Biostar H55A+ review

Biostar's ATX motherboard is well laid out and the price is right, but we've seen better budget LGA1156 motherboards.
Written By K.G. Orphanides
Published on 23 April 2011

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Biostar H55A+
Biostar H55A+ ports
Biostar H55A+ top
Our rating
Reviewed price £72 inc VAT

Biostars budget H55A+ ATX motherboard is designed for Intels socket LGA1156 Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. At around £70, its cheaper than most, but it has a rather sparse set of features, with just one PCI-E x1 slot, two PCI slots and a pair of PCI-E x16 slots. We appreciate the layout of these, though; there are no expansion slots directly beneath the main PCI-E x16 slot, so fitting a large graphics card wont block access to anything else. The second slot can be used for CrossFireX dual graphics card configurations, but only runs at x4, so it best used for other PCI-E cards.

Biostar H55A+ top
Four memory slots allow you to install up to 16GB of 1,866MHz DDR3 RAM and there are six SATA2 connectors for hard disks and optical drives. There are also three USB headers to connect up to six ports on your cases front panel or additional back plates. The motherboards own back plate is rather minimal. It has the bare essentials of four USB ports, a PS/2 port and three 3.5mm analogue audio outputs from the on-board Realtek ALC662 audio processor. This can only output six-channel (5.1) surround sound, so three audio outputs is enough if youre prepared to go without a mic. Theres also a full set of integrated graphics outputs – VGA, DVI and HDMI; however, the integrated graphics on compatible processors can’t output Full HD Blu-ray audio, although they can decode Full HD video.
Biostar H55A+ ports

The H55A+ is gratifyingly inexpensive, but its not terribly good value for money. Its performance in our tests was adequate, with an Overall score of 126, but its limited range of features, one-year warranty and paucity of USB ports makes it a poor choice overall. If youre after a budget LGA1156 board, we prefer the Asus P7H55, which costs less and has more USB ports.

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