Biostar TForce P965 Deluxe

[dermotti]

Since not many people seem to post about this board.

Picked this up on new egg along with

2x1gb Buffalo Firestix
e6300 C2D
Sapphire x1950pro
Arctic Freezer Pro
Enermax Liberty 500w

The board seems rock solid. The onboard audio is really nice. I have it overclocked to 3.1ghz easily and its still rock solid.

I've only had it 2 days, but so far its awesome.

 

[Bozo Galora]

Glad to hear you are happy with this one

FWIW, I think we have been thru this once before in Hot Deals
newegg does not sell the deluxe - it sells the plain
the deluxe has 6 SATA ports, regular only has 4 - the middle 2 are not soldered on
no matter what sticker says
the regular is $105, the deluxe is $125
I am looking for a deluxe to play with from a US distro but there are none

Having said that, Biostar seems to be making some very fine fairly priced mobo all of a sudden for some reason
But there is NO support whatsoever

Edit: Looks like the 2GB $244 firestix work well with the board (PC6400)
boot right up heh?
what FSB - I'm too lazy to figure it out

 

[dermotti]

Yea you are correct, its the normal edition, not deluxe.


I have the fire stix @ 441mhz so far. I belive they can go higher tho, i just gotta play with the settings more.

But yea they boot up perfectly.

 

[n7]

Yeah the Firestix should do a lot more.

Try running 4:5 at a lower speed like 7x400 to start & go from there.

You'll likely need around 2.2V+ to get 500 4-4-4 stable, but if you loosen to 5-5-5 they should do 550 i suspect.

 

[dermotti]

Yea im running 1:1 right now, im pretty sure something else is hitting its limit (prolly the cpu)

3.1ghz at 441.

Ill try 4:5 and see what i can get.

 

[jackylman]

This board has major trouble OC'ing on anything other than 1:1
The Anandtech review shows problems hitting over 300MHz FSB :Q and that's exactly what happened to me. Still waiting for a BIOS update. :frown:

 

[dermotti]

Yea i have the same issue @ 4:5.

Best i can get (with 2 hours of stress test) is 1:1 450mhz @ 4-4-4-12

 

[Bozo Galora]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=110106

 

[dermotti]

Ok i have a gripe about this board now

Using the Artic 7 Freezer pro, it blows no air on the northbridge. This is fine at stock Northbridge Voltage. But if you up the voltage, it gets extremely hot and unstable.

I am blowing my spot cooler over it now and that resolved the issue, so i can bump up the voltage.

Otherwise getting a downword force HSF would help also, by blowing air accross the chip.

 

[wadewood]

I setup a system using this board 2 weeks ago with an E6300 and 2*512Mb Buffalo Firestixs.

I'm running (orthos and prime tested stable) at 510 x 7 =3570 Mhz. Ram timings 5-5-5-15. Using water cooling on CPU and Northbridge, CPU running under load at 23 C at 1.45v.

I'm impressed with this motherboard for the price. I think Ram is maxing out, but that board or CPU could go higher.