Biostar IDEQ 330P
Overview
Moving on to the newcomers, we have the most recently launched 939 SFF from Biostar. Biostar is a tier two manufacturer that has been around for some time. They've been making motherboards for a long time, and they've also been in the SFF market almost as long as Shuttle. Their IDEQ line has included some innovative and creative approaches, and the new 300 series offers some of the more interesting features that we've seen. We're looking at the 330P for this roundup, and it certainly has a lot to offer.Aesthetics
The first impression of the 330P is that it's shiny. Really shiny! (It also attracts fingerprints and dust exceptionally well, but that's typical of high-gloss surfaces.) Some people may prefer a matte finish instead, but the glossy paint definitely gives the 330P an air of sleekness. We've seen quite a few SFF cases now, and whatever else you might say of the 330P, it certainly stands out from the crowd. |
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The Biostar case is actually a bit wider than most of the other cases, but there's a reason for that. We also like the less obtrusive front panel lighting; a couple of indicators for HDD and power are all that you see, though the power button does glow orange when the PC is turned off. Something else that we like is that Biostar didn't bother with a door to hide the USB and other front ports. We use such ports frequently, so a door just gets in the way and is one more part that can break off.
One of the few items that give us any cause for concern as far as appearance is the front grille, where air is pulled in to cool the CPU. Dust is bound to collect there over time, and while it may serve as a reminder that it's time to clean out the inside of your PC, ignorance is bliss. It's a minor point, and some people will just like the visual highlight that it provides. Just remember to wipe it off with a damp cloth periodically and you should be fine.
Features
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Biostar 330P
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| Dimensions | (w)215 mm x (h)185 mm x (d)355 mm | |
| CPU Support | AMD Socket 939 up to FX-57/X24800+ | |
| Memory Support | PC1600/PC2100/PC2700/PC3200 up to 2GB; 2 DIMM slots |
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| Motherboard | K8NBD-S9 (proprietary) NVIDIA nForce4 Chipset (not Ultra, not 4X) 1X-5X (200-1000MHz) HyperTransport 8-bit/8-bit to 16-bit/16-bit HT Width |
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| Flash Reader | CF I/II, MD, SM/SMC, SD, MMC, and MS/MSP | |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x PCIe X16; 1 x PCI; 1 x mini PCI | |
| Power Supply | 300W Power Supply 2 x 4-pin Molex; Molex to 2 x SATA plus 2 x 4-pin Molex splitter 2 x 4-pin Power; 1 x 12-pin Proprietary Power |
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| Internal Connections | 2 x SATA; 2 x IDE | |
| Audio | Realtek ALC850 7.1 (non-HD) | |
| LAN | 1 x 10/100/1000 Mbps (NVIDIA + VITESSE on PCIe) | |
| Drive Bays | 2 x 3.5 Internal (HDD) 1 x 5.25 External (CD/DVD) |
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| Front I/O | 2 x USB 2.0 1 x IEEE1394 (6pin) MIC, Head-phone, S/PDIF IN Power & Reset buttons Power on & HDD LED indicators |
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| Rear I/O | 4 x USB 2.0 1 x IEEE1394 (6pin) PS/2 KB, PS/2 Mouse 2 x COM (Serial) RJ-45 LAN Port (10/100/1000Mbps) Line-in, S/PDIF OUT Optical Center/Sub, L/R Front, L/R Surround, L/R Surround B |
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| Overclocking | CPU 200-300; CPU Ratio 4X-Max; Vcc 0.800-1.700V; DDR Auto, 2.75-2.95V |
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| Extras | Optional 802.11G Mini-PCI | |
| Full Image Set | Biostar 330P Pictures (7.2MB) | |
| Manufacturer Link | Biostar 330P | |
Features start out with the typical stuff: you get PCI Express graphics, integrated gigabit networking (on the PCIe bus), and support for socket 939 processors. Sound is also onboard, provided by the Realtek ALC850 chip and codec. One thing we always like to verify is that the front audio ports work well. Unfortunately, the 330P didn't meet our expectations, as our headphones had a substantial amount of static on them. The rear ports didn't have any issues, so if you plan on using head phones, you'll want a pair with a longer cord that can easily reach the rear jack.
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Since it's based on the same nForce4 chipset, the basic features are very similar to the Shuttle SN25P, the biggest competitor to the 330P. The differences are in the details. Where the SN25P has room for up to four hard drives, the 330P "only" has space for two. Two drives are generally enough for most people, so we're not too concerned. The 330P has two HDD cages that install into the top area of the case, and the power is provided for all the devices by a 300W PSU. In our testing, we didn't get above 235W under load, so 300W should be more than enough.
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Another noteworthy difference is that a floppy drive can't be installed in the 330P; and when we say no floppy, we really mean no floppy - there isn't even a floppy cable connection on the motherboard. (Oddly enough, BIOS entries for FDD support still exist.) Frankly, we consider that to be a good thing. If you can't use a floppy drive, we would hope that support for all the critical functions is available without the floppy. SATA drive support for Windows works without a driver disk, and flashing the BIOS can be done from within Windows. You can also boot off of a flash device or USB stick if necessary. If you're looking to install XP to a RAID array, though, you're in for some problems. Your best bet would be to either slipstream the appropriate drivers onto an XP CD, or else try to use an imaging tool to restore a single hard drive image (with everything already set up) onto a RAID partition. An external USB floppy drive could also work. We didn't do any Linux compatibility testing either, so if that's your cup of tea, we'd suggest asking around the forums.
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In terms of expansion cards, the 330P receives top marks in the SFF market as it includes several options. First, you get the obligatory PCIe X16 slot. Next to that is a PCI slot, which is currently more useful than a PCIe X1 slot. On the other side of the case is another slot, but we're not quite sure what it is. (See the far right image above.) It's about the size of a PCIe X1 slot, but the wiring is clearly wrong. It's also not an AMR, CNR, or ACR as it's not the correct size for those either. The slot isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual or elsewhere, so it may simply be for internal debugging tools at Biostar. (We're trying to get an answer from Biostar about this slot.) Whatever the purpose of the slot, there isn't much room, so installing anything other than a very small card would be difficult. Besides the expansion slots on the top of the motherboard, Biostar has their "hidden" mini-PCI slot on the bottom of the case. If you're interested in adding WiFi connectivity to a SFF, it's a great option and it's something that we don't see in most other SFFs.
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The big claim to fame of the new 300 series of Biostar cases is their hinged design. After removing the panels, you can lift up the entire front and top of the case to provide better access to the CPU socket, DIMM slots, etc. It does work, and it's a bit easier to install a lot of the equipment this way, but it isn't the most amazing thing in the world. If you were to access the internals of your system frequently, it would prove useful, but that's not usually how SFF owners use their systems. Would we purchase such a system over one of the other designs? All other things being equal, it's nice to have, but it's about the same as the tool-less features of the SN25P - good, but not something that would really sway our decision on its own. We'd buy the case for its appearance more than for the pop-top design.
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JarredWalton - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - link
Hopefully, anyone interested in the "promised" part 2 will find this post. I'm thinking of forgetting part 2 - I just have too much stuff to do! I've run some X2 benches/tests and can tell you this.The 330P, EQ3901-300P, SN25P, and ST20G5 all worked flawlessly with dual core - once the BIOS was updated. That last part is important, so let me elaborate.
For the 330P and ST20G5, the system WOULD NOT work with the BIOS I had (i.e. POST failed or complete system instability in the case of the 330P), so I had to switch back to a single core, update the BIOS, and then it worked. The 330P at first seemed to work, but I got frequent crashes and I couldn't even flash the BIOS with the X2 installed. If you have an extra 939 CPU, you should be fine; if you don't... well, I don't know if current 330Ps or ST20G5s are shipping with the latest BIOS or not, but I doubt it. (Ask Biostar/Shuttle for more information, I would suggest.)
Notably absent from the above list of X2 supported SFFs is the SN95G5v1/v2. I have v2, and it won't get past POST with an X2 processor. V3 will apparently work, but why buy an older AGP SFF these days? The Soltek worked fine, the SN25P was probably the best fit for the X2 plus a faster GPU, but the 330P was a lot more stable with the latest BIOS update. (The BIOS seemed to address several of the stability issues I had initially.) As far as I can tell, the USB + X2 issues of the SN25P have been resolved - I couldn't get any problems to occur, but then I may not be using the "right" USB device to cause a crash.
My pick overall remains with the SN25P. I successfully overclocked an X2 3800+ to 2.70 GHz in that system, where I could only reach 2.50 GHz in the 330P and 3901. Temperatures were a little lower than the 330P, cooling is better, but the system is larger. I'd say the 330P is now second overall in the recommendation list, and it does look pretty nice. The AGP units are not worth purchasing unless you can get them really cheap.
As nice as I think the ST20G5 looks, I feel the chipset used is complete garbage. Later ATI Xpress 200 chipsets (like the Crossfire stuff) are apparently much better, but the early Xpress 200 is at best equal to the like of ALi/ULi and SiS. Even VIA would be better (outside of integrated graphics performance) than the original Xpress 200. Overclocking remains essentially non-existent, and the smaller PSU (240W) will struggle with an X2 plus faster GPU. There's no way I would recommend spending $350 on the ST20G5.
Jarred Walton
SFF and Guide Editor
AnandTech.com
P.S. I'm skipping the 775 roundup as well, and will be moving on to later 775 systems for review. Basically, all of the 915/925 SFFs are outdated by the Pentium D, so there's no reason to purchase one (in my opinion). If you really want some brief thoughts on a specific 775 SFF, email me and I'll let you know. I have looked at several of the units, but putting together a 25000 word article on outdated hardware doesn't seem like a good use of time.
highlandsun - Tuesday, November 1, 2005 - link
Thanks for following up here, I just found this roundup while googling for ST20G5 reviews. My brother has an SN95G5v2 and we spent several hours one night trying to make it behave after updating to the latest BIOS. After the update Windows no longer saw his Logitech wireless trackball (but Linux still saw it just fine) plugged into the PS/2 port. We had to go back to the original BIOS that the thing shipped with. Unfortunately the original version doesn't support Cool'n'Quiet on the Winchester or Venice 3000+ that we plugged in (we had one of each), which was why we went looking for the BIOS upgrade in the first place.Anyway, he's using the SN95 for an HTPC, and I got interested in going the same route. But I was looking at the ST20 instead. The SN25P isn't a viable option because we're using Fusion HDTV tuner cards, and they're PCI only, no PCI-E version yet. I couldn't care less about AGP vs PCI-E for video in this case, as it's all overkill for simple media streaming. (The only key feature is making sure the video card supports DxVA for DVICO's MPEG decoder to work well.) But now it seems that none of Shuttle's current offerings are really suitable, since the ST20 really is too flawed in other areas.
Has anyone ever gotten an answer from Shuttle about why they would go to the trouble of using the Nforce3 Ultra but not using its integrated Gbit LAN??
dlevens - Sunday, September 4, 2005 - link
It would be nice to see a section on customer support. I have been extremely disapointed in Shuttle support for these SFF systems. I started with the SV25 and about 10 cubes later I am running the sn25p. I have to say I hate this thing. Also surprised to see there was no mention of some major issues with stability due to cheap or faulty sata cables. There are a ton of posts on sudhian about issues related to the sata cables. Curious if Anandtech saw any of these issues? http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.aspx?catid=4...">http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.a...amp;thre...Although, I would expect shuttle would send a well tested machine for a review site.
I also had a miserable time finding the most stable way to build the sn25p as far as drivers. Still not sure I have it right. This would be a great section to add in a review. I made a post here reguarding driver issues.
http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.aspx?catid=4...">http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.a...amp;thre...
One of my biggest complaints about the sn25p is sound. Was shocked to see the Via envy praised so much in the review. Maybe this is part of the driver issues I am having or could be the game I am currently playing, but sound is breaking up constantly on this thing. I have tried both drivers from VIA and both from shuttle. Anyone else playing Warlords IV on an sn25p and able to get your sound to work? I play warlords IV and run skype in the background for voice. Sound is garbled and breaks up.
Still looking for shuttle to be unseated in the sff market, would be nice to find some quality and stability to match the high price we pay for these sff systems. And a company who stands behind their product with great support would be icing on that cake.
Dennis
JarredWalton - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - link
Hey Dennis - I don't know if you'll see this, but I'll add it for others that might look. I obviously can't play all the games out there with each unit, so all I know is that the SN25P and the Via Envy did great on the tests I ran. The sound was also completely free of static, which is not the case for several of the others. The lack of static was far more important to me than other aspects of the sound system.Anyway, I didn't run into driver issues or SATA issues. I don't know if I just got lucky or what. I did a clean install of XP SP2, then I used the included CD to get sound and networking. I then downloaded the latest nF4 chipset drivers, along with graphics drivers for the ATI card I used, and I grabbed all the updates from Windows Update. Everything seemed to run fine.
artifex - Monday, August 22, 2005 - link
I think it'd be fun to compare these to Iwill's ZMAXdp, which is a dual-Opteron SFF. Not dual core, but dual processor. SFFTech says it's using nForce3 Pro as the chipset. It's also amazingly expensive, and has a silly little fin antenna :)JarredWalton - Thursday, August 25, 2005 - link
Iwill declined to send the current ZMAXdp when I emailed them, but they're working on an updated version for the future, so we'll see.Zak - Monday, August 15, 2005 - link
Frankly, each one of them has one single fault, just one, that makes, otherwise perfect box, useless for me... Some have the card readers up front that spoil the looks and I don't need them, some have no SPDIF out, some have 4 pin FireWire connectors, some are butt-ugly, some have on-board video. They'd be perfect otherwise if not for those single small problems. I haven't found a small factor case yet that would be perfect for me. So I'm sticking to towers for now.Zak
jopa25 - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
Hi, congratulations and thanks for that great review, in the first placeI'd have a little question about the the measurement of the noise levels of these SFF, is there any differences in the way noise was measured in relation with the former roundup (478/754 SFF roundup) ?
I expected the newer models to be quieter without GPU fan than the 478/754 SFF. However, according to the measurements, at 12 inches far, 4 out of the 5 478/754 SFF reviewed remained below 30dB, while the new models keep in a range from 37 to 46 dB in the same test. Quite a significant difference, isn't it?
As a part of an explanation, I guess the processor used in the last roundup (AMD Athlon 64 3800+ with Newcastle core) is not exactly wonderful at power saving, but should not be far from the Intel Pentium 4 3.0 used in the other roundup anyway.
So, the question is: Is there any reasonable explanation for these high levels of noise with fanless GPU, in comparison with those from the 478/754 roundup?
JarredWalton - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
I'm not entirely sure why the noise levels were higher. Part of it may be due to the time of year (winter vs. summer). The room that the systems were in was probably closer to 65 F for the last roundup, whereas I'd say close to 75 F for the current roundup. A 10 degree difference in room temperature would have a substantial impact, unfortunately. (If you compare the SN25P results to the March testing, it was substantially louder during stress testing.)I may not have measured in the exact same location relative to the last SFF roundup. I think I measured the socket 478 units from the front, which may have impacted things, and I moved some desks around which could have impacted scores as well. The rear of the SFFs are now closer to a wall than the old location, so noise reflecting off the wall might be changing the readings a bit.
I tried to be consistent with all the units in the roundup, but the use of differing CPUs makes it hard to say how they compare with the older models. I would say, however, that in typical use only the G5 units were at the same level as the last roundup. The 330P idled very low, but stress tests made it quite a bit louder. The SN25P and EQ3901 are both clearly louder than everything but the e-bot, which is roughly on the same level in terms of noise.
WooDaddy - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
Jarod,GREAT Article. For quite some time I wanted to see a review with the SN25 and ST20 together. In the meantime, I bought a Mac Mini (quit screaming "traitor"). Out of curiousity, do you or anyone know the rated noise levels of the mini? It's dead quiet even at full CPU.
For you LGA775 SFF round-up, please don't forget to consider the Trigem Kloss PC (www.klosspc.com available at ZZF). Personally, it's the best looking SFF I've seen (better than the ASUS Spressos). I've been desperately looking for a review on that badboy.
Thanks