Biostar Motherboards
Biostar was a motherboard manufacturer for the IBM PC and its compatibles during the DOS era. They started in 1986, and are still in business today.
They were never considered "high end", but not the worst either.
MB-1212VYear: 1989? |
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MB-1420/1425/1433V/PB/PVYear: 1992 The MB-1433V (also known as the MB-1420 and MB-1425) supports 80486SX, DX, and DX-2 CPUs, though the main CPU is always soldered onto the board. In addition it has an Overdrive socket that is suitable for the Intel 80487 upgrade processor as well as the OverDrive chip, such as the Intel DX2ODPR66. Supported CPU clock frequencies range from 25 MHz up to 66 MHz. Sadly the board has no L2 cache support. |
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MB-8433UUD(UUD960326I) / MB-8433UUD-AYear: 1995 CPU Support is as follows:
CPU voltage selection can be either 3.45V, 4V or 5V. With clock speeds from 25 MHz up to 100 MHz, this board comes with either 128 KB, 256 KB or 512 KB of L2 write-back cache held in up to 2 banks plus a TAG RAM chip (9 sockets in all). Memory must be minimum 80ns, though 70ns is recommended. Tested maximum bus transfer rates with this board:
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MB-8500SACYear: 1994 Supports Intel Pentium P54C/T, P55C/T, AMD K5 and Cyrix M1 CPUs from 75 MHz up to 180 MHz, with core voltages of 3.3V, 3.4V, 3.5V or 5V. The MB-8500SAC comes with either 256 KB, 512 KB or 1 MB of onboard L2 cache in a single bank. Some revisions of this board allow for a VGA D-type port or PS/2 mouse port to be installed at J6. |
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MB-8500TACYear: 1994 Supports: Intel Pentium 66 up to 200 MHz (1.0x, 1.5x, 2.0x, 2.5x and 3.0x multipliers) on revisions 3.0 and earlier. On rev 4.0 are later, which added split-rail voltage, Cyrix 6x86 (M1) P120+, P133+, P150+ and P166+ CPUs and AMD K5 P75 to P100 are also supported. IDT C6 (WinChip 2) 200 and 240 are also supported on these later boards. Board revision 4 and later support a PCI bus speed of 27.5 MHz in addition to the 25, 30 and 33 MHz options. The SIMM slots are in 2 banks. |
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MB-8500TECYear: 1994 |
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MB-8500TVX-A (TVX0909A, TVX0607B)Year: 1995 CPU support: Intel Pentium P54C/T and P55C/T, AMD K5, and Cyrix M1, MII. The board comes with either 256 KB or 512 KB or L2 cache onboard in a single bank with a TAG RAM chip. TVX comes with a PS/2 keyboard socket. TVX-A has some revisions that come with an AT-style keyboard socket. Revisions older than 2.3 can only run Pentium MMX or Cyrix MII up to 166 MHz (classic Pentium 200 is fine). Revisions from 2.3 and higher support the MMX and MII CPUs up to their maximum 200 or 233 MHz (3.0x or 3.5x multiplier). |
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M5ALAYear: April 1998 512 KB Level 2 pipeline burst SRAM cache onboard. The board has a built-in switch mode voltage regulator for better efficiency with Intel MMX, AMD K6 and Cyrix/IBM MX processors. This motherboard often had its chipset relabelled to "Super TX", but is in fact an ALi M1541 (Aladdin V). |
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M5ATAYear: 1997 512 KB L2 cache onboard. Onboard voltage regulator is capable of providing between 1.3V and 3.5V, though core voltage settings permitted are 2.8V up to 3.5V. BIOS file ata1125b.exe works best (even if it's not necessarily the latest) if you want support for AMD K6-III, though you will need to make some alterations if you want this board to support 2.4V. Supports FSB speed up to 75 MHz. |
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M5SAAYear: 1999 CPU Support: The front-side bus can be set from 66 MHz up to 100 MHz. The board has an integrated 2D and 3D graphics accelerator supported resolutions up to 1600 x 1200. It uses up to 8 MB shared memory. The onboard audio (an ESS Solo 1) is capable of Sound Blaster 16/Pro compatibility as well as Windows Sound System, and has 100% native support for DOS gaming. It comes with two onboard caches: L1 is 64 KB in size, and L2 is 1024 KB. The three memory slots support up to 256 MB DIMMs, up to PC100 speed. They support both synchronous and asynchronous DRAMs. Its two IDE connectors support PIO Mode 4, providing up to Ultra DMA-66 speeds. The board also has two USB 1.0 ports. |
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M5SABYear: 1999 CPU Support: The front-side bus can be set from 66 MHz up to 100 MHz. The board has an integrated 2D and 3D graphics accelerator supported resolutions up to 1600 x 1200. It uses up to 8 MB shared memory. Unlike the later M5SAA, the M5SAB does not have onboard audio. The DIMM slots support unbuffered synchronous DRAM. Its two IDE connectors support PIO Mode 4, providing up to Ultra DMA-66 speeds. The board also has two USB 1.0 ports. |
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M5SIBYear: 1997 Supports Intel Pentium P54C/P55C 90 - 233 MHz (MMX), Cyrix MII, AMD K6 266 MHz, and AMD K6-2 CPUs (300 - 333 MHz). Memory support is for PC66 or PC100 SDRAM using 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128 MB of 60ns 3.5V or faster EDO SDRAM DIMMs. It does not accept parity (36-pin) DIMMs. The board has no configuration jumpers - the BIOS auto-detects memory installed and its type. It has 512 KB of L2 cache (pipeline burst cache) - it is not upgradable. The motherboard has onboard audio via ESS ES1869, as well as integrated video with 4 MB video memory (shared with main memory). This was the mainboard sold with the Packard-Bell Pegasus (PB992) PC. |
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M5VNBYear: 2000 CPU Support: CPU core voltages supported are 2.1V up to 3.5V, with 1.5x up to 5.5x CPU/host multiplier. The M5VNB get either 512 KB or 1024 KB of onboard L2 cache. It supports either 66 or 100 MHz front-side bus. There is also an odd 105 MHz option which drives the PCI slots at 35 MHz instead of their normal 33 MHz. Memory support is up to PC100 unbuffered SDRAM in 8 MB, 16 MB, 32 MB, 64 MB, 128 MB or 256 MB DIMM modules. The M5VNB comes with onboard 2D and 3D video acceleration with up to 8 MB shared memory - this is understood to be made by Trident. This is AGP 2.0-compliant (1x and 2x). It also comes with onboard audio that is AC'97 DirectSound-compliant. It supports hardware Sound Blaster Pro via either a Windows DOS box and "hardware-assisted FM synthesis for legacy compatibility". The IDE ports provide PIO Modes 0-4, up to Ultra-DMA 66 performance. |