Biostar TPower i55 – Super Middle Weight Contender
by Rajinder Gill on November 25, 2009 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Overclocking
The TPower i55 offers an excellent overclocking experience. Some additional BIOS tuning to improve memory performance would make this a great motherboard for most enthusiasts.
Core i5/750 8GB Results
Our maximum stable overclock on air-cooling with the Core i5/750 resulted in a 4.1GHz clock speed at a respectable 215MHz Bclk with a variety of 8GB DDR3-2000+ kits. The primary voltages settings were 1.3625V VCore, 1.35V VTT, 1.80V PLL, and 1.66V VDimm. We ran the board with Load Line Calibration enabled for stability due to the Dynamic VID setup on this board. This meant setting our voltage manually to 1.360V resulted in 1.368V readings under load and 1.088V at idle. We never encountered any problems with DVID, except for slightly lower benchmark scores as the system would generally take to ramp voltages before hitting maximum CPU core speeds.
We could run our memory at DDR3-2152 with 8GB loaded and the i5/750 on 1.66V VDimm. We scaled back to DDR3-1721 at C7 timings which offered the same performance, if not better, than DDR3-2152 C9.
Core i7/860 8GB Results
Our i7/860 fared better clocking wise than the i5/750, with a 20x215 setting for 4.3GHz. Memory was set at DDR3-2152 with 9-9-9-24 1T timings.
VTT is set to 1.38V, PLL at 1.80V, VDimm at 1.66V, and VCore at 1.425V with LLC enabled. Under load conditions VCore was +.005V with LLC enabled and -.02 with it disabled. At idle, VCore was 1.136V.
Thoughts
The overclocking results are very solid and certainly 4.1GHz~4.4GHz speeds are fast enough for most users. We initially thought the Dynamic VID setup would create problems with the board highly overclocked, but we never encountered any stability problems finding the voltage ramping to be unobtrusive and seamless to user experience.
Of note, we could not lock in the top turbo multiplier with our retail processors. Our i5-750 will operate at the 22x multiplier in manual mode on the Gigabyte and ASUS boards, but was limited to 21x on this board. That could be a problem for those looking to squeeze out that last few MHz, but for the majority of users it will not matter.
We have no concerns recommending the Biostar TPower i55 board for 24/7 overclocking use. When overclocked, the board is extremely stable and fast. As a side bonus, S3 resume worked properly with the Bclk settings at 215MHz.
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dia - Thursday, November 26, 2009 - link
The fan header information is on page 3
"Fan control is only offered for the CPU fan header, offering full temperature range and speed control which is great. Unfortunately the SYS fans cannot be controlled independently from the CPU FAN header. "
There is also reference to software level control via TOVERCLOCK/TPOWER.
jackylman - Friday, November 27, 2009 - link
It's still unclear to me. The quoted section only seems to refer to the BIOS setting. The screenshot shows a fan RPM tab for TPOWER, but I don't see any reference to whether it actually controls the fans or just reports RPM's (I suspect the latter).The question we really want answered is whether the non-CPU headers support PWM and can be controlled with SpeedFan (e.g.). If not, it would really be a shame to see another good board skimping on cheap PWM hardware.
Rajinder Gill - Saturday, November 28, 2009 - link
Both TPOWER and TOVERCLOCKER can change fan speed and offer monitoring. The SYS FANS cannot be controlled at all, so they are 'full on' all the time.I've changed the page 3 comment to reflect this.
regards
Raja
jackylman - Saturday, November 28, 2009 - link
Raja,That is much better. Thank You.
Rajinder Gill - Thursday, November 26, 2009 - link
In terms of overclocking, the BIOSTAR handles 8GB memory better than the MSI GD-65 (memory clocking in general is easier). Sleep mode is also a little more robust, allowing recovery from higher BCLK's. Other than that, one of the marks against the Gd-65 was the incompatibility of OC GENIE with several PSU's.As for the rest, thx for the feedback - I'll add what I can within the timeframe of test. there are some things we miss on due to oversight. It's not possible to keep everyone happy unfortunately, as with all things.
regards
Raja
marc1000 - Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - link
No conclusion page on this review? Am I wrong or the conclusion is on the first page this time? =Delivebuy - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - link
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ElderTech - Thursday, December 3, 2009 - link
RajaContrary to others, I find the new layout most efficient and a desireable journalistic change. As you point out, read the first page (or two) and determine if you want/need additional info. Also, your heading for the conclusion/summary section is clear and succinct. However, it doesn't surprise me that some may find it confusing, as there is a tendency to settle into a complacent pattern with much of life when we're able. But you'd think the younger average age of your readers would portend flexibility, but that's obviously not the case!