Product page: TH55XE

Price: Around £80.00

Reviewed by: Aaron and windwithme

Edited by: Aaron

In the past we saw a lot of news about Intel 32nm CPU on the internet;
more information was about Core i7-980X, also LGA 1366 6 physical cores + 6 virtual HT cores (12 Threading).

The orientation of 32nm CPU belongs to Intel future highest-level LGA 1366 platform,
which most consumers show less interest in because of higher price.

Now take a look at Intel LGA 1156 platform.
About this new product line, there will be some 32nm CPU products put on sale,
including Core i5 6XX and Core i3 5XX series, and named Clarkdale.

The market orientation of these two series is different from previous Intel CPU.
The main reason is that Intel defines new CPU structure, not putting GPU into chipset like before but into CPU directly.
Intel’s such new design will affect PC market style “All in One MB” is becoming the future.

On chipset side, Intel releases H55/H57 to support new CPU design, and main difference is with or without RAID function.
Same as P55 chipset, a single-chip is adopted in the new chipset;
I assume Micro-ATX form factor will be the main design for H55/H57 motherboards.
Of course, some manufacturers also released ATX form factor for higher-level H57, seeming to direct compete with AMD 785G/790GX.
Especially, Micro-ATX products of AMD hold a special attraction for consumers for a quiet sometime now.
Therefore, Intel wants to increase his market share counting on this new product line this time.

Today we are looking at the Tseries TH55XE from Biostar.

In 1980, the IT industry was growing at a phenomenal rate. With wide experience in buying and selling electronic parts as well as researching on future demands for mainboards and add-on cards, the founder of BIOSTAR GROUP, established BIOSTAR MICROTECH INTERNATIONAL CORP in 1986.
In the early years, BIOSTAR concentrated on the manufacture of mainboards built for XT form factor. To maintain steady business growth, BIOSTAR managed to keep a large portion of its capital and manpower invested on the design and development of new products, which at the same time has enabled it to stay competitive in the rapid evolution of the computer industry.

Product images:

The Bios and OC'ing

Page of voltage
CPU Vocre -0.080~+1.260V
CPU VTT Voltage 1.150~2.080V
CPU PLL Voltage 1.800~2.730V
DRAM Voltage 1.300~2.545V
PCH PLL Voltage 1.100~2.030V
PCH Voltage 1.10~1.25V
IGD Voltage 1.18~1.78V

Intel PPM Configuration, many C-STATE can be selected from here

DDR3 Timing Configuration
Users can adjust arguments according

to their DRAM quality.

BIOSTAR’s G.P.U Phase Control
CPU Load Line option is also put in this page.

Built-in GPU option, named IGD Graphics
32/64/128MB can be selected to share RAM.

Main page of CPU technology options
Common C1E, HT, VT, etc technology all can be set enabled or disabled from here.

When built-in GPU is used, all of these options will appear
They can be overclocked with built-in GPU, with range from 133 ~ 2000MHz

For BIOS setting, I set steady configuration according to the ratio of CPU to DDR3 is 200 to 2000.
When external CPU clock is set over 166 ~ 175MHz, built-in GPU becomes unsteady.
So, if you want to overclock CPU over 200MHz, external VGA is suggested.
I find this special situation when I use Clarkdale;
one possible reason is that GPU is built in CPU, so the design affects overclocking capability indirectly.

Testing
platform:
CPU: Intel Core i5-661 ES
MB: BIOSTAR TSERIES TH55XE
DRAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT CMG6GX3M3A2000C8
VGA: Intel Clarkdale 900MHz
HD: CORSAIR CMFSSD-64GB2D
POWER: In-win commander 1200w
Cooler: Mega Shadow(Deluxe Edition)
OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit

About 1.476~1.488V, this range can provide enough voltage for 5GHz into OS.
If you want to use Super PI and same level software, I think adding voltage up to 1.52 ~ 1.56V for CPU is necessary.
E8400~E8600 also can make CPU run at 4.8~4.9GHz, but voltage and temperature of 32nm are lower.
In the future, if Intel makes 32nm better, overclocking dual-core CPU to 5GHz will not be just a dream.

BIOSTAR T-Series TH55XE
Merits:
1. The design of package makes the product look high quality.
2. The range of BIOS voltage setting is wide; external clock and other options are also plentiful.
3. Power consumption of H55 chipset is very low.
4. Overclocking can make CPU/DDR3 reach 200/2000 steady level.
5. CPU power supply material is applied by better phase design.

Demerits:
1. Due to Intel’s structural design, i5 CPU built-in GPU can not show good performance on DDR3.

Although the price of BIOSTAR T-Series TH55XE is about US$117, it is a cheaper choice.
But I think the price of H55 chipset is still too high; if its price can be reduced the product must be more popular.

About Clarkdale CPU, there will be both Core i5 6XX and Core i3 5XX series,
and the main difference is supporting TurboBoost or not.
I find some quotations about this kind of CPU from other websites:
Core i5 6XX: US$176~284
Core i3 530/540: US$113/133 respectively; and the price of Intel Pentium G9650 without HT technology is US$87.

My personal thinking of “All in One MB” platform, at the initial stage the price of the CPU product that consumers can accept is about US$90 ~ 110.
Therefore, Core i3 530 and Pentium G9650 are the products that can fit in with most consumers’ budget.

My experience about testing Clarkdale platform this time
Supported by 32nm new technology, the CPU,
compared with 45nm, has higher clock, lower temperature and power consumption, all of which make a great impression on me.
But now owing too high price, Intel still leaves something to be desired to make its products accepted by more consumers.
I feel very happy that besides AMD platform, Intel also releases higher performance All in One chipset.
Although current Clarkdale C/P value is not high, anyway Intel finally makes great progress on this product field in 2010.
I also expect the parity of this new platform is coming soon.

The release of Clarkdale provides one more choice in the market,
and makes the performance of Intel All in One chipset greater in the future.

This MB dose OC like a dream... out of all the MB's i have used this one has got to be the best of OC'ing, i give a big thumbs up to the guys at Biostar for this MB and award this the AZCS.co.uk 4 out of 5 stars for how well it OC's

Thanks to windwithme for help with the review.