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The X2 3600 Newegg Combo |
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Featuring the Biostar T-Force 550 |
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by Josh Walrath |
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The board itself is well protected in the box, and I found no damage from shipping. The design is very simple and straightforward. It features 4 PCI slots, 2 PCI-E 1x slots, and the PCI-E 16x slot for graphics topping them all off. If a user chooses a two slot cooling solution on their video card, then one of the PCI-E 1x slots will be blocked, but that leaves open every other slot available. The only issue I could find with spacing would be if the user had a long video card that took up two slots, it might interfere with the IDE and floppy cable connections. The SATA ports are all placed so that they shouldn’t interfere at all with any add-in cards. As we move away from floppy and PATA connections, this inconvenience will mean less and less as time goes by.
There is not a whole lot of padding in this box, but the motherboard is snuggly fit within the sturdy cardboard. The colors of the board are bold, but not garish. The board is somewhat unique in that it has 6 USB ports on the backplate, along with the 7.1 channel sound outputs, serial port, and PS/2 ports. What is conspicuously missing is a parallel port. I thought it quite odd that they would include a serial port, but not a parallel port. On the board is the header for adding a parallel port, but the port is not included in the bundle. I’m not even sure of where one could be purchased. It also has the standard USB headers on the board to allow front panel USB connections. The nForce 550 supports up to 10 USB 2.0 ports. The power circuitry looks very robust, but is passively cooled without heatsinks. It does get a little warm (too hot to touch), but so far I have not seen it affect stability even when overclocked. It does not look like Biostar skimped on that portion, and considering that quad core chips will eventually be here, they seem to be planning for the future. The circuitry uses poly caps (sometimes referred to as solid caps), which are typically more expensive than electrolytic based caps. They also can handle heat a whole lot better than the cheaper caps. Most poly caps have an estimated lifespan of 10 years of constant use, as compared to the 3 to 5 years that electrolytic caps are rated for. Putting a handful of these in the main power circuitry basically insures that this board will last far longer than users will probably keep it. The main ATX power plug is centrally located on the board, which can be troublesome for airflow in a messy case. A few zip ties later and it really isn’t an issue. The central location for this plug allows an even distribution of power for the entire board, and the CPU 12v connection is at the top left corner of the board. From an electrical standpoint, the connections are right where they should be.
The board is not all that large yet still retains a clean and relatively uncluttered layout. The DIMM slots are a tad close to the CPU, but there is enough clearance at the bottom to insert DIMMS without having to remove the graphics card. The nForce 550 is cooled by a fairly large active heatsink and fan. This low profile number keeps things nice and cool, and so far I have not noticed any extra buzz or vibrations from the combo. Hopefully the fan will be a bit more robust than some other solutions that I have had the misfortune to listen to. Only time will tell if this fan stands up to the constant punishment overclockers will probably inflict upon it. The CPU has the necessary amount of space around it according to AMD’s specifications. The DIMM slots are a bit close, and with an oversized heatsink there could be space issues. I tested the board using Geil, G-Skill, and Supertalent memory. The board wasn’t very picky about what memory was used, and it in fact had excellent compatibility with the DIMMS I had. Unlike other AM2 based boards I have tested in the past, this one seemed to run all the different DIMMS perfectly fine. Other than the lack of a parallel port, I have few complaints about the features and layout of the board. Biostar did a very nice job in providing a good package for a very low price. But the best value of this board isn’t merely the price and layout.
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Copyright 1999-2007 PenStar Systems, LLC. |
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