At first we would like to thank BIOSTAR for offering their N3150NH ITX motherboard for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About BIOSTAR:

 

“In 1980, the IT industry was growing at a phenomenal rate. With wide experience in buying and selling electronic parts as well as researching on future demands for mainboards and add-on cards , the founder of BIOSTAR GROUP, established BIOSTAR MICROTECH INTERNATIONAL CORP in 1986.

 

In the early years, BIOSTAR concentrated on the manufacture of mainboards built for XT form factor. To maintain steady business growth, BIOSTAR managed to keep a large portion of its capital and manpower invested on the design and development of new products, which at the same time has enabled it to stay competitive in the rapid evolution of the computer industry.

 

BIOSTAR has enriched its competence in the design and manufacture of products such as add-on cards, multi-media and system products to develop the market and meet the demands of customers for more integrated solutions. In order to expand its capacity to meet customer demand globally, BIOSTAR was the first to establish a manufacturing facility in China in 1990. In 1998, its sales revenues exceeded US$130 million and it ranked 227th among the top 1000 enterprises in Taiwan. Furthermore, BIOSTAR obtained an ISO 9001 certification in 1999 and became a publicly listed company in the same year. BIOSTAR’s future has limitless possibilities.”

 

Product Features:

 

CPU-Chipset Features

 

Intel Celeron N3150 Quad Core processor

 

The Intel® Celeron N3150 (2M Cache, up to 2.08 GHz) is a quad-core processor. The maximum GPU frequency was also increased on the N3150 to 640 MHz, while the base GPU speed stayed at 320 MHz. It supports DDR3L-1600 memory and fit into 6 Watt thermal envelope.

 

Audio+

 

HD Audio

 

Provides high quality sound with minimal loss of audio fidelity.

 

Video+

 

DX11.1

 

Direct3D 11.1 enables Direct3D 10 APIs and Direct3D 11 APIs to use one underlying rendering device. And it allows developers to achieve a high speed, fully conformant software rasterizer.

 

Speed+

 

SmartSpeedLAN

 

SmartSpeedLAN is a free software application which monitors and manages your PC's network behavior. With user-friendly GUI, it allows you to select and prioritize different types of network traffic, including gaming, media streaming, communications or web surfing. You can also set any specific applications, choosing to prioritize or block accordingly. SmartSpeedLAN can feature automatic management options that use adaptive networking intelligence to ensure that you are getting the best online experience possible.

 

Charger Booster

 

Charger booster is the best and efficient charger solution for apple devices such as iPad, iPhone. Basically, Charger booster Technology is able to boost the charging time to be more efficiency and faster once any apple goods connecting to our Motherboard. With charger booster technology, you are able to charge your apple devices up to 42 % faster.

 

USB 3.0

 

Experience Fastest data transfers at 5 Gbps with USB 3.0--the new latest connectivity standard. Built to connect easily with next-generation components and peripherals, USB 3.0 transfers data 10X faster and backward compatible with previous USB 2.0 components.

 

Durable+

 

Moistureproof PCB

 

The popularity of PC usage and working environment is getting deteriorating and moist (rural, coastal, etc.). The PCB will be oxidizing easily by damp or absorbed moisture, and ionic migration or CAF (Conductive Anodic Filament) will be generated. Moisture-proof PCB meets high density and high reliability requirements for moisture proof.

 

Low RdsOn P-Pak MOS

 

Low resistance design can significantly reduce the current out of energy loss.

Low temperature, small size, excellent thermal conductivity.

 

Protection+

 

ESD Protection

 

ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) is the major factor to destroy PC by electrical overstress(EOS) condition, ESD occurred by PC users when touch any devices connect to PC, which may result in damage to motherboard or parts .ESD protection is designed to protect the motherboard and equipment from damage by EOS

 

USB Polyswitch

 

On board dedicated power fuse to help prevent USB port failure. It prevents USB Port overcurrent and safeguard your system and device lifespan.

 

BIOS Virus Protection

 

When enabled, the BIOS will protect the boot sector and partition table by halting the system and flashing a warning message whether there's an attempt to write to these areas.

 

OC / OV / OH Protection

 

All BIOSTAR special circuit design detects overvoltage conditions and prevents voltage surges from spreading in real time. It also actively cuts off the overvoltage supply to protect your system. Over current protection, avoid motherboard from damage when doing overclock or an unusual current import. Over heat protection, avoid motherboard & CPU from burning when exceeding the temperature limitation.

 

DIY+

 

UEFI BIOS

 

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a brand new framework that provides a revolutionary interface. It is a modern clear and easy-to-use graphical user interface. The UEFI comes with a colorful easy-understand icons leads users into the setup layer directly.

 

Header Zone

 

Users can easily assemble their own computer, a simple-swap data discs and other accessories.

 

BIO-Remote 2

 

BIO-Remote2 Technology is featuring users a better Home Theater environment. Users who own either Android mobile or Apple goods are able to access and control your PC remotely; At this moment, you’re smart device became a intelligent and functional remote controller; more than that, BIO-Remote2 also includes both function of mouse pad and power point presentation mode.

 

 

Product Specifications:

 

 

 

Here we have another interesting ITX platform from BIOSTAR, which is incorporating one of the new Braswell SoCs from Intel and to be more exact the Celeron N3150 which sports four cores without HyperThreading, with a stock frequency of 1.6GHz and Turbo up to 2.08Ghz, 2MB of L2 cache and for the GPU 320MHz base clock while in Turbo it climbs at 640MHz. The rated power consumption for this SoC is just 6W!

 

The product box art is familiar to us, since we have reviewed similar products from BIOSTAR in the past; on the top packaging cover, the manufacturer has placed some icons which represent the supported technologies:

 

 

 

If we would like to know more about the main product features, we can always check out the bottom section:

 

 

 

The board along with its bundle are split in multiple sections; the documentation is placed on the top area:

 

 

 

The installation guide shows the main steps in order to get everything going:

 

 

 

As extra accessories, we will receive the I/O shield along with two SATA cables:

 

 

 

Being an ITX board, the product is quite tiny and incorporates the soldered SoC, which is placed in the middle, with a passive aluminum heatsink on it:

 

 

 

VGA conversion is provided by the Realtek RTD2168 chip, since native support has been dropped:

 

 

 

CMOS data is kept saved thanks to a CR2032 lithium battery:

 

 

 

Further down we will be able to spot one fan header along with a frontal USB 3.0 header:

 

 

 

The wired network interface is provided by the Realtek RTL8111H chipset:

 

 

 

In the same vicinity we will be able to spot one GL850G USB 2.0 STT Hub Controller:

 

 

 

The audio interface on this motherboard is supported by the Realtek ALC662 CODEC:

 

 

 

Near the single PCI-E x1 2.0 slot, we will be also able to spot two SATA3 connectors and two extra USB 2.0 headers:

 

 

 

The sensor monitoring chip on the board is one ITE IT8625E:

 

 

 

On the lower right side of the mobo we will be able to spot the frontal panel header, the COM header but also the LPT header:

 

 

 

Also here we will get to see the 24-pin ATX power connector:

 

 

 

The SODIMM DDR3 memory slots can be spotted on the right and top areas of the PCB:

 

 

 

 

On the I/O we can spot one PS/2 keyboard port, one PS/2 mouse port, a VGA port, one HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, one LAN port but also the audio ports:

 

 

 

Here is also a look on the back side of the PCB:

 

 

Despite the fact that the BIOSTAR N3150NH has a low price point, the manufacturer did not hesitate to include a fully-functional UEFI interface for it, which is to be appreciated. The monitored data is placed on the left side, while the bottom area comes with the main menus. The Main menu does include some details on the BIOS build, installed memory, but here we can also choose the language of the interface or set the system time:

 

 

The Advanced section comes with the following sub-menus:

 

-ACPI Settings

-Super IO Configuration

-Hardware Monitor

-CPU Configuration

-SATA Configuration

-Network Stack Configuration

-CSM Configuration

-USB Configuration

 

 

From the ACPI Settings menu, we can work with the usual power management options:

 

 

The Super IO Configuration area allows working with the Serial and Parallel ports:

 

 

Inside the Hardware Monitor sub-section we can see the current system temperatures, fan speeds (if applicable), but also the live voltages:

 

 

CPU Configuration menu allows us to enable or disable certain SoC features:

 

 

The SATA Configuration sub-section allows us to work with the controller and even disable it:

 

 

Network Stack comes with a single option:

 

 

From the CSM Configuration sub-menu, we can work with some miscellaneous options:

 

 

 

USB-related options are placed in the next menu:

 

 

 

The Chipset menu is divided in two:

 

-North Bridge

-South Bridge

 

 

 

The North Bridge menu allows us to work with the integrated graphics settings:

 

 

 

The South Bridge menu however allows us to work with the LAN interface, adjust the PCIe speed and more:

 

 

 

From the Security menu, we will be able to set up an administrator password, an user password or work with the Secure Boot menu:

 

 

 

The Boot menu is quite self-explanatory:

 

 

 

From the Performance section, we will be able to adjust the memory settings:

 

 

 

Finally, we have the Save & Exit menu which allows us to save the changes, discard them or load factory defaults:

 

 

 

First hardware monitoring program we have fired up is CPU-Z, with its multiple information tabs:

 

CPU

 

 

Caches

 

 

Mainboard

 

 

Memory

 

 

 

We have also fired up the latest AIDA64 for finding out more details regarding the internal components:

 

CPU

 

 

 

Motherboard

 

 

 

CPU IMC

 

 

 

 

Integrated Graphics

 

 

 

 

 

3DMark 2001

 

3DMark 2003

 

3DMark 2005

 

3DMark 2006

 

PCMark 2005

 

PCMark 7

 

CrystalMark

 

SuperPI 1.5 XS 1M

 

CineBench R10

 

CineBench R11.5

 

x264 Encoding

 

Counterstrike Source

 

 

By including the Celeron N3150 Braswell SoC from Intel, the BIOSTAR N3150NH board takes part of the low-end segment and we can clearly see that from the benchmarks we have ran, since the performance per core is quite low, the Celeron 3205U we have found with the Shuttle DS57U surpassing it with flying colors. The power consumption though is like one third of the mentioned Celeron and the temperatures are much lower too, the included passive heatsink remaining cool during even most stressful conditions.

 

We have left the X264 encoding benchmark running for monitoring the temperatures and this is what we have obtained with the help of the HWINFO64 utility:

 

 

 

We would recommend this platform for playing Full-HD content, doing office work or even running old games since the newer ones require a potent GPU too, which the included SoC does not have. The product is also ideal to be used as a 24/7 seedbox since it uses very little power and most consumption will come basically from the storage drives.

 

BIOSTAR is not a company which inflates product prices for no reason, so this one can be picked online for about $70, which we think it is pretty reasonable.

 

BIOSTAR N3150NH ITX Motherboard is Recommended For:

 

 

We would like to thank again to BIOSTAR for making this review possible!