Interesting encounter with Biostar and their Z97 Boards

[Tatty_Two]

For those of you that know me well, you will know that I am a great fan of Biostar boards, certainly their more recent offerings, low cost, decent specs, decent overclockability. I bought the Biostar Hifi Z97WE a little over a year ago, partly because of Dave's review of the board, if my memory serves me correct he scored it 9.8 and was very impressed. I am happy to say I have had a really good 14 months trouble free use and am very pleased with it.

So, some of you will be thinking...... "OK there is a "but" coming" and you would be right, but nothing to do with the reliability or performance of the board. Long story short......... I contacted Biostar Customer Support a few weeks ago to enquire on their Z97 boards compatibility with the relatively new S1150 i5 5675C and i7 5775C processors as I couldn't see any information or a Bios update to support the processors.

Eventually I got a reply saying that none of their Z97 boards supported these CPU's as they required "significant hardware updates" and a Bios update alone would not give compatibility. I won't bore you with the resulting exchanges of questions and answers that I raised because it just felt that they were trying to mislead me and when I showed a little knowledge they kind of backtracked, but to be fair at all times they were very polite, as was I.

So to today, I got home to an e note from them and I copy and paste it below.............

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Steven

2015-11-18 11:55:14


Dear Sir

Before Intel lauch 5000 series CPU, we already made the motherboard.

However, we don't have new motherboard version for support these 5000 series CPU and already EOL(end of live) for all Z97 chipset motherboard.

Sorry for any inconvenience.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So just as a heads up, for anyone considering buying any Biostar Z97 board which was only released by them in 2014 as a budget/mid ranged Haswell/Devil's Canyon build, please be aware that before you even purchase the board it is already EOL and won't support any current or future socket 1150 CPU's beyond Devils Canyon. To be honest I couldn't believe it!

 

[peche]

wow ....EOL Z97 boards...Why Biostar?

 

[vega22]

has anyone seen broadwell support for z97 mobo?

when i asked a uk retailer about the chips they said nobody was doing boards for them :s

 

[cadaveca]

has anyone seen broadwell support for z97 mobo?

when i asked a uk retailer about the chips they said nobody was doing boards for them :s

Quite a few boards support the Broadwell CPUs with a BIOS update. Yet, I really do not think anyone here on TPU should be into buying these chips anyway; Broadwell sucks, by Intel's own admission (Skylake was pushed forward to cover Broadwell's "failure"). Broadwell offers onboard GPU improvements only, and these improvements negatively affect clocking ability.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Quite a few boards support the Broadwell CPUs with a BIOS update. Yet, I really do not think anyone here on TPU should be into buying these chips anyway; Broadwell sucks, by Intel's own admission (Skylake was pushed forward to cover Broadwell's "failure"). Broadwell offers onboard GPU improvements only, and these improvements negatively affect clocking ability.

I agree and for me it's as much about the principle of releasing a series of boards in 2014 with a relatively new chipset at the time to declare them EOL the following year. As far as I am aware Intel still has a S1150 CPU roadmap and whether their newish or future offerings turn out to be any good is arguable, however for Biostar owners, good or bad the choice has been taken away from them, don't get me wrong I have enjoyed the board and I didn't buy it as a future proof performance platform, just find the situation to be a complete let down from Biostar for it's customers.

 

[EarthDog]

Quite a few boards support the Broadwell CPUs with a BIOS update. Yet, I really do not think anyone here on TPU should be into buying these chips anyway; Broadwell sucks, by Intel's own admission (Skylake was pushed forward to cover Broadwell's "failure"). Broadwell offers onboard GPU improvements only, and these improvements negatively affect clocking ability.

MEH. It did well (better) when it could use that on board ram...

That said, I almost expected this. The "claimed" a lot of Z97 boards would work but frankly, I am finding that it is actually a MINORITY of boards that work with broadwell (at least, their BIOS updates don't specifically STATE it is to update CPU microcode for Broadwell).

As far as I am aware Intel still has a S1150 CPU roadmap

They do? Broadwell was the last chip on that socket AFAIK? I mean, its replacement, s1151/Z170 is already here... why would they put anything else on that socket (which has been around since Sandybridge 4-5 years ago).

 

[FreedomEclipse]

wow ....EOL Z97 boards...Why Biostar?

Probably too much competition in the European market and Asus, Gigabyte and MSI dominate the Asian markets. In the UK biostar's distribution is a bit hit and miss. A few big retailers do sell their hardware though

 

[unclewebb]

That's why I like Asus boards. Asus tends to offer updates for their boards far longer compared to some of their competition. Asus released Broadwell compatible bios versions for all of their Z97 and H97 boards.

http://techreport.com/news/27941/asus-z97-h97-boards-get-broadwell-compatible-firmware

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

I have the same Biostar z97we as you Tatty and I messaged them too about 5775C upgrade as I would love to have one as I am running a pentium G3258.

I opened up a ticket with biostar to enquire about that. At first I was hopeful as they say my board z97we version 5.0 was not Broadwell compatible but I could exchange the board for version 5.1 through a local distributer. I email the local distributer and with a screenshot of my ticket with biostar I no reply. Biostar than replied back to me telling me the distributer have no version 5.1 board available. I replied Biostar asking what I could do. They just apologised said I can't do anything. I was getting rather pissed and disappointed. Last time I have to Rma this board overseas as recommended by them and that cost me more. I rather disappointed that Biostar could not do anything with their local distributer

I do like Biostar but this would be my last board from them the support is scares. They do NOT have a service centre or a repair centre in my area. The customer service are good like Tatty said they are polite and there are minimal copy paste replies but their help is rather limited. All of Biostar 1150 board cannot be just easily biosed update to support Broadwell only a board revision of it would support it. So you require a new board of the same model. Like for example if you have the first version the 5.0 you would need version 5.1 to support it. I am not sure how 1151 board would be for Kaby lake support soon after, I think it most probably be the same way.

So for I guess I would have to cough up for a 4790k for an upgrade.