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At a price of $77 bucks online, the Biostar TForce 550 board is targeted towards the mainstream segment of the market and is a good buy for those wanting an inexpensive non-SLI motherboard. The performance isn't as good as the bigger brother nForce 590 SLI, but it's not meant to be. Considering the layout of the board, the 24-pin power connector is forced to be in that position. Positives of the board include plenty of expansion room for add-on cards and the ability to use 6 USB 2.0 devices without the use of a bracket.
Negatives of the board include the inability to use more than 4GB of memory (virtually every motherboard on the market today can use 8 or more with a 64-bit Operating System like Linux or Windows XP 64-bit) and the single IDE port on the board (a trait many boards on the market today exhibit). For $78, the Biostar TForce 550 does the job and does it well, forming the background for a good inexpensive AMD Athlon 64 system with a single video card.
