At first we would like to thank BIOSTAR for offering their A68N-5200 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:

 

AMD Fusion APU A6-5200 Quad-Core Processor

 

This motherboard supports integrated AMD Quad-Core Processor A6-5200 with AMD Radeon™ HD 8400 Graphics. This revolutionary APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) combines processing power and advanced DirectX 11.1 graphics in one small, energy-efficient design to enable accelerated performance and an industry-leading visual experience. It features single-channel DDR3 1333 memory support and accelerates data transfer rate up to 2.5GT/s.

 

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.

Integrated HDMI with HDCP

Integrated HDMI with HDCP

Onboard HDMI connector allows full video & audio support. It has industry-leading high definition video quality.

 

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+

 

Moisture proof 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.

 

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, your smart device became an intelligent and functional remote controller; more than that, BIO-Remote2 also includes both function of mouse pad and power point presentation mode.

 

Product Specifications:

 

 

Back in 2014, we were taking a look at the fanless BIOSTAR A68N-5000 board, which was incorporating the Kabini A4-5000 APU at 1.5GHz and on the GPU side it was driven by a Radeon HD 8330 architecture. The overall system performance was decent in multi-threading applications but the single core performance was quite low. With this new board we are going to look at the more advanced A68N-5200, which does now come with the same Kabini architecture, but the cores are running at 2GHz, while the GPU is an improved (higher frequency) Radeon HD 8400. While the power consumption rating of the A4-5000 APU was 14W, the A6-5200 has an increased value of 25W, hence the need of active cooling. Let’s take a closer look at the packaging and see what we’ve got; BIOSTAR likes to preserve the same design for the packaging concerning motherboards with integrated CPU so on the top side we will get to see the product logo along with some pictograms representing supported technologies:

 

 

 

A more detailed explanation can be found on the back:

 

 

 

After removing the top cover, we will end up seeing some of the box bundle and compartments:

 

 

 

Speaking of the bundle, we do get one Quick Installation Guide, the I/O shield, two SATA cables but also one installation disk:

 

 

 

 

On the bottom layer of the enclosure we will find the main board, which is also wrapped inside an antistatic bag:

 

 

 

Despite the fact that the A68N-5200 is built with an ITX form factor in mind, the components are well placed for permitting a decent cable management inside the case; while the PCB is black, the slots carry a yellow color theme:

 

 

 

Near the APU area we will get to see one tiny ISL62771 Multiphase PWM Regulator for AMD Fusion Mobile CPUs:

 

 

 

The ATX 4-pin power connector is also located nearby:

 

 

 

The vicinity also exposes the CPU VRM components:

 

 

 

One SPDIF OUT connector is available for us quite close to the CPU fan connector:

 

 

 

For this board, BIOSTAR has opted to use one REALTEK 8111G Gigabit LAN controller:

 

 

 

The audio CODEC, REALTEK ALC662 is placed near the PCI-E slot:

 

 

 

Near the APU area, we will also spot two USB 2.0 headers along with two SATA headers:

 

 

 

One ITE IT8728F SuperIO monitoring chip is also placed here:

 

 

 

On the bottom right area of the PCB, we will get to see the F_PANEL header, the CMOS Reset jumper, the BIOS chip, one COM header but also one LPT header:

 

 

 

The 24-pin ATX power connector is accompanied by a SYSTEM fan header, but also by the CMOS battery:

 

 

 

The PCI-E slot is ideal for installing low-end to mainstream video cards, sports version 2.0 and is only x4 electrical:

 

 

 

On this system we can install up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM, thanks to the two available memory slots:

 

 

 

The small fan placed on the aluminum sink is enough to cool our APU at speeds much lower than the max in normal usage conditions:

 

 

 

Here is also a look on the back side of the motherboard, where the manufacturer has placed a sticker with the product serial numbers:

 

 

 

On the I/O we do have one PS/2 keyboard and mouse port, one HDMI port, one VGA port, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, one LAN port but also the 3.5mm audio jacks:

 

 

 

The UEFI BIOS appearance has been preserved from the A68N-5000 board and features an easy to navigate system. Information like current time, CPU speed/voltage, memory frequency/voltage, fan speed and APU temperature are displayed on the left side, while the main menus are available on the bottom. The Main section informs us on the BIOS name, build date, total memory quantity and running speed and also here we will be able to alter the interface language and adjust the system date/time:

 

 

The Advanced menu is split in multiple sub-sections:

 

-PCI Subsystem Settings

-ACPI Settings/WakeUp Even Control

-CPU Configuration

-SATA Configuration

-USB Configuration

-Smart Fan Control

-SuperIO Configuration

-H/W Monitor

-Network Stack

 

 

From the PCI Subsystem Settings menu, we can adjust the PCI Latency Timer, enable VGA Palette Snoop and also work with the PCI Express Settings:

 

 

The ACPI Settings menu will present itself with the usual Power Management settings:

 

 

CPU Configuration menu allows us to enable or disable certain operation modes, including Core Leveling:

 

 

The SATA Configuration menu will let us work with the SATA controller and specify running modes; also here we will be shown the detected devices for both ports:

 

 

The USB Configuration menu lists the detected devices and allows enabling different related features for both USB 2.0 and 3.0:

 

 

Smart Fan Control is the place to go on the first boot because if this feature is disabled, the fan will run at max settings and it is really loud; we can also calibrate the fan here and adjust different PWM settings:

 

 

The SuperIO Configuration menu allows us to work with both Serial and Parallel Port interfaces:

 

 

From the PC Health Status (H/W Monitor) menu, we will be able to monitor temperatures, fan speeds and voltages, but also enable some related settings:

 

 

Network Stack menu has a single option we can work with:

 

 

The Chipset section also has some sub-menus available:

 

-South Bridge

-North Bridge

-Onboard Device

 

 

The South Bridge menu takes care of some custom USB configuration options but also here we can enable or disable the audio features:

 

 

From the North Bridge Configuration menu, we can enable or disable the second audio feature, or adjust GFX Configuration:

 

 

Onboard Device menu permits us to disable the LAN interface;

 

 

From the Boot menu, we can configure specific settings, including priorities:

 

 

Security menu is the place to go for modifying the admin password:

 

 

Performance Menu is the area where we can fine-tune some of the system settings and comes with several sub-sections:

 

-P-States Configuration

-Over Voltage Configuration

-DRAM Timing Configuration

-MCT Configuration

-BIOSTAR Memory Insight

 

 

The P-States Configuration menu allows us to modify the multiplier along with the APU voltage:

 

 

DDR memory voltage can be also configured from the next menu; this is handy when we are dealing with DDD3L memory:

 

 

DRAM Timing Configuration menu, besides the Manual Timings, we can also adjust the memory speed:

 

 

MCT Configuration menu takes care of some custom options:

 

 

Memory Insight will show the pre-programmed memory timings:

 

 

Lastly, from the Save & Exit menu, we will be able to Discard, Save or Load Factory Defaults:

 

 

In order to start testing the A68N-5200 board from BIOSTAR, we equipped it with one AVEXIR 4GB DDR3 1333MHz memory module, but also a Hitachi Travelstar 5K250 250GB HDD. We installed the latest Windows 7 x64 from scratch and got the tests going. Here is some information that we could obtain on the internal hardware, thanks to the specialized programs:

 

CPU-Z CPU Information Tab

 

 

CPU-Z CPU Caches Tab

 

 

CPU-Z Mainboard Tab

 

 

CPU-Z Memory Tab

 

 

 

AIDA64 gives us even some more details regarding the computer components:

 

CPU Information

 

 

Motherboard Information

 

 

 

 

IMC

 

 

 

 

SB

 

 

The Kabini graphical solution from the A6-5200 APU is named AMD Radeon HD 8400 and has 128 Unified Shaders; it is based on the GCN architecture and clocked at 600 MHz:

 

 

 

Temperature tests

 

To test the computer thermals, we have first left the computer in IDLE for about 30 minutes and then we fired up AIDA64 Stress Testing module, for an additional 10 minutes. The minimum and maximum temperatures of all internal components were recorded by the latest HWINFO utility. During the time of testing, the ambient temperature was 15.8 degrees Celsius:

 

 

From the performed test, we can clearly say that the APU can get quite warm when doing intensive tasks so the small included fan on the aluminum heatsink must be complemented by an optimal cooling inside the case.

 

Power consumption test results

System Full Load measurement was recorded while running the AIDA64 System Stability Test and checking on Stress CPU, Stress FPU, Stress Cache, Stress System Memory, Stress GPUs.

In IDLE, we have recorded a value of 27.45W, while in Full Load about 57.46W.

3DMark 2001

 

3DMark 2003

 

3DMark 2005

 

3DMark 2006

 

PCMark 2005

 

PCMark Vantage

 

PCMark 7

CrystalMark

 

SuperPI 1.5 XS 1M

 

wPrime 32M

 

CineBench R10

 

CineBench R11.5

 

 

x264 Encoding

 

Counterstrike Source

 

 

The A68N-5200 board, by incorporating one A6-5200 Kabini-based APU, is bringing to the table even more raw performance when compared to its A4-5000, while the GPU component gets a 100Mhz boost. While the increased 3D performance is minimal versus the A4, other tasks which require CPU performance will get up to 25% performance boost. Despite the fact that this is a cheap and low-powered board, BIOSTAR saw fit to include a fully-fledged UEFI interface which also contains some performance tuning options. Last but not least, we do get with the A68N-5200 one very-welcome PCI-E 2.0 x16 (x4 electrical) which invites us to install a dedicated video card.

 

Speaking of the dedicated video card, we were really curious to see the performance improvement after we have installed a low-end HIS R6 360 video card versus the integrated solution. Several games were brought in for testing and here we could remember of Tomb Raider, Resident Evil 6, Dirt 3, Grid 2, Hitman Absolution and Sniper Elite III. While most of titles were unplayable even at 1280x1024 with the Radeon HD 8400 integrated solution, the dedicated video card has improved the solution even more than we would have imagined and this can be seen from the following table:

 

 

 

To sum it up, if you are going to buy this board, make sure you also save a bit for a low-end to mainstream video card solution, because the 3D performance will be greatly improved and will transform the platform which was initially good for light to medium browsing, office and playing really old games to a system which can even make a good impression when running titles from more recent years, while playing carefully with the resolution.

 

A68N-5200 board can be snatched online for about $69, which is a good value for the overall package.

BIOSTAR A68N-5200 Motherboard is Recommended For:

 

 

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