Biostar iDEQ 200T: Great Performance & Brilliant Design
by Wesley Fink on September 29, 2003 10:24 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Biostar iDEQ 200T: BIOS and Overclocking
You buy a Small Form Factor system for the small size and quiet unobtrusive operation. However, as we demonstrated in our review of the Shuttle SB65G2, these systems are becoming capable of anything that the full-size systems can do.
Biostar uses the familiar Phoenix-Award Bios in the iDEQ 200T system. Most will be very comfortable with the familiar menu/submenu arrangement.
Most of the submenus and options are familiar, including a full PC Health submenu with Smart Fan adjustments and a complete readout of fan speeds, temperatures, and power levels.
You might not expect full control of memory timings on a SFF system, but the iDEQ 200T offers a full selection of memory timings to allow you to get the most performance from your memory. Memory Timing options are very good, as good as you will normally find in any 865 system.
You also have a range of vDIMM adjustments from 2.5V to 2.8V.
The Biostar does have the capabilities of overclocking, but the options are a bit more meager than what we normally see on top-line 865 boards. FSB frequency can be set from 200 to 255, and CPU voltage (vCore) is adjustable through a modest range from default to +8.1%. This means with a default voltage of 1.525V, you can select up to 1.65V (+8.1%). We have found that the 800FSB P4 processors do not respond normally to much more than about 1.6V, so this is probably a fine range for overclocking. The vDIMM to 2.8V is also fine. It appears that PCI/AGP lock is implemented with the BIOS option, “Auto Detect PCI Clock”. When this option is “Enabled”, we were able to achieve our highest overclocks with the Biostar system. The Biostar does not offer vAGP, or chipset voltage adjustments, but these are not as critical for good overclocking results. The Biostar should be a decent overclocker with these options, and will likely be limited in the top overclock by the 200-watt power supply.
FSB Overclocking Results
The last system that you normally think about overclocking would be a Small Form Factor. However, since our excellent overclocking results in our Shuttle SFF review seems to prove that you don’t have to give up anything in a SFF system, we decided to take a look at where we could go with the Biostar. The following setup was used on the iDEQ 200T for FSB overclocking:| Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed | |
| Processor: | Intel 3.0 800FSB Pentium 4 |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.525V (default) |
| Cooling: | Biostar Cooling System |
| Memory: | 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II DS |
| Power Supply: | Enhance SFF 200W |
The highest stable FSB overclocking that we could achieve at default voltage was 228 (912FSB) while running an ATI Radeon 9800 PRO and an IDE hard drive. With the on-board Intel Extreme Graphics, highest stable overclock was slightly more limited at 225FSB. This translates into an astounding 3.4+ GHz speed in this little system with a 200-watt power supply. This 3.0 CPU is known to perform as high as 245 on other Intel motherboards, but keep in mind that our Intel testbed has a 470W power supply. The limitation is clearly the 200W power supply, as we would expect, but the fact that we could overclock to 225-228 on this loaded SFF box is an amazing performance on this Biostar iDEQ 200T.
At 3.42GHZ, we ran the machine overnight, stress-tested, ran benchmarks, and still could not get the system to fail or the automatic setup of the fan to kick into high speed. With a loaded Biostar iDEQ 200T — 1 GB of memory, 120GB hard drive, combo DVD/CD burner, and an ATI Radeon 9800 PRO — consider these excellent results the worst overclocking that you are likely to see on this machine. A card drawing less current or a slower CPU will make fewer demands on the system and should allow an even higher overclock. So would a slightly larger power supply.
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Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
http://www.sfftech.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=442Even nicer!
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
Be warned. They still need to work on the power supply for these systems. I own a Shuttle, and basically had to rip out the crappy 200W PSU and use an external 350W PSU (probably 300W may have been enough). With the stock PSU, the system would basically hang after any kind of intensive activity (try a stress test on the system for an hour or so).These systems overdrive the PSU, and while you will hear stories of people running 17 harddrives and their latest ATI Bongo 945600 on an overclocked box -- those are very much the exceptions. You either have to hook up a better PSU externally -- basically invalidating the whole purpose behind a SFF in the first place, or you have to play roulette with reordering 200W PSUs until you get a particular item which may work overdriven (but for how long?)
I see SHuttle has 220W PSU's in their newer versions, which should help.. but considering that people run the same hardware with 350W PSU's in bigger boxes, I still remain *very* suspicious of their claims.
Wesley Fink - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
#11 - The Shuttle and Biostar are the same size. A review will be posted shortly on the Soltek SFF which is a bit taller and has 2-5.25" bays and a 250W PS. I've included a picture of the Soltek and Biostar side-by-side in that review.#20 - As you can see on the Shuttle and Biostar Forums on some boards, users have been modifying these machines. You are correct that the internal USB headers have no matching punch-out for an external header, but most USB connectors are on slot brackets and you could certainly get a 4-port slot bracket for one of the two slots in the rear. Also you could use a hard-drive where the floppy goes - just be very careful of heat build-up. It should work fine.
Anonymous User - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
Can someone explain to me what "internal" USB ports are for? I note the sb65g2 has a total of 6 ports (4 rear, 2 front) while the 200t has 4 (2 rear, 2 front). But the article says the 200t has 4 more "internal" USB ports, and the sb65g2 has 2 more internally. There's no breakout (that I noticed) for adding more external ports using a header (like the parallel port header allows), so what good are internal ports?Also, is there any reason why one could not put a second hard drive where the floppy goes, like one can do in the sb65g2?
(I'm really torn between the two machines!!! Grrr.)
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link
I would like to upgrade from my present SFF (ASUS Terminator) but want to install dual HDs. Your review mentioned an optional dual HD cage. Any info available on where this might be found. Typically I've found that optional items on SFF machines are not available (except maybe in Taiwan).hirschma - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Post #10 - perhaps you _should_ test the SPDIF input. That was the problem when I bought the Biostar 200N - Biostar said that it had input, every reviewer said the same... turns out that it was on Biostar's spec page, and every reviewer just took their word for it.Would your review be so glowing if it turned out that a major feature for some wasn't really there?
Don't reviewers have some responsibility to ensure that all advertised features actually are present?
It ain't that hard to test - hook up your PS2 or similar, and see if it passes audio, no?
rhacquer - Tuesday, September 30, 2003 - link
Oh, I got the jones for a SFF rig now... soon as we put on a new roof, pay for baby's private school, replace my 12 yr old car, etc. :-(Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 30, 2003 - link
post # 14 - SIZEAnonymous User - Tuesday, September 30, 2003 - link
50 Dba is twice as loud as 40Dba, not 10x as much.Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 30, 2003 - link
fill me in on the power supply .. why are the sff's 200 watts versus pc at 450 or so? why so much less power?