM3+ boards, apart from horrid aesthetics.

My board has a PCIE six pin connector right there. It is supposed to help supply power to your PCIE lanes, but honestly I didn't notice a difference when overclocking and load testing whether it was plugged in or not. Maybe it makes a difference for high power draw dual chip GPUs?

[NC37]

Originally Posted by damric

My board has a PCIE six pin connector right there. It is supposed to help supply power to your PCIE lanes, but honestly I didn't notice a difference when overclocking and load testing whether it was plugged in or not. Maybe it makes a difference for high power draw dual chip GPUs?

That is what my Gigabyte 570 SLI says. Plug it in for SLI setups. Otherwise, not needed.

[claylomax]

How many power phases?

[micropage7]

wow... i dunno my eyes go err or what
the red color looks charming

[Static~Charge]

Originally Posted by claylomax

How many power phases?

4+1 (go to the product page and download the PDF manual).

[Isenstaedt]

Looks cheap.

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by Isenstaedt

Looks cheap.

It IS cheap...$129. That's near $40-$50 cheaper than any other 990FX board. You get 990FX chipset for the price of 990X from other board makers. Of course there are going to be concessions to keep the price low. I'll let you know how good it is very soon.

[micropage7]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

It IS cheap...$129. That's near $40-$50 cheaper than any other 990FX board. You get 990FX chipset for the price of 990X from other board makers. Of course there are going to be concessions to keep the price low. I'll let you know how good it is very soon.

cheap board is good but please dont cut the features. mid or high end board offers better features
but just for basic needs i guess this board is pretty enough

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by micropage7

cheap board is good but please dont cut the features. mid or high end board offers better features
but just for basic needs i guess this board is pretty enough

I really feel Biostar is heading for the "affordable option" with the majority of products. This one brings a full 32 lanes of PCIe instead of the 16 of similarily-priced boards. It still has all the features their other products do(even mentions this in the OP).

We'll see if the VRM plays a role in clocking...I plan on using Bulldozer for my review, if I can get one in time.

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

where are the sata ports. . . 5 is not enough!

[cadaveca]

6th is relegated to eSATA duty.

[BorgOvermind]

Originally Posted by [H]@RD5TUFF

where are the sata ports. . . 5 is not enough!

I didn't detect yet a MB for either AMD or intel with 8 SATA ports on the same controller (for the purpose of making an 8-drive RAID array, of course).
At best, many of them had 6 on the main controller and 2 JMs for secondary usage (like ODDs).