Biostar shows off 790GX boards

IF YOU WERE looking for 790GX boards at Computex, you needed to go no farther than Biostar. They had two of them, by far the best in the show, among their goodies.

The top end is called the TA790GX3 A2+ and it comes with 128M of DDR3 memory for the sideband port. It has a smaller cousin that ends in GX that only has 64M of DDR2 on board. The reason they are not called 780GX is because both have two 16x PCIe 2 slots in an eight-by-two configuration. 780 = one slot, 790 = two, now you know.

790GX board

The 780GX chipset is an upclocked 780G, quite possibly the best chipset of the year. 780G runs at 500MHz and scores ~1100 in 3DMark06 with a pretty weak CPU, 1600 with a quad core Phenom. If the GX runs at the rumoured 700- or 750MHz, 2000 in 3DMark should be quite achievable given the right CPU. Remember, this is integrated graphics we are talking about, low-end mobos.

Both of these boards should be available in the middle of July with prices still unknown. Given that good 780G boards are well under $100, an extra $10 or $20 should get you into a 780GX, well worth the extra cash.

TPower I45

One way that Biostar is attempting to stand out from the crowd is to put the engineering in and make all of their Intel boards able to support a 1600FSB. The Tpower I45 board is no exception, it is a P45 mobo with all the bells and whistles that that brings.

The most notable feature however is the massively cooled VRMs. Many companies overlook the cooling of power components, but the copper heatsinks and large fan on top say Biostar hasn't. µ