CPU Performance Results

We spent a couple of weeks with the Biostar TA990FXE before beginning our performance testing, running various configurations and CPUs, and checking hardware compatibility. We verified our power consumption numbers using various different power supplies, and played a few hours of games with some members of the TPU community to get an overall feel for the board and to verify stability. Once completed, we tore down the system, mounted our Noctua cooler and put the board through the paces. We noticed no compatibility issues, however, we must say that the performance results that follow are not completely indicative of the Biostar TA990FXE's performance, as Phenom II technology, at this point, is fairly dated. At the same time, we have removed all Intel results in order to level out the playing field. With that said, on to the results!

SuperPi

SuperPI serves as our memory-focused benchmark, being highly single-threaded. Although the TA990FXE ended up on the bottom of the pile of AM3+ products we have tested, the results are still fairly good for the Phenom II platform.

wPrime

wPrime is much more CPU-focused, but memory plays its role as well. In this test, the numbers were much closer, but the TA990FXE was still within what we expect from the Phenom II 1100T.

WinRAR

Part of our motherboard benchmarking suite is the built-in benchmark that is part of the WinRAR software suite. In this test, the Biostar TA990FXE put up good numbers, however, memory performance of the Phenom II does hold the TA990FXE back a fair bit, but here, the TA990FXE surpassed the M5A97 EVO.

AIDA64

We employed AIDA64's memory bench to highlight memory bandwidth. We isolate the write performance metric as it serves as a good indicator of overall memory performance. Again the TA990FXE ended up on the bottom of the pile, but still managed to show fairly decent numbers.

HandBrake Encoding

Handbrake is used for encoding testing, and provided results much similar to the previous benchmarks, with the Biostar TA990FXE sitting a fair distance behind our best result.

CineBench Encoding

In Cinebench, the Biostar TA990FXE was again a bit low, and there seems to be a trend emerging where the focus seems more centered on 3D performance than CPU performance. As the TA990FXE is targeted at gamers on a budget, this isn't very troubling at all, assuming that the Biostar TA990FXE manages to pull its pants up in the next test section.