Introduction

On October 12th, 2011, AMD released their newest CPUs, the "FX" Bulldozer line. Although not met with the warmest of welcomes, these new CPUs are just part of AMD's latest desktop platform, which also includes AMD Radeon GPUs and, of course, 9-series chipset products. Over the next several weeks we'll be taking a closer look at those 9-series chipset products, the first of which was provided to us by Biostar. The Biostar TA990FXE comes from their "Extreme Edition" product line which features several products designed to meet the needs of "extreme" users, while still keeping the Biostar company focus of providing affordable solutions that don't break the bank. Outfitted with an AMD 990FX chipset and a SB950 I/O hub, the TA990FXE is ready for to provide everything the AMD Scorpius platform requires.

Specifications

AMD 990FX Chipset

Launched during Computex 2011, the AMD 990FX chipset is the top option of the three new northbridge solutions from AMD. All three feature several new features specific to the 9-Series chipsets, but the majority of technology is carried over from AMD’s previous 8-Series products. Featuring Hypertransport™ 3.0, and native SATA 6 Gb/s connectivity via the SB950, the 9-Series from AMD is an incremental upgrade. The big marquee difference, of course, is the new AM3+ CPU support, CPUs which have yet to arrive within the retail space, and are expected later this year. All 9-series chipsets provide DDR3-1866 memory support natively, if a supporting CPU is installed. Also available is an IOMMU connection, allowing virtual machines to directly access hardware capabilities, rather than offering a software interface using hardware emulation. Although not natively supported in the Windows environment at this time, this feature is more intended for Linux users.

The AMD 970 chipset offers a single PCIe 2.0 x16 connection for a single graphics card, while the 990X allows that link to be split into two separate PCIe 2.0 x8 connections, for multi card configurations. The 990FX chipset found on this board features two full PCIe 2.0 x16 connections for graphics, with the option to split the link into two separate PCIe 2.0 x8 links, as decided by OEM board layout and design. An extra x4 link is also available via the AMD SB950, and the AMD SB950 Southbridge chipset also houses all of the I/O functionality, such as the six native SATA 6 Gb/s ports.

Of course, that leads to today's product, the Biostar TA990FXE. Will it offer an Extreme Edition for AMD products, as its name suggests? We put it through the paces, and find out.

Packaging

The Biostar TA990FXE comes in what has become standard packaging for Biostar for 2011. Like the rest of the AMD-supporting Biostar motherboards, the TA990FXE is clad in a red box with stylized slashes across the front. There are many technology logos surrounding the product name on the bottom right, while emblazoned across the middle is Biostar's "Extreme Edition" logo. Flipping the box over, we are once again greeted by what looks like a tablet like the other Biostar products we've looked at recently, with logos describing the included Biostar technologies inside. The Biostar packaging has to be one of our most favorite, as its simple design is very understated, without fancy graphics that distract, and although Biostar offers some of the least expensive board options, the packaging really helps give the board a high quality first impression.


Upon opening the box, we find the goodies right on top, separated from the board itself by a layer of protective cardboard. Under the goodies we find the board itself, and those goodies seem pretty sparse in comparison to some of the other products that have undergone torture in our bench station. However, being priced as it is, we did expect as much, and while we would have liked to have seen a bit more here, this is a trivial issue for a product in this price range.