Biostar iDEQ 200N SFF System

You've seen plenty of AMD-based motherboard reviews here at Bjorn3d, and almost all of those were nForce boards. Well, this review not only includes an nForce2 MB (motherboard) but also incorporates a nice little case, PSU and heatsink. In other words, I present to you the Biostar iDEQ 200N SFF (small form factor) PC, a neat little package to say the least.

Thanks to Biostar, we have the iDEQ 200N SFF barebones system up for review. Not only does it feature some of the best features available for an AMD board, such as Realtek ALC 650 6-channel audio, Serial ATA (two ports!), LAN and dual-channel DDR, but it also sports some innovative case and heatsink design. The case / system looked awesome in the pics on the Internet that I found, but I was curious upon receiving this Biostar iDEQ 200N SFF unit how it would be in person - see for yourself.

I was curious upon receiving my Biostar iDEQ 200N SFF unit, wondering ...

1. How would the chipset / MB compare to a full ATX nForce2 MB?
I am very happy to state that the MB/chipset/system performed on par with my full form factor ATX A7N8X Deluxe MB system in all tests.

2. Would I need to buy an AGP graphics card to get acceptable graphics or would the on-board MX 440 chipset work and allow me to play recent / popular games?
The on-board graphics are more than acceptable; I was able to play Quake 3 Arena, UT2K3, Colin McRae Rally 2 & 3 and WarCraft3, the main titles I play. All the games felt very good. Even though I did have to lower the graphics settings, the games were still enjoyable and playable. Not having to spend more money or add more weight in the form of a full sized AGP card to a computer built for the LAN environment made me especially happy, and as for office use, the system is more enough power and functionality, especially with its dual VGA out ports.

3. What sort of CPU, NB (Northbridge) and case temps would I encounter, would the supplied heatpipe cooler keep my XP 2500+ Barton cool enough?
The temps for the CPU, NB and case are all very good and acceptable. The heatpipe design of the CPU cooler works very well, considering that there are only 2 case fans ( both are 60mm ) in the whole system ( 1 on the CPU and 1 directly behind it extracting hot air out of the case ) . I never saw temps over 53 Celsius even though my room temps were around 29+ Celsius for all testing. Unfortunately although the NB cooler is only a large piece of aluminum, it did not come with a fan on it. The NB temps seemed very high -- I did a touch test after running 3DMark and got a nice burn off of it. I added a 40mm fan to the NB cooler and from there on out temps were fine; never when I touched it did it feel more than luke warm.

• SFF (small form factor) PC
• Dual-Channel DDR 400/333/266 Memory Bus (6.4 GB/s Memory Bandwidth)
• 200, 266 and 333 MHz FSB,
• Support up to AMD XP3000+ CPU
• 4X / 8X AGP,
• USB 2.0
• Firewire / IEEE1394
• nForce2 ChipSet
• Serial ATA RAID (0 or 1) and (0+1)
• OnBoard Dual VGA

Key Features

Computing with Reliability

• Supreme cooling design and noise reduction
• Hardware monitor ensuring reliability and stability
• Superior connectivity and expand ability

Game console with energy

• Built in GeForce4 MX high performance 256-bit 3D engine
• Support high-end audio and video cards
• Nvidia nView dual-view display

Entertainment with Ingenuity

• Intelligent media player -Studio Fun
• Friendly graphics interface and remote control (optional)

For more detailed specs, please check out Biostar's web site.

• iDEQ 200N SFF System
• Users Guide
• Installation Guide (in 5 languages)
• One Serial ATA data cable
• One SATA Power Cable
• One IDE cable for ATA/33, ATA/66 or ATA/100 IDE drives
• One 34-pin floppy drive cable
• One "Drivers & Utilities" CD
• Studio Fun Application Pack CD

BIOSTAR iDEQ 200N box

A nice neat secure package

Well packed for sure