My Biostar TF7050-M2

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 1:39 pm

Well, I got it yesterday and built the current setup

Antec Solo
Corsair 450VX
Biostar TF7050PV-M2 Bios : N68PMB12
AMD 4000+ 2,10 GHz
OCZ Platinum XTC Rev.2 PC2-6400 2Gb 2x1Gb CL4-4-4-15
WD IDE 160 GB
BenQ DW1640 DVD-RW 16X
Ninja Rev B
1X Scythe Minebea 120mm @ 850 rpm using Zalman Fanmate 2 (output)
1X Nexus 92mm @ 850 rpm using Zalman Fanmate 2 (input)

The system is stable
I ripped HULK with DVD Fab Platinum in 4,7 GB ISO to the WD HD in 15min and both core at 16% only.

==================

No FAN control at all
I tried different BIOS and no control in the BIOS nor with SpeedFan IF you use 3 pin fan.

4 pin fans are controllable in BIOS

A mail exchange with Biostar tech support confirmed that PCB 5.0 does not support 3 pin fan control but PCB 5.1 is able to control 3 pin fans. So if one is to order this board, try to get PCB 5.1.

BIOS versions are a mess between BIOSTAR.TW and BIOSTAR USA so go to the GLOBAL site
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Edited Jan 28, 2008

In the BIOS, I turned CNQ to disabled

In the BIOS, I set the FSB at 228 MHz

Crystal CPUID

The room temp is 20Â°C
228 x 4,5 = 1026 MHz @ 0,900V -> 24Â°C idle and 28Â°C under load (Orthos) 43W
228 x 7,5 = 1710 MHz @ 1,050V -> 25Â°C idle and 34Â°C under load (Orthos)
228 x 10,5 = 2394 MHz @ 1,125V -> 27Â°C idle and 38Â°C under load (Orthos) 78W

Burette

RedAE102 · Post by **RedAE102** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:58 pm

I have some complaints about mine, namely the lack of undervolting capability, and the lack of an SPDIF connector on the backplane. The fan control isn't an issue for me, but that's because I have a Zalman MFC-1 for that purpose. I'm also disappointed that I can't get the HDMI audio to work on here, but that's not isolated to this board. I tried the drivers from the ASrock website, but to no avail.

On the overclocking front, that's quite easy. All the overclocking options are housed in the Overclock Navigator menu in the BIOS. Skip the automatic settings like "V8 Tech Engine" and go straight for manual. You'll probably have to drop NB/HT multipliers, and, though this doesn't apply to you since you don't have value RAM like me, memory dividers. Undervolting is nonexistent; the lowest RAM voltage is a rather high 1.95V.

On the subject of fan control... I *did* have analog fan control on 2 headers on my TF7025-M2 with the original BIOS (the one that also said I was idling at 40Â°C with my undervolted 3600+), including a "SmartFan" option in the BIOS. Speedfan could control JCFAN1 (CPU fan) and JNFAN1 (NB fan... ironically). Unfortunately, this functionality went away with the BIOS revision that fixed the temperatures; replaced by PWM-only control in the BIOS.

On the subject of temperature sensing... subsequent BIOS versions for the TF7025-M2 dropped the temperature by ~15Â°C below what seemed like reasonable values. This trait is shared with all BIOS versions I have been able to obtain for the TF7050-M2, including the one it shipped with. I put a +15 offset to the temperature in Speedfan and called it a day.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 5:08 pm

I love this board. I now have it hooked to a Corsair VX450 like you. I updated the BIOS from Rebel's Haven and added Team Extreme memory. My 2.1GHz X2 4000+ is now at 2.9GHz and it's barely warm. I mean it's totally insane. Because it was only $10 I added an Artic Cooler 64 on it. Its all aluminum but bigger than stock. I don't like the fan on it, but it's 92mm instead of 70. I don't need it yet, that may change this weekend when I break the 3GHz barrier. The NB is barely warm as well. No hot VRMs. I must be dreaming.

Forgot to mention the you can lower the cpu multiplier in whole numbers or .5 like typical Brisbane unit. Whole number are great, they get rid of the terrible RAM divider issues all AMDs have.

No, I don't see any undervoltage on this board, but when the FSB settings go above 300MHz (mine is currently set at 283?) it wasn't exactly built to be slowed down. You could probably lower the multipier and run it slow enough to cool it passively.

I don't see any AMD boards under $100 that have solid state caps around the cpu except Biostar, and some don't have them at all for AMDs.

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 9:37 am

aristide1 wrote:Forgot to mention the you can lower the cpu multiplier in whole numbers or .5 like typical Brisbane unit. Whole number are great, they get rid of the terrible RAM divider issues all AMDs have.

I love my board too. Except for software fan control wich I hope Biostar will solve as RedAE mentionned he once had control with a previous BIOS. Anyway, in my Antec Solo, there is plenty of space for two Fanmate 2.

Can you be more specific on how you overclocked and set the multiplier to integer number.

Maybe if you could post a picture of you settings.

Thank you very much.
====================

For thos who read this to make a choice, I would definitely recommend this board

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 10:27 am

What you ask for is a long post, which is OK.

I have no idea of your RAMs ability to OC, so some settings may have to be changed to slow it down initially, and it later ramps back up to original speeds.

You need:

1.More recent BIOS
2.CPU-Z, free
3.Prime 95
4.The monitor program than came with the board, seems to provide correct temps.
5.Patience.
6. A solid PS, which you obviously have.

Your minimum goal is 24 hours of 2 instances of Prime 95 with zero errors. That's the time consuming part. If it fails after 10 hours you change some settings and start again.

If you fold and OC you must pass Prime95 so as not to send false results! I should have been told that by Stanford, not the people at Prime 95.

Go to www.pcstats.com and read the review of this motherboard, which OC'd very well, partially because it didn't require a bunch of additional heatsinks all over the place. You'll see lots of BIOS pics there.

Tell me if you're up for all this and I will post more. Get back with me.

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 7:23 pm

Just an update:

With the setup as listed in my signature, I get 24Â°C at idle in a 22Â°C room and it raises to only 44Â°C after 30 minutes of two instances of CPU burn.

Also PCM 5.1 will provide 3 pin fan control as you can see in this other post of mine:

Fan control demystified[/url]

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 5:29 pm

Burette wrote:
aristide1 wrote:Forgot to mention the you can lower the cpu multiplier in whole numbers or .5 like typical Brisbane unit. Whole number are great, they get rid of the terrible RAM divider issues all AMDs have.
I love my board too. Except for software fan control wich I hope Biostar will solve as RedAE mentionned he once had control with a previous BIOS. Anyway, in my Antec Solo, there is plenty of space for two Fanmate 2.

Can you be more specific on how you overclocked and set the multiplier to integer number.

Maybe if you could post a picture of you settings.

Thank you very much.
====================

For thos who read this to make a choice, I would definitely recommend this board

Someone else just asked me, I will start a new thread.

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Sun Jan 06, 2008 3:19 pm

I finally got how to use CCPUID and my results are showed in the initial post of this thread.

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:19 pm

Updated image size in order to see something

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:49 pm

I am wandering about video performance.

I know this is an onboard GPU but this marketing stuff on nVidia about PureVideo and H.264 decoding made me think this nForce 7050 would be really soft on the CPU.

Following a suggestion in Lawrence Lee TF7025 review, I downloaded the Face cachÃ©e de la lune or FCL video in 1080p 8Gbs.

I am runing at 2,4 GHz in WMP11 and my CPU loads to 100% in one core and 0% in the other core wich makes around 50%.

A friend of mine running a stock C2D E6400 with ATI 1550 gets 60%

What am I supposed to deduce from these results. Is the computer using the GPU decoder or not?

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 4:30 pm

On my 690G based system running Brisbane x4000 at stock 2.1ghz, the FCL clip plays smoothly at 71% total system utilization (the decoder is multithreaded and runs on both cores). The bitrate tops out at about 11mbps. It's not HDDVD or BLU-RAY bitrate but it's highly compressed and is very demanding on the CPU and playback software (VLC and WMP on my system cannot play it smoothly).

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:14 am

This might sound silly but here is my question?

In this nForce 7050 performance, should I consider two different problems

1) DeCODING H.264 directly from a HD-DVD or BLU-RAY
2) Decompressing a ripped file?

=========================
So when I try to evaluate if the nForce 7050 is releaving the CPU load, it's not ok to use a ripped file as:

1) the CPU has to decompress the file first (wich loads it)
2) then the GPU has to decode

Hence, an effective test would be to read a BLU-Ray or a HD_DVD to see exactly what the GPU can do.

Do I understand that right

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 1:14 pm

Just added my WATT consumption in original post

Burette

clamrade · Post by **clamrade** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 8:45 pm

I just received my second TM7050-M2 from Newegg today, and it was rev 5.0, which does not control 3-pin fans.

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Sat Apr 24, 2010 3:46 pm

Just to mention that this MB as been ON since I got it and I never had a single stability problem.

My Biostar TF7050-M2

My Biostar TF7050-M2

No problem at all