How good is Biostar? I am about to buy a computer new with
these specs: Biostar P4M890-M7-SE : uATX Socket LGA775
FSB800MHz DDR2 533 PCI-E
Is it a high/medium/low end board? Please respond asap. Thanks.
-Pete
Biostar is a low to medium tiered brand in general, though
that particular board is low-end besides that it's from
Biostar. A few features missing include having only two
SATA150, not SATA300), gigabit ethernet, only two memory
slots, and a slower chipset-integrated video. At least it
does have a PCI Express 16X slot should you want to install
a video card later (assuming system doesn't come with a
separate video card).
I've came across some Biostar boards that worked fine and
others with minor problems like being picky about memory.
It seems a larger gamble to use one, but that is offset by
the low cost.
Although it has these limitations, we can't know the use of
the system, it might be a reasonable choice on a tight
budget but IMO, if the whole system w/o monitor costs more
than about $500 then this board is inappropriate. It would
seem most ideal for a basic light office system. Another
concern if the system uses a low end board is whether other
parts were similarly low end like the power supply. Unless
you're overclocking the parts, a low end PSU will tend to
fail before a low end board will.
