Biostar Hi-Fi Z97WE (LGA 1150) Motherboard Review

Software Overview

Smart Speed LAN

Smart Speed LAN is yet another packet prioritisation piece of software for managing your networking parameters. The software is developed by Realtek for Biostar which is probably a result of the tendency for Biostar to nearly-always use Realtek network controllers. The software is actually very basic in terms of its options and the parameters you can tweak, especially if we compare it to something like the ASUS Turbo LAN (CFOS developed), ASUS GameFirst III or ASRock XFast Lan (CFOS developed). However, I think it is definitely better to have something basic than nothing at all.

T Overclocker

T Overclocker is the Biostar Windows-based overclocking utility. From within this program you can tweak all aspects of your CPU and save or load overclocking profiles. The app allows you to tune voltages and frequencies as well as monitor and explore your CPU/DRAM hardware.

Smart Ear

Smart Ear is an audio utility which allows you to select the appropriate headset impedance for a set of headphones. It is quite similar to the ASUS SoundStage utility although it does not have the ability to auto-detect the correct settings like the ASUS software can.

Green Power Utility (GPU)

The Biostar GPU has a somewhat confusing name because it is totally not related to GPUs in any way. However, it is still useful – it is essentially the power saving software for the motherboard. Again like all the Biostar software it is very basic, the ability to tweak and tune is absolutely no match for rival solutions like the ASUS EPU.

MAGIX Multimedia Suite

Biostar are targeting this motherboard at HTPC users and media users so they include a multimedia suite package to back that up. I honestly didn’t have time to install six different pieces of software and take a look around but from what I can see this software is actually pretty decent and worth quite a bit of money if you were to buy it all standalone. You can find more details about this software at the third party developer’s website here.