Conclusion
BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA
The BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA is at best a mid-range Z690-based offering going by the $319 price point at the time of this writing. Its feature set is in line with that assessment as well. You do get 2.5GbE LAN, 3x M.2 slots, additional SATA ports, and more. However, you do not get 5GbE or 10GbE LAN as you would on a higher-end offering. No built-in wireless, and no PCIe 5.0 based M.2 or things like Thunderbolt either.
Installation and Setup
Initially, I did have some issues with stability concerning this motherboard. It is somewhat fickle about RAM. I tried at least four or five different memory kits to no avail. This is somewhat surprising given DDR4’s maturity. Then again, the platform is new and the higher-end DDR5 motherboards are picky about memory as well.
Over the time I had this board on the bench for testing I flashed the BIOS a couple of times and with the right memory kit, the problems went away immediately. At that point, the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA worked pretty well, especially for being a new platform.
Beyond that, I didn’t have any issues with getting the system setup and running. Installation of the CPU, thermal solution, GPU, etc. went perfectly. Installing the OS was a piece of cake as well. Sometimes new platforms and new OSes, (Windows 11 in this case) can be somewhat troublesome, but you wouldn’t know it based on my experiences with the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA.
Performance
From a performance perspective, we compared the $320, midrange BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA with DDR4 memory against a $1,100 top tier DDR5 motherboard and DDR5 6000MHz RAM. Despite the massive cost difference, the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA did extremely well coming within 1-3% of the much more expensive test platform. In some cases, the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA achieved even better results than the aforementioned price behemoth of a test system.
It’s obvious that DDR5 really hasn’t hit its stride yet and cost-conscious buyers wanting to go for Alder Lake-S will appreciate the economy of the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA and DDR4 memory. It’s pretty clear from the graphs that the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA is certainly capable of achieving similar performance and even trading blows with a motherboard that costs three times as much as this one does.
That being said, this motherboard is most likely incapable of base clock overclocking with non-K SKUs like the Core i5 12400 or 12400F. These CPUs represent the best value out there and have overclocking capability, but ironically seem to need relatively expensive motherboards to unlock that potential.
Overclocking
You may have noticed a distinct lack of overclocking data here. That’s not the fault of the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA. I can’t get anything significant out of the much more expensive ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme or APEX motherboards which are $1,099.99 and $719.99 respectively. We have two or three Core i9 12900K’s and while you can lock their clocks under certain circumstances or do some tuning, it’s a lot of effort for very little payout. These CPUs are binned pretty close to the edge relegating overclocking to CPUs like the Core i5 12400 and 12400F.
As we do not have a Core i5 12400 or 12400F, we cannot confirm whether or not the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA can do base clock overclocking with these CPUs or not.
Yes, there are some options on the more expensive motherboards that the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA lacks. However, the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA has all of the overclocking options you’d generally need for most CPUs, assuming you can get anything out of them anyway. If you are planning on overclocking you are pretty much going to have to go with a lower-end CPU to do anything on that front. With no functional power limits, the Biostar Racing Z690 GTA can do 95% or more of what the more expensive ASUS offerings we’ve tested can do.
Final Points
At the time of this writing, the range of Z690 motherboards is just under $200 and goes up to $2,000. In fact, on hand we have but one DDR4 motherboard and that’s the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA. We have two high-end ASUS DDR5 motherboards, both costing two to three times what the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA does. Yet, the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA manages to hold its own and even score some victories in the benchmark department.
Obviously, the feature sets aren’t directly comparable, and to be honest, that’s what really separates the budget, midrange, and high-end most of the time. Sure, there are VRM differences but those haven’t negatively impacted the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA, and the data backs that up.
If you are in the market for an Alder Lake-S CPU and motherboard, the BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA is certainly worth a look. At $319.99 at the time of this writing, it’s not the cheapest option out there, but it does have a slightly beefier VRM implementation than those budget boards and competes with VERY expensive offerings in terms of performance. The BIOSTAR Racing Z690 GTA has a lot of what you need and very little you don’t.
Due to the low price, solid feature set, and our positive experiences with this motherboard, we are awarding it The FPS Review Silver Award.
