CRN Test Center: A Solid Basis For High-End Systems

Building computer systems is like constructing buildings—you start with a foundation. While the foundation of a building is usually made of concrete, a computer system's foundation is its motherboard. And to build high-end Advanced Micro Devices-based systems, Biostar Microtech's T-Series TA690G AM2 is a good place to start.

PRODUCT: TA690G AM2 motherboard PRICE: $79 DISTRIBUTORS/ INTEGRATORS: MA Labs, Max Group WARRANTY: Two years COMPANY: Biostar Microtech San Jose, Calif. (626) 581-1055 www.biostar-usa.com

The TA690G AM2 motherboard is based on AMD's latest chipset, the 690G. The chipset, along with the motherboard's AM2 socket, supports AMD Sempron, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2 dual-core and Athlon 64 FX processors. The chipset features a 1GHz HyperTransport interface, and supports PCI Express, USB 2.0, 3.0 Gbps SATA with NCQ and slumber modes, ATA/133, ACPI 3.0, AHCI, UAA and PCI v2.3.

The most impressive feature is the chipset's integrated ATI Radeon X1250 graphics accelerator, which can share up to 512 Mbytes of system memory and has a 128-bit engine that processes multiple pixels per clock cycle. The graphics accelerator supports DVI and HDMI with HDCP. HDMI allows the transmission of uncompressed digital video and audio from a single connector, which reduces the number of required cables.

The TA690G AM2 is loaded with ports and connectors. It features one PCI-Express x16 slot, one PCI-Express x1 slot and two PCI slots. It also features four SATA II ports that support RAID 0, 1 and 10. IDE and floppy connectors are provided for legacy compatibility. There are four external USB 2.0 ports, along with three internal USB headers that support up to two ports each for a total of 10 USB 2.0 ports. The motherboard's four DIMM slots support a maximum of 4 Gbytes of system memory.

Because of its many integrated peripherals, the TA690G AM2 is easy to set up. It simply needs a case, processor, memory, hard drive and optical drive to make it complete.