Biostar unwraps AMD 770 chipset mobo

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

Posted in PC Builder, 6th November 2007 10:42 GMT

Free whitepaper – Managing desktop software for fun and profit

First MSI, then Asus, now Biostar has become the latest mobo maker to pre-announce one of AMD's upcoming RD790-based chipsets by stating it'll be used on a new motherboard.

Today, Biostar emailed us about the TA770 A2+, based on AMD's as-yet-unannounced 770 chipset. The 770 connects to the processor across a 5200 million transfers per second (MT/s) HyperTransport 3 link by way of a Socket AM2+ interconnect - though the board also supports Socket AM2 CPUs.

Biostar TA770 A2+
Biostar's TA770: based on AMD's 770 chipset

The board has four DDR 2 slots for up to 8GB of 800MHz memory, but plug in a Phenom processor when they become available and you can add 1066MHz DDR 2 too.

The 770 supports a single, x16 PCI Express 2.0 graphics card slot and a x1 PCIe 2.0 slot for other add-ins. It also connects, again over HyperTransport, to the SB600 southbridge I/O chip that, together with a Marvell Ethernet controller and a Realtek sound chip, provides Gigabit Ethernet, four 3Gb/s SATA ports, eight-channel HD audio and ten USB 2.0 ports.

Biostar's board also sports two eSATA connectors and three PCI slots for old-style add-in cards.

Biostar didn't say how much the TA770 A2+ will cost or exactly when it will go on sale.

Free whitepaper – What Exchange can't do - and Dell can