BIOSTAR Releases Hi-Fi H81S3 Micro ATX Motherboard

[Sin]

BIOSTAR has released their newest micro-ATX motherboard based on the Intel H81 chipset, the "Hi-Fi H81S3". The board supports the Intel 4th generation Core i7 and Core i5 processors. It features Intel single chip architecture with HD 4600Graphics, along with a new integrated memory controller that will run at speeds up to 1600MHz. The H81 chipset has two SATA 6Gb/s ports (plus four SATA 3Gb/s ports), and two USB 3.0 headers. The "Hi-Fi H81S3" supports one DIMM per memory channel for a maximum of two sticks of RAM for up to 16Gigs. The "Hi-Fi H81S3" is a great option for small form factor systems where you rarely have more than one discrete card and two SATA drives. Being Intel based boards, they will also feature Intel Rapid Start Technology and Intel Smart Connect Technology.



These boards will proudly show off BIOSTAR's in-house technology, such as audio and power regulation upgrades such as Hi-Fi Power and Hi-Fi AMP. The video output includes HDMI with HDCP which allows full video & audio support via standard DVI output.

The "Hi-Fi H81S3" is also PCI-E Gen 3.0 and USB 3.0 Ready. PCI-E 3.0 is the next evolution of the ubiquitous and general-purpose PCI Express I/O standard and USB 3.0 gives USB the fastest data transfers at 5 Gbps.

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[McSteel]

Oh, sure, I'm gonna trust Biostar to power my i5 or i7 with a 2+1 analog phase VRM...
I wouldn't even trust this with an i3, only Pentiums and Celerons.

Otherwise, it could be interesting for an HTPC without a discrete sound card.

 

[micropage7]

too bad they dont give any cooling for vrm and its just 2 + 1 vrm?

 

[Tarkhein]

Dunno why you two are complaining, the cheapest boards from other vendors are 3+1 without a heatsink anyway, no one in their right mind would put anything higher than an i3 on boards like these.

 

[Hood]

Biostar or Shooting Star?

Just like any $50-$60 board - plug in high-end CPUs/GPUs at your own risk (power it on and hope there's no shower of sparks/plume of smoke). Only a real cheapskate would try it anyway, trying to game on a $500 rig (guilty!). For Grandma's email rig, this is perfect.

 

[arterius2]

Oh, sure, I'm gonna trust Biostar to power my i5 or i7 with a 2+1 analog phase VRM...
I wouldn't even trust this with an i3, only Pentiums and Celerons.

Otherwise, it could be interesting for an HTPC without a discrete sound card.

I guess you didn't know that Haswell CPUs now have integrated VRM(on-die), it eliminates voltage ripple and is significantly more efficient than your traditional motherboard VRM, thus making it obsolete, of course you still need the motherboard VRMs for other components, but you are going to see less of them on the motherboards nowdays.

 

[Jstn7477]

I guess you didn't know that Haswell CPUs now have integrated VRM(on-die), it eliminates voltage ripple and is significantly more efficient than your traditional motherboard VRM, thus making it obsolete, of course you still need the motherboard VRMs for other components, but you are going to see less of them on the motherboards nowdays.

The motherboard VRM is still responsible for feeding the CPU, but it just feeds it ~1.8v and another voltage instead of 6-8 voltages the board used to be responsible for.

 

[McSteel]

I wouldn't have mentioned it if Biostar didn't specifically market the board as i5/i7-ready. And I don't care about Haswell's on-die sub-VRM, it still needs to be fed power by the board, and however loose the regulation is allowed to be, 65+W of power is 65+W of power. Passing it through 4 MOSFETs that are not under a heatsink, long-term, is sheer lunacy.

 

[Tarkhein]

I wouldn't have mentioned it if Biostar didn't specifically market the board as i5/i7-ready. And I don't care about Haswell's on-die sub-VRM, it still needs to be fed power by the board, and however loose the regulation is allowed to be, 65+W of power is 65+W of power. Passing it through 4 MOSFETs that are not under a heatsink, long-term, is sheer lunacy.

It's not just Biostar though, EVERY vendor does it. Marketing departments for every manufacturer declare that their low end boards are i5/i7 ready, regardless of how much long term damage it can do because it can do it in the short term.

 

[Jstn7477]

I don't know what's worse, the BIOSTAR board or MSI's low end boards. The MSI uses much better low RDS(on) MOSFETs, but you're stuck with a 1+1 phase arrangement, 4 MOSFETs per phase.