Another gripe is the list of ports and connectors as there are only four USB 2.0 ports on the I/O panel and while there are headers on the board for six more USB ports there are no brackets included in the package. We are also unhappy about the absence of a digital audio connector as it means that anyone using the Biostar in a Media Centre will be forced to connect the audio over HDMI or buy a separate sound card.

 

Also missing are eSATA and Firewire ports but these come firmly under the heading of ‘you pays your money and you takes your choice.' Certainly, we don't regard Firewire as an essential feature and that is especially true with a motherboard that is as cheap as the Biostar. When we reviewed the MSI 790GX-G65 it was priced at £115 and the cost has now dipped below £100. By contrast the Biostar TA790GX XE costs less than £73 which is very appealing when you consider that a Phenom II X3 710 costs £92 so you can buy your motherboard, processor and memory for £200.

The layout of the TA790GX XE isn't ideal, which may be due to the space limitations of the Micro-ATX form factor. The Northbridge is located on one corner of the CPU in line with the four-phase power regulation hardware while the frame for the CPU heatsink is squeezed between the passive cooler on the Northbridge and the memory slots, and the cooler looks worryingly small. We found that our Zalman CNPS9500 cooler overshadowed the first memory slot and meant that we couldn't install a module of Corsair Dominator memory in that slot.

The two micro buttons for Power and Reset are located in one corner of the board with the six SATA ports located inboard of the buttons. Along the foot of the board there are front panel headers along with headers for six case mounted USB ports and then we come to an array of legacy connectors with a header for a Serial port, another for a Parallel port and finally we have a floppy connector.

Our first job when we tested the Biostar was to download a BIOS update. It's a two-stage process where you install a Windows based utility which in turn downloads and installs the BIOS file.

Once we'd done that we raised the memory speed from the default 800MHz to 1,066MHz which involves a small amount of dabbling in the overclocking section of the BIOS and we were ready to put the Biostar through its paces. With the Phenom II X4 810 running at standard clock speed the Biostar is noticeably slower than the MSI 790GX-G65 when you use the integrated graphics. Plug in a Radeon HD 4890 and the scores in 3D Mark Vantage level out but in PCMark05 the Biostar pulls ahead of the MSI by a narrow margin. It appears that the MSI works better with the integrated graphics thanks to its use of DDR3 system memory.