Biostar unveils G41 motherboards

Earlier this week, Biostar officially announced its line-up of G41-based motherboards. Featuring Intel's G41/ICH7-chipset, these boards support Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual-Core and Celeron processors using Socket 775. The onboard GMA X4500 graphics chip is able to use up to 256 MB shared memory. By means of Intel's Clear Video technology, the boards should be perfectly suited for HTPC's as well.

The most extensive G41 model is part of the T-series and sports an ATX form factor. This Biostar T41 HD is compatible with processors that have a max TDP of 130 Watt. The board has three PCI slots, two PCIe x1 and one PCIe x16 slot. The two DDR2-memory slots have room for up to 4 GB of 667/800 MHz RAM. There are four SATA-II connectors, one IDE-connector, four USB 2.0 ports and a header for additional USB ports. The RTL8111DL controller takes care of the Gigabit Ethernet, whereas the ALC662 codec provides users with audio. Both a D-Sub and a DVI port is present on the motherboard. The T41 HD also comes with a DVI-to-HDMI converter.

Biostar T41 HD

Biostar has also added three mATX models: the G41-M7, G41D-M7 and G41 DVI. These motherboard support processors with a TDP of up to 95 W and have two PCI slots and one PCIe x16 slot. The two DDR2-memory slots have room for up to 8 GB of memory of either 667 or 800 MHz. The G41-M7 also supports overclocked DDR2 memory of 1066 MHz.

Like the T41 HD, the three Micro-ATX models feature one IDE and four SATA-II connectors. They each have four USB 2.0 ports and a header for two additional ports. The G41 DVI and G41D-M7 use Realtek's RTL8111DL chip for Gigabit Ethernet, where the G41-M7 uses a 10/100 RTL8102EL controller. Audio is taken care of by the Realtek ALC662 chip. The G41-M7 and G41D-M7 feature both a D-Sub and a DVI connector, whereas the G41 DVI lacks the D-Sub.

Biostar G41D-M7

Tags: ddr2 hdmi htpc overclocking sata usb microatx core2

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