BioStar may not have been on your list when you’re looking for a motherboard. But it’s hard to overlook their offerings once you’ve seen the competitive pricing and a feature packed motherboards. BioStar has recently been pushing all they’ve got ever since Skylake was released last year. WIth the release of their Racing series motherboards BioStar is really stepping up their game and actually offering what the market is actually asking for.
With the release of Kaby Lake processors, BioStar has been updated and has released quite a few excellent high-end motherboards, although, their excellent budget offerings for the mid-end market shouldn’t be overlooked.
Recently, BioStar announced that their releasing two motherboards, the B250 GT3 & B250 GT5, both of which belong to their Racing series line-up. Since both motherboards utilize the same LGA1151 sockets, both motherboards are compatible with last-gen Skylake CPUs and current-gen Kaby Lake CPUs. TDP is rated at 95W which means that you could slap in a CPU as high-end as an i7 from the Kaby Lake generation or even Skylake generation.
Furthermore, since LED lighting is a big deal, both motherboards come BioStar’s 5050 LED system which allows you to RGB-ify your supported fans and certain areas of the motherboard. Additionally, both motherboard also come with M.2 slots along with support for Intel’s new Optane technology.
The B250GT3 comes with an MSRP of $79 and is an mATX board. Meanwhile, the B250GT5 is an ATX board that comes with an MSRP of $109.
| Model | RACING B250GT5 | RACING B250GT3 | |
| Chipset | Intel B250 | ||
| CPU SUPPORT | Intel® Core™ i7 LGA 1151 Processor Intel® Core™ i5 LGA 1151 Processor Intel® Core™ i3 LGA 1151 Processor Intel® Pentium® LGA 1151 Processor Intel® Celeron® LGA 1151 Processor Maximum CPU TDP (Thermal Design Power) : 95Watt | ||
| MEMORY | Support Dual Channel DDR4 2400/ 2133/ 1866 MHz 4 x DDR4 DIMM Memory Slot Max. Supports up to 64GB Memory | ||
| EXPANSION SLOT | 2 x PCI-E x16 3.0 Slot(x16, x4) 2 x PCI-E x1 3.0 Slot 2 x PCI Slot | 2 x PCI-E x16 3.0 Slot(x16, x4) 2 x PCI-E x1 3.0 Slot | |
| STORAGE | 6 x SATA3 Connector 1 x M.2 Key M 32Gb/s Connector (Intel Optane Memory Support) 1 x M.2 Key M SATA 6Gb/s(share w/ SATA3_1) | 6 x SATA3 Connector 1 x M.2 Key M 32Gb/s Connector (Intel Optane Memory Support) 1 x M.2 Key M SATA 6Gb/s and PCI-e Storage | |
| USB | 1 x USB 3.0 Type-C Port 3 x USB 3.0 Port 1 x USB 3.0 Header 2 x USB 2.0 Port 2 x USB 2.0 Header | 4 x USB 3.0 Port 1 x USB 3.0 Header 2 x USB 2.0 Port 2 x USB 2.0 Header | |
| LAN | Intel I219V – Gigabit Ethernet PHY Support Super LAN Surge Protection | ||
| INTEGRATED VIDEO | By CPU model Supports DX12 Supports HDCP | ||
| CODEC | Realtek ALC892 8-Channel Blu-ray Audio Support Blu-ray Audio Support HD Audio Support BIOSTAR Hi-Fi | Realtek ALC887 8-Channel HD Audio Support Blu-ray Audio Support HD Audio Support BIOSTAR Hi-Fi | |
