VIA PT880 PRO: Biostar’s Deluxe Dual Combo
by Gary Key on March 20, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
The Biostar PT880 Pro-A7 Combo is certainly an interesting board due to its ability to bridge the upgrade path from AGP to PCI Express graphics or from DDR to DDR2 memory technology. However, the performance of the board was dismal at best in our benchmarks compared to the more recent Intel and NVIDIA chipsets. The stability of the board with the varying combinations of AGP, PCI, DDR, and DDR2 peripherals was very good at stock or auto settings, but it is definitely not made for enthusiasts.
With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding this board.
In the video area, the inclusion of both a single PCI Express X4 mode slot and an AGP 3.0 slot provides an upgrade path or the ability to use an older AGP based card with your Pentium 4 LGA socket 775 CPU. This setup also allows for dual card operation and provides the ability to operate up to four monitors. While in theory each graphics card should be able to run at full 3D acceleration simultaneously, our limited testing showed that only the primary display adapter chosen in Windows XP was capable of this while the secondary display seemed to run at near or non-3D acceleration the majority of time.
In the on-board audio area, the Biostar board offers the Realtek ALC-655 AC97 audio codec. While the VIA VT8237R chipset fully supports 7.1 audio via the excellent VIA Envy24PT audio controller, Biostar only provided 5.1 AC97 capabilities. The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and DVD areas is decent for an on-board solution. The audio quality in gaming was fair, but it did not match the output of the Sound Blaster X-FI or even the Realtek ALC-882. If you plan on utilizing this board for gaming, and we do not, then our recommendation is to purchase an appropriate sound card for consistency in frame rates and improved audio quality. However, the Realtek ALC-655 should suffice for the majority of home/office users.
In the storage area, the Biostar board offers the standard storage options afforded by the VIA VT8237R. The board offers SATA RAID 0, 1, and 1.5Gb/s support along with dual channel ATA133 Ultra DMA capability. The board also offers eight VIA USB 2.0 ports when utilizing the two USB 2.0 headers. The performance of the VIA SATA and IDE controllers is average and finished near the nForce4 and Intel solutions, though we did not report these results. If you have purchased a SATA 3Gb/s capable drive you will need to be sure to jumper the drive for 1.5Gb/s operation as the VIA VT8237R is not upwardly compatible with the newer SATA 3Gb/s drive designs.
In the performance area, the Biostar PT880 Pro-A7 Combo generated abysmal benchmark scores in the gaming and media encoding areas. The overall performance of the board in other areas was below average at best. The stability of the board was very good during testing. At stock speeds, there were no reported issues, but once we started overclocking the board, it became very easy to crash our system past the 222MHz FSB limit.
We feel that Biostar made the following errors in the design and execution of the board. The choice of the Realtek 8201CL 10/100Mb/s PCI Ethernet PHY is a mistake when a PCI Gigabit Ethernet controller is available. Although most home network users might not exceed 100Mb/s operations, the lack of Gigabit Ethernet capability in a board today is a mistake.
The use of the Realtek ALC-655 audio codec is an error when VIA's own Envy24PT solution is readily available at this time. Although the ALC-655 is fine for most users purchasing this board, an upgraded audio solution could not hurt.
We believe that Biostar has done a good job in designing a board based upon the VIA PT880 PRO chipset. At this time, we feel like this is a board that was released for a market that is no longer around. The feature set and performance of the board would have been very good when the 925x and 915 chipsets were released almost two years ago. The ability to run AGP graphics and to utilize existing DDR memory technology with a built-in upgrade path to PCI Express graphics and DDR2 would have been a feature set that most people would have seriously considered or purchased at that time. We believe that anyone currently considering an LGA socket 775 CPU is probably looking for better overall system performance via an upgrade to a recent PCI Express graphics card and performance oriented DDR2 memory.
Sometimes, it is best to endure change.
The Biostar PT880 Pro-A7 Combo is certainly an interesting board due to its ability to bridge the upgrade path from AGP to PCI Express graphics or from DDR to DDR2 memory technology. However, the performance of the board was dismal at best in our benchmarks compared to the more recent Intel and NVIDIA chipsets. The stability of the board with the varying combinations of AGP, PCI, DDR, and DDR2 peripherals was very good at stock or auto settings, but it is definitely not made for enthusiasts.
With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding this board.
In the video area, the inclusion of both a single PCI Express X4 mode slot and an AGP 3.0 slot provides an upgrade path or the ability to use an older AGP based card with your Pentium 4 LGA socket 775 CPU. This setup also allows for dual card operation and provides the ability to operate up to four monitors. While in theory each graphics card should be able to run at full 3D acceleration simultaneously, our limited testing showed that only the primary display adapter chosen in Windows XP was capable of this while the secondary display seemed to run at near or non-3D acceleration the majority of time.
In the on-board audio area, the Biostar board offers the Realtek ALC-655 AC97 audio codec. While the VIA VT8237R chipset fully supports 7.1 audio via the excellent VIA Envy24PT audio controller, Biostar only provided 5.1 AC97 capabilities. The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and DVD areas is decent for an on-board solution. The audio quality in gaming was fair, but it did not match the output of the Sound Blaster X-FI or even the Realtek ALC-882. If you plan on utilizing this board for gaming, and we do not, then our recommendation is to purchase an appropriate sound card for consistency in frame rates and improved audio quality. However, the Realtek ALC-655 should suffice for the majority of home/office users.
In the storage area, the Biostar board offers the standard storage options afforded by the VIA VT8237R. The board offers SATA RAID 0, 1, and 1.5Gb/s support along with dual channel ATA133 Ultra DMA capability. The board also offers eight VIA USB 2.0 ports when utilizing the two USB 2.0 headers. The performance of the VIA SATA and IDE controllers is average and finished near the nForce4 and Intel solutions, though we did not report these results. If you have purchased a SATA 3Gb/s capable drive you will need to be sure to jumper the drive for 1.5Gb/s operation as the VIA VT8237R is not upwardly compatible with the newer SATA 3Gb/s drive designs.
In the performance area, the Biostar PT880 Pro-A7 Combo generated abysmal benchmark scores in the gaming and media encoding areas. The overall performance of the board in other areas was below average at best. The stability of the board was very good during testing. At stock speeds, there were no reported issues, but once we started overclocking the board, it became very easy to crash our system past the 222MHz FSB limit.
We feel that Biostar made the following errors in the design and execution of the board. The choice of the Realtek 8201CL 10/100Mb/s PCI Ethernet PHY is a mistake when a PCI Gigabit Ethernet controller is available. Although most home network users might not exceed 100Mb/s operations, the lack of Gigabit Ethernet capability in a board today is a mistake.
The use of the Realtek ALC-655 audio codec is an error when VIA's own Envy24PT solution is readily available at this time. Although the ALC-655 is fine for most users purchasing this board, an upgraded audio solution could not hurt.
We believe that Biostar has done a good job in designing a board based upon the VIA PT880 PRO chipset. At this time, we feel like this is a board that was released for a market that is no longer around. The feature set and performance of the board would have been very good when the 925x and 915 chipsets were released almost two years ago. The ability to run AGP graphics and to utilize existing DDR memory technology with a built-in upgrade path to PCI Express graphics and DDR2 would have been a feature set that most people would have seriously considered or purchased at that time. We believe that anyone currently considering an LGA socket 775 CPU is probably looking for better overall system performance via an upgrade to a recent PCI Express graphics card and performance oriented DDR2 memory.
Sometimes, it is best to endure change.
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Myrandex - Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - link
I don't know of any desktop level chipset supporting 6 slots, you are being unrealistic here. 4 is about the most you could hope for.4x PCiE is disapointing.
Jason
DigitalFreak - Monday, March 20, 2006 - link
Another crap chipset from a crap vendor.Marlin1975 - Monday, March 20, 2006 - link
Set the memory to 166MHz before trying to overclock. I found this worked best and got me past 205MHz FSB setting. But at 200Mhz memory (ddr1) it would hold or freeze.I have had an Asrock and a Asus PT880 pro board and both worked well. I now have the Asus with an 805 chip. The Asus board has the best sound from all the PT880 pro boards I have seen so far and that is why I gave up the Asrock. Also since the 805 chip starts at 133MHz fsb overclocking seems to work better. That and the 805 would be a better choice to review this type of board based on price. So how about trying the Asus with a 805, or even this biostar with a 805.
Marlin
Gary Key - Monday, March 20, 2006 - link
We tried the 166MHz level and were able to overclock at the 14x multiplier up to a 215FSB but the board was not stable enough to complete our benchmark tests and would generate a ream of errors in MemTest86. We also tried the 15x muliplier with the same results. This issue occurred with two different bios revisions also. We believe either our board or the bios just has an issue with running the CPU at a multiplier other than stock.
While a Pentium D 805 or a newer Celeron D CPU is the most likely CPU candidate along with an 6600GT or X800 video card for this board we did not have the schedule time to go back and test the other boards with these configurations. In fact, our Intel platforms will be moving away from the 840EE after the next review and to a more recent Pentium D processor along with a change in the GPU choice.
Thank you for the comments and suggestions.
hans007 - Monday, March 20, 2006 - link
i think you guys "the reviewers" made a pretty crappy choice of video cards to benchmark this with.this board is clearly meant for someone who is say ... just trying to do a budget upgrade, not someone who can afford a x1900xtx or 7800gtx.
the benchmark scores make it look like an awful board because of the x4 slot limiting the video bandwidth. i think if you benched it with a more realistic bunch of cards such as say 6600gt, or 6800gs etc, it'd be much closer as those cards are probably not as affected by the x4 slot.
Visual - Monday, March 20, 2006 - link
well, we know the regular excuses about this - the card is the same as all other reviews so that results can be comparable, and so the reviewers don't need to actually run tests with other boards (they already have the scores ready)also, i can imagine someone using a board like this if they want to stick with their AGP card for the time being, especially if its one of the fastest models. and later they would upgrade to something fast on the PCIe and expect a good performance, so its good that the review shows that isn't the case.
for people simply going budget, this board doesn't make sense. none of the "combo" features are really needed if you go with a cheap pcie vidcard and a small ddr2 stick.
i was actually surprised someone bothered to make a board like this - intel moved to ddr2 ages ago and i can hardly see anyone needing ddr mobos by now... and even if they did there are plenty of ddr mobos already. and pcie is the standard for quite some time now... it would've made sense right after the intro of pcie, when someone might've wanted to stick with their expencive 6800gt, but now those agp cards are just not worth keeping for the "slow upgrade" route.
jm20 - Monday, March 20, 2006 - link
n the performance area, the Biostar TForce4 U 775 generated abysmal benchmark scores in the gaming and media encoding areas.Typo, "Biostar PT880 Pro-A7" is the correct model