BIOSTAR TA990FXE Ver. 5.x Pro Reviews

So what can we say about the Biostar TA990FXE+Bulldozer combo that the benchmarks haven't already spelled out so painfully for AMD fans? The Intel Core i5 Sandy Bridge + P67/Z68 platform beats the flagship AMD offering in the majority of tests...but not all! Biostar have put together a really nice AM3+ mobo in the TA990FXE that will easily run multi-videocard Crossfire and SLI set ups with an 8-core FX-8150 bulldozer CPU in the drivers seat. What the Biostar TA990FXE motherboard does have in abundance is a good set of overclocking features. Items like the Port 80 card and physical power/reset switches make the no-frills TA990FXE motherboard easy enough to overclock. Biostar doesn't throw in quite as many extras as other AMD 990FX-based motherboards do, but for most the dual PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots and four USB 3.0 ports should be enough. Five SATA 6Gb/s ports is a decent quantity, and they can be configured in RAID 0, 1 5 and 10 modes too.

Biostar TA990FXE mainboard has one very strong response that may make up for all little issues and inconveniences mentioned above -extremely affordable price of about $130. I am sure a lot of users will be ready to compromise and disregard some of the issues if the price of the mainboard is justified by its functionality and meets their expectations. However, do not forget that there is another mainboard based on AMD’s flagship 990FX chipset – ASRock 990FX Extreme 3. This solution has more fan connectors, more USB 2.0 ports, and Nvidia SLI support. Maybe it is even capable of overclocking new processors, who knows? Overall, as we have already mentioned in the beginning of this article – the biggest challenge for the DIY users is to make the choice. We, in our turn, are simply trying to make sure you have everything you need to make this choice and be certain that it is the right one.

When you figure in the price of this board and how much it would cost to upgrade your CPU as well, the value of this board becomes quite clear. This board will allow many users to upgrade their entire systems for a little more than one of the higher-end boards would cost by itself. If you’re looking at performance as well then this board really becomes an amazing value. Biostar has been an industry leader for offering incredible performance for a reasonable price. This board doesn’t have a reasonable price; it has an incredible price! For this reason this board is definitely an Editor’s Choice Award winner her at Motherboards.Org.

When deciding on a new motherboard there are always a couple of areas to look at. First is the features that you need in a motherboard; the BIOSTAR TA990FXE has a rather solid feature set. Compared to some though, it's not as packed with features. BIOSTAR kept the features down, which in turn kept the price down. The BIOSTAR TA990FXE retails for only $129.99 which is one of the lowest priced AMD 990FX AM3+ motherboards on the market today. The third area that is typically looked at is the length of warranty. No matter which manufacturer you buy a motherboard from, there is always the chance for a DOA board or issues down the road. BIOSTAR has their motherboards backed by a three year warranty.

We spent a couple of weeks with the Biostar TA990FXE before beginning our review. During that time we were very impressed with the board's abilities, as we were fully aware of the board's retail pricing @ $129.99. With the pricing in mind, we didn't really expect a lot and were left surprised that there was not one specific area where we could find the board's design limiting our overclocks compared to other products. The slot configuration is definitely not the most ideal and the VRM is not the most efficient, but those are things we are more than willing to accept given the cost. For users who want full x16/x16 PCIe support, and are not overclocking, there is no reason to even consider any other product, as the Biostar TA990FXE is quite capable of meeting the needs of such a user 100%. For those wanting a modest overclock and the same PCIe support, the TA990FXE should not be overlooked, as the saving in the board price can be invested in additional cooling that makes the present issues seem inconsequential. It is a bit unfortunate that the full software package is not working, yet we have run into this same issue before with boards we received from Biostar prior to the retail launch, and having recently revisited a few of those products, we are 100% confident that while this is currently an issue, updated software will arrive shortly that makes it a trivial issue at most. We also did not notice any issues with memory compatibility in the initial BIOS, which is a fantastic thing, as this has been an issue that has plagued Biostar in the past, but as the TA990FXE proves, Biostar is making great strides in that department. Over the past year we've spent a significant amount of time with Biostar products, and for sure, the TA990FXE has won us over. Good job, Biostar!