A Quick Glimpse of the Biostar TP67XE and TH67XE
by Ian Cutress on September 29, 2010 9:44 AM EST- Posted in
- Biostar
- Motherboards
- News
The other offering from Biostar comes in the form of a micro-ATX board and the TH67XE. This board has visually changed since Computex, sporting less SATA 3Gb/s ports, smaller heatsinks and a different position of the 24-pin power connector. The PCB itself is a little busier than the P67 variant, but it comes with a few video out connectors. There’s still a few flaws to point out though.
Click to enlarge
First of which is the positioning of the SATA 6Gb/s ports. Because they’re coming out of the board, rather than 90º to it, the minute a user decides to stick in a long card into the second PCIe slot , both of those ports will be covered by the card, leaving only three SATA 3Gb/s ports available. Using both the large PCIe slots with dual slot cards will result in the PCIe x1 and the PCI being unavailable.
If you use only single slot PCIe, this motherboard could probably cater for your needs. A similar back panel arrangement to the P67, though with a few less USB 2.0 ports in exchange for your D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI connectors. USB 3.0 via the NEC controller is still there, along with onboard 7.1 HD Audio, gigabit ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, firewire and e-SATA. On the board itself, there’s enough headers for six more USB 2.0 ports, (again) a sole non-CPU fan header as well as easy power/reset switches. No debug error code display this time though, but with this board, we wouldn’t really expect it.
Click to enlarge
Kudos to Biostar for giving the community something to dissect. If these are indeed final production boards, we look forward to seeing improved layouts over future iterations over the socket lifetime. Then we’ll come and tackle your BIOS and performance.
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valherumk2 - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
re: "First of which is the positioning of the SATA 6Gb/s ports. Because they’re coming out of the board, rather than 90º to it"I reckon you've missed why the micro ATX board doesn't have angled SATA ports - micro ATX boards tend to go in small cases with little or no space around the edge of the board. If they'd used angled ports there would need to be space off the edge of the board for the cables to stick out.
kingpotnoodle - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
Very good point, angled connectors would not work in my Antec Fusion on a full sqaure M-ATX board.Taft12 - Friday, October 1, 2010 - link
I think Ian also is a little off the deep end thinking that ANYONE is going to be using 2 jumbo video cards on a microATX board based on Intel's cheap IGP chipset. It's one of the crazier nitpicks I can recall in a motherboard review.nbjknk - Thursday, November 25, 2010 - link
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Thursday, 21 October 2010 at 9:48 PM
Fanofou - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
Just sell your 1156 motherboard. You'll get at least 50% of the cost you paid out of it, probably closer to 65-70% You know, nothing in life is free. You used your 1156 motherboard and got at least a year or 2 of use out of it (if not then why exactly are you upgrading then?). Y'all act like you have to throw your old tech in the trash to buy the new tech.Wieland - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
I'm content because I see absolutely no reason to upgrade to a Sandy Bridge processor. USB 3.0 support is still handled by a NEC controller, no overclocking is allowed on low end processors, and the integrated graphics are still useless to me.There is almost no demand for used LGA1156 motherboards now (bargain builds use AMD processors), and demand will only decrease once the processors are replaced. Good luck getting 50% back now and good luck getting 25% back once LGA1156 is replaced.
The highest prices I've seen at auction net around 50% of the retail price (before fees). I bought a new ASUS H55 motherboard on ebay for $27 (shipped) a couple months back.
cknobman - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
There is no reason to keep that legacy interface around.piroroadkill - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
If I could keep my perfectly good soundcard (that I have for a specific reason, real-time DTS encoding) then I'd like to do that.strikeback03 - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
I was thinking the same thing. We are what, 7 years or so into the transition between PCI and PCIe? Obviously I can still see some boards offering it for those who need it, but the majority should really be moving to all PCIe. Esp. on the MicroATX boards, where you are already slot limited.Taft12 - Friday, October 1, 2010 - link
There's no reason to get rid of it either.I still use PCI expansion cards (RS-232 port, additional NIC) and if Intel and motherboard OEM's thought they could save money and not lose customers by removing them, they would. Their research obviously shows they should stay.
PCI and PCI-X cards are still widely used in industrial applications.