Biostar TH55XE H55

Introduction

Published: 1st March 2010 | Source: Biostar | Price: £80 | Author: Milind Chidrawar

Introduction

Still struggling to find the perfect motherboard for your soon to be assembled midrange computer? There's no denying that the introduction of Clarkdale Core i3/i5 processors and their constituent motherboards are in full swing. This means more sensible pricing due to competition in the market. However, this also introduces a level of confusion for consumers. There's already plenty of motherboards to choose from with similar specifications and prices, but which one should you pick? So far we've tried two H55/H57 based items but that this simply isn't enough to gain a full insight of the general quality of Intel H55/H57 based products.

Having been locked in the OC3D basement testing components for some time now with nothing more than a testbed machine, tins of spaghetti hoops and a human sized hamster wheel, I was somewhat saddened that my escape will have to wait another day due to the arrival of yet another Clarkdale compliant motherboard. On that bombshell, let me introduce you to today's review item - The Biostar TH55XE Motherboard.

Processor Support	Intel® Socket 1156 Core™ i7 Processor/Core™ i5 Processor/Core™ i3 Processor/ Pentium® Processor
Chipset	Intel® H55 Express Chipset
Memory	4 x DIMM, Max. 16 GB 2000(OC)/1800(OC)/1600(OC)/1333/1066 Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory Dual Channel memory architecture Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
Expansion Slots	1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 1 x PCIe 2.0 x1 2 x PCI
VGA	Multi-VGA output support: HDMI, DVI-D, RGB Supports HDMI with max. resolution 1920 x 1200@60Hz Supports DVI with max. resolution 1920 x 1200@60Hz Supports RGB with max. resolution 2048 x 1536@75Hz Maximum shared memory of 1748 MB
Multi-GPU Support	n/a
Storage	Intel® H55 Express Chipset built-in 5 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports Intel Matrix Storage Technology Support RAID 0,1,5,10 One Ultra DMA 66/100/133 IDE controller integrated in JMicron® 363. - Supports PIO, Bus Master operation modes. - Can connect up to two Ultra ATA drives.
LAN	Supports one PCI Express LAN 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Realtek 8111DL.
Audio	Realtek® ALC888 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC
USB	Intel® H55 Express Chipset: - 10 x USB 2.0 ports (4 x Rear, 6 x Internal)

On paper, it would appear as though the Biostar TH55XE has very much in common with the MSI H55 ED55 that we reviewed just last week and with similar price tags we'll be pitching the Biostar head to head with it.