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Firmware
Biostar’s B660 BIOS has the same look as the last generation and the Z690 Valkyrie reviewed a few months back. There’s an EZ Mode that's more informational than tweakable, covering high-level status information, including RAM and CPU speed, temperatures and more. Once in the Advanced section, there are headings across the top with options under each. There are a fair amount of switching sections to reach all of the overclocking functionality, and listing some values in milliwatts is confusing. I’d also like to see a description for highlighted items, as most other boards have. But outside of that, the BIOS is easy to navigate and read, with a high-contrast dark grey background and white letters.
Software
Biostar uses a single application called Aurora to cover multiple functions, including Fan control, RGB lighting, monitoring, overclocking and more, but little has changed since the Z690 version. Once opened, there is a menu system in the left column with a larger right-hand side to display the information. With Aurora, you can control system volume (Smart Ear), canned power plans (GT Touch), RGBs (Vivid LED DJ), Fans (A.I Fan), hardware monitoring (H/W Monitor) and overclocking/overvolting (OC/OV).
Overall, I like this software. The user interface is easy both to read and to find the items you are looking for. Fan, RGB, and overclocking control worked without issue. I would like to see more temperatures in the hardware monitor section (VRMs, for example), but what’s there is informative, if only at a high level.
Test System / Comparison Products
We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 64-bit OS with all updates applied. We kept the same Asus TUF RTX 3070 video card from our previous testing platforms but updated the driver to version 496.13. Additionally, our game selection has been updated, as noted in the table below. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted. The hardware we used is as follows:
Test System Components
| CPU | Intel Core i9-12900K |
| Memory | GSkill Trident Z DDR5-5600 CL36 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | ADATA XPG Lancer DDR5-6000 CL40 (AX5U6000C4016G-DCLARBK) |
| Row 3 - Cell 0 | GSkill Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 (F4-3600C16Q-32GTZN) |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | GSkill Trident Z Royal DDR4-4000 (F4-4000C18Q-32GTRS) |
| GPU | Asus TUF RTX 3070 |
| Cooling | Coolermaster MasterLiquid PL360 Flux |
| PSU | EVGA Supernova 850W P6 |
| Software | Windows 11 64-bit (21H2, Build 22000.282) |
| Graphics Driver | NVIDIA Driver 496.13 |
| Sound | Integrated HD audio |
| Network | Integrated Networking (GbE or 2.5 GbE) |
EVGA supplied our Supernova 850W P6 power supply (appropriately sized and more efficient than the outgoing 1.2KW monster we used) for our test systems, and G.Skill sent us a DDR5-5600 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) memory kit for launch day testing.
Benchmark Settings
| Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings | Row 0 - Cell 1 |
| Procyon | Version 2.0.249 64 |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | Office Suite, Video Editing (Premiere Pro), Photo Editing (Photoshop, Lightroom Classic) |
| 3DMark | Version 2.20.7290 64 |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | Firestrike Extreme and Time Spy Default Presets |
| Cinebench R23 | Version RBBENCHMARK330542 |
| Row 6 - Cell 0 | Open GL Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded |
| Blender | Version 3.0.1 |
| Row 8 - Cell 0 | Full benchmark (all 3 tests) |
| Application Tests and Settings | Row 9 - Cell 1 |
| LAME MP3 | Version SSE2_2019 |
| Row 11 - Cell 0 | Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s) |
| HandBrake CLI | Version: 1.2.2 |
| Row 13 - Cell 0 | Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x264 (light AVX) and x265 (heavy AVX) |
| Corona 1.4 | Version 1.4 |
| Row 15 - Cell 0 | Custom benchmark |
| 7-Zip | Version 21.03-beta |
| Row 17 - Cell 0 | Integrated benchmark (Command Line) |
| Game Tests and Settings | Row 18 - Cell 1 |
| Far Cry 6 | Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, HD Textures ON |
| F1 2021 | Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, HBAO+, RT Med, TAA + 16xAF, Bahrain, FPS Counter ON |
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