Choosing the Best H55/H57 Motherboard, Part 2

BIOSTAR TH55XE

BIOSTAR TH55XE is currently priced at $115 on Newegg and other online retailers. A $115 MSRP puts the TH55XE smack in the middle of the H55 playing field where competition is fierce from the likes of Gigabyte and ASUS. In fact, BIOSTAR are on the ropes because ASUS and Gigabyte are offering USB3 on their boards around this price point.

BIOSTAR's feature set is similar to ASRock's H55M-Pro in almost every way, although ASRock managed to cram a TPM header onto their board which costs less. Other than that, you get a slightly more "expensive" 4-phase VRM solution on the BIOSTAR board courtesy of MOSFETs from International Rectifier topped off with heatsinks to keep the whole shebang cool. At a guess, we'd say that BIOSTAR's implementation is limited to a maximum of around 120 amps or so (30 amps per FET), which seems to be a ballpark figure for most H55/H57 motherboards.

At the component level, you get Realtek's ALC888 for audio and Realtek 8111D LAN—commonly found on most motherboards around the $100-$300 mark. The peripheral package is made up of three SATA cables, one SATA power cable, driver DVD and rear I/O shield. As you're paying a little bit more for fewer features on the TH55XE, the inclusion of a USB bracket would have been appreciated to make use of the internal USB headers, because you've only got four connectors available on the rear I/O panel.

Software

TOVERCLOCKER is included in the software package and allows voltage/bus speed changes, voltage/temperature monitoring, save/load of overclocking profiles and quick-touch overclocking for those who prefer automated methods. The system runs a quick stability test, ramps bus frequencies and repeats this process until the system crashes. Upon reboot the highest stable frequency is automatically selected and applied. Although the utility works, using the "V12" BIOS preset actually gave us a higher stable overclock (3.9GHz vs. 3.75GHz) than the automated tuning function, so we'd encourage you to delve into the "V" presets or manual overclocking instead.

BIOSTAR also includes a power saving utility called GPU (Green Power Utility) that works by shutting down PWM phases during light load conditions. Four performance related presets are available for use, although we did not notice much of a difference in power draw between the settings because Intel's CPUs draw so little power in light load conditions when C-states and SpeedStep are enabled in the BIOS. Power savings from phase shut-off are more apparent on boards that have higher phase counts and switching frequencies because you're contending against greater switching losses.

The Board

Motherboard layouts follows a similar story for most of the boards on test today, with most ports and connectors remaining within reach in commonly used configurations. One area where BIOSTAR seem to have gotten it wrong is in the placement of the PCI-E x4 slot on the TH55XE. It's placed directly below the x16 PEG slot, leaving no chance of using it if you decided to go with a discrete GPU. We're not fans of BIOSTAR's choice of PCI-E retention latches either, it can be very difficult to remove a graphics card for the primary PEG slot because the latch lever is blocked under most graphics card coolers.

Onboard PWM heatsinks are fastened with push-pins and although contact seemed good, we prefer vendors to use screw fittings wherever possible as there are instances where push pins don't seem to provide sufficient down-force for good contact. Everything else is placed in a friendly manner though, and you even get a couple of onboard power/reset buttons for open test beds (although that's an unlikely field of use for this board). Ordinarily, we'd prefer a CMOS battery location at the edge of a motherboard, but BIOSTAR's BIOS recovery routines are so good that we never had to clear CMOS, let alone remove the battery.

Overclocking

Memory overclocking results using the TH55XE are a little mixed. 4GB memory limits using high-end Elpida based modules come in at 188 BCLK (DDR3-1880 MHz):

There's a big problem with this overclock though; S3 resume is limited to between 160~165 BCLK using the 2:10 memory ratio with 4GB of memory and a high QPI multiplier, which is a real shame. It's probably something that BIOSTAR can address easily enough, but let's just say the TH55XE is not competitive in this department at present.

8GB memory overclocking results using the 2:10 memory ratio come in a little lower than boards from ASUS and Gigabyte. We topped out at DDR3-1510MHz for absolute stability:

We did try a combination of 200 BCLK and the 2:8 memory ratio (DDR3-1600MHz), but did not manage to find complete stability. The Gigabyte H55M-USB3 managed to pass all of our tests with ease at the same settings.

BIOS

BIOSTAR's O.N.E menu (Overclocking Navigator Engine) is where all the action takes place with a wide variety of adjustments including the CPU Core, PLL, VTT, PCH, IGP and VDimm. Clock generator skew adjustments are also available for maximum BCLK overclocking. Overclocking profiles can be saved, loaded and individually named in one of the available 10 slots. A built in BIOS flashing function is available (by pressing F12 at boot), allowing users to save and flash the BIOS from a USB or HDD easily.

Like other vendors, BIOSTAR's DRAM timing menu needs some work. Individual sub-timings lack the option of AUTO settings. To date, ASUS and Gigabyte are the only vendors providing selective automation of DRAM sub-timing functions on their H55/H57 motherboards. This is a big plus point for users that don't understand advanced DRAM timings but want to tinker with adjustments gradually.

Recovery from failed overclock settings is excellent; this is one area where BIOSTAR are the best in the business. We did not have to clear CMOS or power down the board at all to get it to recover from a failed overclock; no other vendor seems to get this area of functionality completely right.

A selection of three automated overclocking presets are also available, taking CPUs up to 145 BCLK using conservative voltage increases and memory timings allowing for a quick stable overclock without having to get down and dirty with a multitude of BIOS settings.

Fan control is only available for the CPU fan header (via BIOS/TOVERCLOCKER/TPower), offering full temperature range and speed control. Unfortunately, the SYS fan headers cannot be controlled at all and remain "full-on" all the time.