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Foxconn NF4SK8AA 8EKRS


Date
: 08/23/05 – 03:58:45 AM

Author
:

Category
: Motherboard

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd)

Price:
$126 USD (Newegg)

Foxconn is actually the registered trade name for Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd.. Foxconn is a major player in a number of different areas including Optical Storage, Workstations, Servers, and of course, Motherboards among others. The parent company, Hon Hai Precision Industry, was established in 1974 and has since gone public on the Taiwan Stock Exchange back in 1991. They have now opened production facilities in China, Scotland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States. They have become one of the largest manufacturers of connectors and cable assemblies on the planet for use in PCs. As you can see, Foxconn has a purebred heritage that stretches back a long way.

It is this heritage that has Foxconn delivering affordable, quality, award-winning products around the globe. Today we look at the first motherboard to cross the pages of Overclockers Online in a little over two months, the
Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8EKRS
from their WinFast line of motherboards. This particular motherboard happens to be at the top of the pile that Foxconn offers, running the NVIDIA nForce 4 chipset. This offering from Foxconn features full SLI mode, 6 total SATA/300 connections on two different controllers, 10 potential USB 2.0 connections and Dual GbE LAN, just to name a few. I am looking forward to examining this motherboard and its complete list of features, so let's get started.

Page 2 : Package

The prospect of receiving a motherboard is always exciting. I think it is due to the fact that there is just so much to examine and play with that it will take a good few days of dedicated tooling to get a feel for everything that a modern motherboard offers. I am a long time VIA chipset user and was thrilled when I got word that I would be getting my hands on another NVIDIA nForce 4 motherboard and all that it brings to the table. My excitement didn't even have time to fester into anticipation as the motherboard showed up at my door in what seemed like only a couple of days. I certainly didn't waste any time and, upon tearing open the FedEx box, I was face to face with the premier offering from Foxconn.

There is no denying it, this box is not going to jump off the store shelves and beckon for you to come and pick it up. I would call it a mature design that employs simplicity as its main focus. There is no hint of the Foxconn name anywhere on this box, aside from the web site address on the back. Instead, The WinFast brand is what is most prominent. Foxconn uses the WinFast name for all of their AMD compatible motherboards and the Intel compatible motherboards are garnished by the Foxconn name. The reason for this has eluded me, despite plenty of time trying to find out. Either way, I think it is safe to say that this design might actually stand out on store shelves with its bland demeanor against the backdrop of flashy motherboard boxes covered in fancy 3-D graphic designs and extravagant artwork.

You might have also noticed the distinct lack of any details on the front of the box, aside from the declaration that the motherboard is designed for Windows XP. The rear of the package is where all details of what is inside will be found. I have highlighted the bottom in the above image as Foxconn has decided to go with the recognizable logos to list the feature-set of this particular motherboard. The main section on the back of the box is used for advertising the 'Super Technology' that Foxconn has incorporated into the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS.

The above outlines a nice set of proprietary features that are built into the motherboard. Some are pretty much standard in todays market, but others, like the SuperBoot, are somewhat new and have me admittedly intrigued. The idea of skipping POST to decrease boot time is interesting and I will definitely be sure to see how that works once up and running.

The front side flap is the only one of the four that contains anything other than the WinFast logo and model number. A small number of the more conventional features are listed on the right hand side, along with serial numbers and UPC code that I have highlighted above. As stated and visually obvious, the box is boring, the photos won't even let me sugar coat it if I wanted to. I happen to like plain, simple and effective, and this box is exactly that but even I think it is lacking in the visual department. A few features listed on the front or even some sort of design to the model number would add a lot to the overall look. That said, the package does a decent job advertising the capabilities of the motherboard and provides any potential buyers with ample information about what they will be receiving.

The wait is over and the lid has be lifted, let's see exactly what we will be getting with the WinFast NF4SK8AA-8EKRS.

This side of the unfolded poster displays a very descriptive walkthrough for installing the CPU on the motherboard, as well as a complete road map for every connection, feature, and jumper on the motherboard. Located along the bottom are diagrams of the pins for the USB, AC'97 audio, 1394, and front panel connectors. Labels for the different connections included on the I/O panel are also presented at the bottom left. I really like the idea of a large poster displaying all the information you will need to assist in getting the motherboard installed and setup, Foxconn has done a great job with this one.

The opposite side of the poster outlines the steps for installing the software and has the different basic areas of the BIOS outlined.

I have spread the contents of the box out here to show what all comes with the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS. Starting from the left is the manual, install CD with the chipset drivers, and three floppy disks. These disks include the Silicon Image SATA RAID and non-RAID drivers as well as the NVIDIA SATA RAID driver. Just below those is the rear I/O panel. Down the middle is the SLI bridge retention bracket and two cable connections that convert a single 4-pin Molex connection into two SATA power connections. This gives you a total of four SATA power connections even if your PSU doesn't have any. Just under those cables is a PCI mount for the two 1394 connections. Foxconn also provides two IDE cables, a floppy cable and two SATA cables.

The one noticeable vacancy is that of a PCI mount with additional USB 2.0 connections as the four at the back were easily filled with my USB peripherals. It would be nice for those that don't have any USB connections on their case. The next page will go over a complete list of features and specifications offered by the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS.

Page 3 : Specifications & Features

The list below was borrowed from Foxconns website…

As we are well aware by this point, the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS is based on the NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI chipset. This chipset is feature rich and has an amazing amount of features built into it. In this section, I will be providing just a brief overview as this chipset is not new anymore and most users are well aware of its capabilities. These features were pulled from the NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI web site…

PERFORMANCE
SLI Support

• NVIDIA nForce4 SLI:
• Two x8 PCI Express links

  HyperTransport technology: Athlon 64 CPU Interface

• 16 x 16 link running at 1 GHz for extremely high throughput (8.0 GBps)
• Differential lines with low voltage swings

  SECURITY
  NVIDIA ActiveArmor Secure Networking Engine

• Dedicated hardware engine
• Enhances network security
• Reduces CPU overhead Powers and accelerates ActiveArmor Firewall

  ActiveArmor Firewall Technology

• Industrys first true hardware-based firewall
• Unmatched performance and protection
• Instant-on and tamper resistant
• Advanced management features through user friendly interface
• Remote access, configuration, monitoring
• Command line interface (CLI)
• Intelligent application management
  

  STORAGE
  Serial ATA

• Support for SATA 3Gb/s and SATA 1.5Gb/s disk controller standards
• Supports full Tagged Command Queuing (TCQ) and Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
  

  Dual controller architecture

• Two separate and independent controllers. Results in up to twice the bandwidth to disks
• Four (4) integrated SATA 3Gb/s ports
  

  CONNECTIVITY
  PCI Express Interface NVIDIA SLI

• PCI Express high-performance, scalable interconnect. Rapidly being adopted by the PC industry; designed to replace the AGP and PCI interconnects currently in use.
• A x16 PCI Express link has 4 times the total bandwidth of todays AGP 8X interface
• x16 PCI Express link for high-performance graphics cards featuring the latest graphics processing units (GPUs) with DirectX 9.0 and Shader Model 3.0 support
• Additional x1 PCI Express links for other add-in cards

  USB 2.0

• USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller Interface (EHCI) / USB 1.1 Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI)
• Support for up to 10 ports
• Supports transfer rates at high speed (480 Mbps), full speed (12 Mbps), and low speed (1.2 Mbps)
• Dynamically configures slower devices for best utilization of bandwidth
• Allows USB concurrency

  AUDIO
  AC 97 2.3 compliant interface

• Supports 2, 4, 6, or 8-channel audio
• Dual AC-Link supports up to two codecs
• Dual S/PDIF supports two simultaneous digital outputs; handles stereo PCM or AC-3 output
• 16-bit or 20-bit stereo, 48 kHz output and 16-bit input streams across AC-Link
• 24-bit, 96 kHz stereo output on the secondary S/PDIF output
• Supports input, output, and general purpose input/output channels for host-based modems
• Separate independent functions for audio and modem

  I had stated earlier that this is just a few of the features incorporated into the NVIDIA nForce 4 chipset. You can read full details about the chipset at the NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI page.

  
  Page 4 : Layout
  

  As stated earlier, with a motherboard, there is just so much to cover as far as a review goes. With modern motherboards that fact is just magnified as the features they tend to offer never ends. The NF4SK8AA-8EKRS is certainly no exception, as you saw on the previous page, with its long lists of specifications.

  

  I really don't have to mention this, but the PCB is a bright orange. This is somewhat surprising given the fact that the exterior of the package is so subdued. I am not one to pass judgment or base a purchase on color or looks, so I will leave that up to you. Whether you like it or not, you have to admit that it is different. What is not different is the layout of this motherboard from the more successful nForce 4 powered SLI motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI to name a few. The CPU is located at the top tucked in between the rear I/O connections and the RAM slots. The northbridge is then located to the south of the RAM slots behind the PCI-E/PCI slots and surrounded with the various connections. The first component we will look at is the CPU socket as this is the most important and an obvious place to start.

  

  This motherboard is designed for Socket 939 Processors and I will be installing an AMD64 3000+ Winchester for the review. You can see in the first photo and this one above, that the CPU is left alone for the most part. The RAM slots are close but not crowding the socket retention and there is plenty of room above and below the socket for even the biggest of CPU coolers. The only issue I can see would be the proximity of the capacitors and how high they are above the retaining structure.

  

  The stock AMD HSF will not be affected by this but it could pose a problem for some larger aftermarket HSF setups. I will be mounting both the Asetek VapoChill Micro, and Titan Vanessa L-Type to see if they pose any problems and, initially, I think they will stand high enough to clear the capacitors but it is hard to judge this type of thing.

  

  In behind the capacitors is the row of MOSFETs that we can clearly see are not covered by a heatsink of any kind. The job of regulating the voltage, that is being supplied to the CPU, is up to the MOSFETs and this job can generate a lot of heat. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in overclocking.

  

  Working our way to the frontside edge of the motherboard and staying along the top, we get a good look at the four 184-pin DIMM sockets that support up to 4GB of dual channel, unbuffered memory. They appear to be somewhat close together, but I think that is mostly due to the fact that I am used to seeing a split between the first two and last two slots. The RAM I will be using in this review will be a matched pair of OCZ PC-3200 Premier Dual Channel that come with standard size heatspreaders and I will be sure to report how they fit when that time comes.

  

  I really like it when manufacturers place the PATA, power, and floppy connections all clustered together at the front edge of the motherboard. This allows for easy and clean cable management. You can see that this motherboard will be using a 24-pin power connection.

  

  The Winbond W83627EHF chip is utilized by many motherboards as it is capable of plenty I/O functions including controlling the FDD I/O as well as providing a host of other useful data to the user. Many of the readings that Speedfan will be providing for us during testing will come from this chip.

  

  The second largest central area on a nForce 4 board is the location of the north bridge. I stated earlier that the location of this north bridge was directly south of the RAM slots and will not interfere with the first PCI-E slot, no matter how bloated the video card installed may be. The actively cooled heatsink is also very short, allowing the second PCI-E to house a long expansion card without interference. With rising system speeds, all north bridges today need an active cooling system and this will hopefully aid in the overclocking abilities of the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS.

  
  The four primary SATA connections are nice and close to the north bridge. These provide NVIDIA controlled RAID 1, RAID 0, RAID 0+1, and JBOD arrays spanning these four SATA connections as well as the PATA connections above if required.
  
  Near the bottom front corner is the battery and Phoenix BIOS chip. The CMOS clearing jumper is just above the BIOS chip and will be easily accessible with the motherboard mounted in the case.
  

  Just to the left of the north bridge is where our final two SATA connections are located. These two are controlled by the Silicon Image sil3132 chip that is also visible in the photo. These two connections are capable of being run as regular SATA drives acting as an IDE drive or in an array of either RAID 0 or RAID 1. I will be benchmarking this controller against the NVIDIA controller to see the performance difference between the two. I would have liked to see 4 SATA connections here as this is near the top of Foxconns motherboard list and most other top level motherboards are equipped with 8 SATA connections.

  
  Along the bottom edge below the Silicon Image controller and the BIOS is where we find three USB headers wearing blue. These provide a total of 6 additional USB 2.0/1.1 connections and the single black header on the right provides front panel function. Lacking from the front panel connections is leads for a case speaker, interesting.
  
  Heading towards the rear of the board again we have two 1394 headers as there is no external connection on the rear I/O panel.
  
  This is the Texas Instruments integrated 1394a controller taking care of the connections shown above.
  

  The last of the major sections on the motherboard is the stack of expansion slots which includes three PCI, one PCI-E x1, and two PCI-E x16 slots. The two x16 slots are split by the x1 slot and the SLI card. Unfortunately, you have to manually flip the SLI card to enable SLI mode. It is not really an issue as you won't normally be switching back and forth and the card is better than changing a pile of jumpers in my opinion. The usefulness of the x1 slot comes into question as I am almost sure it will be completely blocked with the installation of dual video cards. We will see when I install the two BFG 6600GT OCs that will be used for testing. At the very bottom you might and might not have noticed the small black pod with the + sign silk screened on the top. This is why the case speaker leads are absent from the front panel connection.

  
  Above the top x16 slot is an additional power connection via a 4-pin molex connector.
  

  Pictured here is the Marvell chip that runs the dual Gigabit LAN connections. It is located just below the line of MOSFETs that can be seen sneaking into the right hand side of the photo.

  
  Audio central, this is where all the function of the 8 channel onboard sound is handled.
  

  The rear I/O panel of the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS sports the PS/2 mouse and keyboard connections, a parallel port, COM port, as well as SPDIF Coaxial and SPDIF optical ports. At the far right is the audio connections and beside that is four USB connections stacked with the two Gigabit LAN connections on top.

  

  Yes, it is orange on the backside too. Really there is nothing to show back here but the plastic retention bracket for the CPU mount. This wraps up our look at the layout of this colorful option loaded motherboard. In the next section we will get into the installation of this bright orange beauty.

  
  Page 5 : Installation
  

  Installing a motherboard can be extremely fun or very frustrating. You have the excitement of setting up a new machine but the inevitability that things will go wrong, no matter how much planning in advance you do. The manual and any other instructional paper work is your friend and with the Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8EKRS it is no different. The first order of business was to make sure that the CPU coolers I wanted to use would fit over the capacitors next to the CPU retainer.

  

  I started with the Asetek VapoChill Micro and although it was nip and tuck it installed fairly easily. The problem was the length of the screws that were used to hold the retainer in place and in the case of the VapoChill Micro, the mounting plate as well. I had to really work to get the threads to catch and screw in as they were almost too short. Eventually I was able to get both sides secure as you can see above.

  
  Simply stating that the capacitors were not close to being touched was not enough, so I have this photo that shows just how much room the cooler has. One down, next up, the Vanessa L-Type.
  This is when I realized it wasn't the screws that were too short, but rather the backing plate nuts were too far down. I was not able to get the Vanessa mounted because of this. To mount the Vanessa L-Type, Titan provides special screws to secure the mount to the stock retainer, but these would not be long enough to reach down to the nuts in the backing plate. In the other two motherboards I have mounted the Vanessa in, this was never an issue.
  
  Even without the cooler mount in place, the screws were still not long enough to reach the nuts and the Vanessa had no chance of being mounted. They are simply sitting here unable to reach the nuts below to thread into.
  
  Needless to say, the Vanessa L-Type would have fit easily had it been able to be secured to the AMD64 3000+.
  
  This is just a quick shot of the stock AMD HSF that comes boxed with the retail AMD64 3000+. There is absolutely no issues you will run into when mounting such a cooler.
  I intended on running the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS with the Vanessa L-Type as it is my best CPU cooler, but obviously that wasn't possible and the VapoChill Micro would be used. So the CPU was cleaned off and AS5 applied before mounting the cooler. With that out of the way, it was time to introduce this motherboard to a case. Now my initial plans were to mount the motherboard in my Aspire X-Cruiser but, unfortunate circumstances surrounding the installation of the PSU I wanted to conduct this review with would have led me to do some cutting at the rear of the case.
  

  I did not feel like cutting the new Aspire case just yet in its young life so into my old trusty mid-tower the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS went. As you can see, the motherboard fits just fine and I did not even have to remove the four hard drives seen there on the right. The rear I/O panel fits well over the various connections and within minutes I was ready to start hooking up the endless amount of cables that are required to begin operation. Now where was that manual and poster?

  

  Normally hooking up cables is not all that exciting, but I was quite pleased when I hooked up the included SATA cables to my WD Raptors. The connections at the motherboard clicked in place and were quite secure. None of my other motherboards have such a solid seating of the SATA cables and I was confident that these would not fall off, unlike my other motherboards where too much of a bump to the case would knock the SATA connections loose. The connections were also nice and secure at the rear of the hard drives, needless to say I was impressed and thought it was worth mentioning.

  Once I had everything connected, I powered up and got POST first time out. A quick romp through the BIOS to make sure everything was detected as it should be and to configure the two SATA ports I was using for RAID. With that done and the memory timings set, I started out on installing Windows. To do that required the RAID array to be created of course, and I entered the NVIDIA RAID configuration utility by hitting F10 after the reboot. With the RAID 0 array created and set to boot, the Windows install began…but did not get far. After the call for additional drivers for the RAID array, but right before Windows started copying files, the installation hung. To save you the agony of a long story it turns out that my OCZ PC-3200 PDC memory kit was not able to run in 1T.

  

  A quick change in the BIOS and the Windows install went without a hitch. I was now ready to get started on seeing what the WinFast NF4SK8AA-8EKRS was all about. Below is a list of the hardware that would be used to explore the features and capabilities of this motherboard.

  AMD 3000+ Winchester retail boxed HSF
  OCZ PDC 2*512MB PC3200
  Sapphire Hybrid X700PRO 256MB
  MGE Magnum 500W Review to follow.
  Dual WD Raptor 36.7GB 10,000RPM configured in a RAID 0
  Windows XP Pro x64 + Latest updates
  Components were mounted in a generic mid-tower case with plenty of cooling

  Motherboards:
  Asus A8V-E Deluxe VIA K8T890/VT8237

  WinFast NF4SK8AA-8EKRS

  The next step is the two things that go hand in hand and we will be looking at them together, The BIOS and overclocking.

  
  Page 6 : BIOS
  

  The BIOS that came loaded with the motherboard out of the box was stable and solid, but there was a BIOS update on the Foxconn website, so I flashed to that as soon as I was setup and running. I simply used the SuperUpdate utility included on the CD and was able to easily flash the BIOS with the new version from within Windows. A reboot of the system and I was now running with the new version. The new BIOS allowed for more voltage to be sent to the Vcore and allowed the CPU multiplier to actually work, the CPU multiplier of the original BIOS did not function. Other than that, I could not find much of a difference anywhere else.

  There is not much to say about a BIOS, so let's get to the photos of the various sections and let them do the talking.

  
  As you can see at the top of the image, a Phoenix supplied Award Workstation BIOS.
  
  Standard CMOS Features
  
  The
  Bios Feature
  section is where all the overclocking features are located and where I will be spending the majority of my time when in the BIOS. The top 3 features are of those mentioned on the back of the box. The SuperBoot option I mentioned caught my eye and when it is enabled, the system actually bypassed POST and, when you power up the system, it goes straight to loading Windows. Believe it or not, this speeds up boot time by about 10 seconds. We will now look more at the SuperSpeed section as this is our biggest concern.
  
  The
  CPU Clock Multiplier
  simply has the listed available multipliers of the 3000+, 4 to 9 at half increments giving you a total of 11 choices for CPU multiplier. The
  CPU Vid Control
  shown here gives a large amount of options for the Vcore voltage. When set to 1.550v the Vcore receives about 1.52v once booted to windows. You can see the standard choice of .025v for each increment giving us the control we will need to overclock properly.
  
  The
  HyperTransport Multiplier
  gives us the standard 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, and 5x options.
  

  The
  CPU Frequency
  actually allows for .5 incremental adjustments up to 220, at that point it switches to a full 1MHz increment right up to 300. Having a maximum clock speed of only 300 tells us right away that Foxconn has not made this board with the extreme overclocker in mind, but this range will allow us to maximize the components I have chosen for this review.

  

  The memory dividers we have are the standard speeds seen in the BIOS of most modern motherboards. This type of memory divider is not exactly a divider, it is more of a start point for the RAM. Obviously at 200MHz it runs the RAM at 1:1 with the CPU clock speed, but once you begin to change the CPU multiplier the memory divider adjusts to compensate to try and keep the RAM at the chosen speed. A clear example of this will be seen below when I get into overclocking.

  
  Within
  DRAM Configuration
  , we are given control over the basic memory timings of the RAM.
  

  PCIE Frequency
  gives us a range of 100MHz to 145MHz. By leaving it at 100MHz, this effectively invokes a PCI-E lock and eliminates the risk of overclocking that BUS as the clock speed is increased.

  
  CPU Vcore Voltage Select
  allows us to increase the voltage going to the Vcore in conjunction with the CPU Vid Control.
  
  The
  VDIMM Voltage Selections
  are fairly limited allowing us to provide up to 2.85V. Once again indicating that overclocking is not the primary concern with Foxconn in this offering. It was ultimately this restriction that made my decision to use the OCZ PDC RAM for this review as it does not require a lot of voltage to reach its full potential.
  That finishes up the overclocking features of the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS. We will now finish up having a quick look at the rest of the BIOS.
  
  In the
  Advanced BIOS Features
  is where you will set you boot priority for devices and in which order those devices will boot. There is also a few other options to adjust depending on the hardware and interests of the user.
  
  Advanced Chipset Features
  

  Integrated Peripherals
  is where we get control over any onboard devices such as the SATA/RAID controllers, USB, and AC97 Audio among others. The RAID configuration is of my main interest as I will need to setup the motherboard to recognize the two WD Raptors I have plugged into the NVIDIA SATA connections as a RAID array.

  
  As you can see, I just need to enable the RAID control and then set which channels are to be used in the RAID array.
  
  Power Management Setup
  is where you can enable the power-on alarm, and the various power related options the motherboard offers.
  
  PnP/PCI Configurations
  

  The last section in the BIOS is the
  PC Health Status
  section which gives us a reading from the onboard sensors. You will notice no RPM reading from the CPU Fan Speed as I have the VapoChill Micro plugged into a fan controller. To my surprise, no warning was given upon booting up that the CPU fan was not functioning. I would have liked to see something pop up to warn me of this as a failure of the CPU fan can be very serious. The Shutdown Temp is also not enabled with the default settings, thus leaving very little protection to the average user should something be wrong with their setup. I would prefer the defaults to be set to help prevent damage should the heatsink not be seated properly or something of that nature. This is a reminder to all computer users to read your manual and don't be afraid of going into the BIOS to set some of these safety features as they may come in handy some day should something fail in your system.

  
  Page 7 : Overclocking
  

  We now know what the BIOS will allow us to do, let's see how we can implement that into a solid overclock. Before starting I have to mention that Foxconn is known for supplying solid OEM components and it has only been recently that they jumped into the retail market. Because of this, Foxconn does not have a name synonymous with overclocking and earlier, lesser variations of this exact motherboard have not produced good overclocking numbers. That and the fact that certain BIOS options are not geared towards overclockers indicate that I definitely will have my work cut out for me.

  I begin all overclocking by dialing everything back and finding the maximum stable clock speed or HTT. I turned the HyperTransport multiplier down to 3 so a maximum of 900MHz is possible and will not prove to be the source of any instability. With the options we are provided in the BIOS for RAM, I set that to 133 to ensure it will not go over 200MHz and become unstable. The final setting to adjust is the CPU multiplier as I want to make sure the capabilities of the 3000+ Winchester are not a limiting factor. When hunting out the max clock speed, I try to keep the CPU frequency at its stock speed, in this case 1800MHz and the Vcore just above the stock of 1.4v so I set the Vid Control to 1.400 and left the CPU Vcore Voltage to default. At this point it is just a matter of turning up the clock speed and adjusting the CPU multiplier along the way. Using this method, this is what the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS achieved…

  

  Much to my surprise, the motherboard climbed right up to 299 without so much as a hiccup along the way. At 300 it would not POST, no matter what I adjusted. I dropped the RAM down to 100, raised the Vcore to the maximum the BIOS would allow, and lowered the HyperTransport multiplier, but the motherboard just refused to POST at 300. Being able to run up to 299 is still mighty impressive for this "unknown" motherboard. I ran Prime95 for 2 hours at each setting on Torture Test Blend mode to make sure it was a stable setup. The final setting of 299 x 6 was run for 24 hours and had no problems, so to say this clocking is 100% stable is an understatement.

  The next step in my overclocking of this setup was to begin raising the CPU multiplier from 6 to see how the system handled a higher CPU frequency with the clock speed at 299. The table below charts the results…

  

  The interesting thing about the chart above is the fact that I couldn't get POST with the CPU multiplier at 7.5 and the system clock at 299. That combination would only come out to a CPU frequency of 2243MHz and as you can see this system has no problem running at that speed. The system would not POST at a multiplier of 7.5 until I lowered the clock to 285. No adjustments of Vcore or lower dividers on the memory would help. I ran 2 hours of Prime95 at each stage like above and the last level of 8.5 x 285 for 24 hours to ensure its stability. The 1.64v at the Vcore is the most the motherboard would send to the CPU and the system would not POST at 9 x 285, as the CPU needs just over 1.7v to run at that speed. The last bit of information I needed to attain before I could piece together the best overall overclock was what the max speed the HyperTransport could run at. The nForce 4 chipset will normally not accept anything over 1000MHz in my experience so I was not expecting much over that.

  

  It was the same deal as above, 2 hours at each stage and then I ran the final speed of 1080MHz for only 12 hours as that would be all that is necessary to test stability. To my surprise the system was able to handle the HyperTransport being overclocked almost as well as the VIA K8T890, which is known for being able to run the HyperTransport up to around 1100MHz.

  It is now time to use all that information and combine the results to get the most out of this setup for benchmarking. I will spare you the details of the testing but I will mention that the motherboard was user friendly as far as pushing the envelope is concerned. If the system would not POST for whatever reason, all it took was a long reset and the system would load the default CPU frequency to allow you back into the BIOS to try another setting. There was no need to clear the CMOS every time you pushed it too far. This made the overclocking fast and efficiently easy to figure out the best overclock. The limited amount of memory dividers and fairly poor performance of the RAM I was using made for a lot of calculator work and this is the overall best overclock I could come up with. It is completely stable and ran for 24 hours of Prime95 on Torture Test Blend.

• CPU – 9 x 270 = 2430MHz on 1.64v
• RAM – 221MHz (CPU/11) for an effective 442MHz at 2.5-3-3-5 2T on 2.7v
• HyperTransport – 270 x 4 = 1080MHz

  This RAM cannot run 1:1 at this speed as it is only capable of 225MHz at these timings so it is set to 166 in the BIOS giving us a divider of 11.

  Overall I am pretty impressed with this motherboard as far as overclocking goes, it far exceeded my expectations. The only thing holding us back was the inability to supply more than 1.64v to the Vcore. Had it been able to supply up to 1.7v then we could have gone even further as this particular Winchester is good up to about 2650MHz at 1.7v. As it stands, the HyperTransport is sitting at it's maximum speed and the RAM I am using is close to it's maximum of 225MHz making this a very efficient overclock of the hardware being used.

  
  Page 8 : Software
  

  Before we have a look at the benchmarks and performance of the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS, I will briefly go over the software that comes bundled with the motherboard. Foxconn does not provide a large bundled package of software. There is only one CD that comes with the motherboard and it has on it the chipset and device drivers as well as their SuperUtilities programs and NVIDIA's nTune. The user manual and RAID manuals come on the CD in PDF format and Foxconn has included a copy of Acrobat Reader 6.0 for reading those files. The only additional software is the inclusion of a limited trial of Norton Internet Security.

  The only software we will really take a look at is the SuperUtilities as that is the only software that is specific to the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS motherboard. We start with the SuperLogo program. This gives you the ability to change the boot screen to customize your computer at startup.

  
  It's a rather simple little program, you start by choosing what size you want the logo to be.
  
  Tell the program which .BMP image to update the boot ROM with, you can also preview it.
  
  And a final confirmation before flashing the BIOS.
  
  When it's done you get the option to reboot and view the new boot screen.
  

  This is the new boot screen at work upon the reboot. The program doesn't tell you that the image should be 640×480 and 256 colors, but I have now. This is becoming a standard feature in motherboards as people continue to find ways to customize their computers and it's nice to see Foxconn has included a very easy way to add this customization to the system.

  

  The next utility is that of a mini-system utility. You can see along the bottom we have 5 choices within this program and the first is the ability to monitor and control the system fans. The only fan I have connected is the northbridge cooling fan.

  

  The voltage section not only provides you with the voltage readings, but also allows you to set upper and lower limits.

  

  The temperature window provides the temperature reading of the system which is located on the motherboard near the RAM and the CPU temperature. We also can set upper limits on the temperatures.

  

  The clock section shows us the clock speeds of the CPU, PCI, and PCI-E BUS. We are also given the ability to control the CPU frequency by increasing the HTT. This is kind of dangerous seeing as there is no ability to adjust anything else like the HyperTransport multiplier or the RAM dividers. I would recommend all overclocking to be done through the BIOS.

  

  The last section deals with the alarms that you can set in the other various sections. This is where you can specify which alarms should be monitored and at what interval.

  The final SuperUtility is the SuperUpdate that gives us the ability to update the BIOS from within a Windows environment.

  

  It is very straight forward and easy to do, simply download the latest BIOS from the very well equipped Foxconn website and follow the simple steps that the instructions outline. I updated the BIOS for this review to the newest on the Foxconn website and it went off without a hitch. It was fast and very painless to say the least. I like the idea of motherboard manufacturers giving the ability to update the BIOS in a Windows environment and Foxconn has implemented this idea perfectly.

  As you can see the Super Utilities are not an elaborate array of programs, but they do add a little bit of function and provide some important information for users without the need of additional programs.

  
  Page 9 : System Benchmarks
  

  We have taken a very in-depth look at the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS and now it is time to see how it performs. To test the overall performance of the system, we will run Futuremarks suite of programs: 3DMark 03, 3DMark 05, as well as PCMark 04, and PCMark 05. The 3DMark benchmarks are a test of the graphics system on the motherboard and I will run those in both SLI and single card mode. I will also include Aquamark as an additional graphics system synthetic benchmark. The PCMark programs test a wide variety of everyday tasks such as encoding, decrypting, virus scanning, and web page rendering. These will give us a complete system performance analysis. We will also be running a few specific tests that will isolate the performance. To test the memory bandwidth of the motherboards, we will run a few tests from SiSoft Sandra Pro 05 along with Everest Ultimate memory tests. I will also include a few benchmarks from Science Mark 2 and Super Pi which include number crunching mathematical tests that stress the CPU, system, and memory. Stopping at synthetic tests is not an option as a motherboard can dictate how well a system performs playing the newest games. For this I will be using BenchemAll to run FPS benchmarks of Doom III and Halo which will provide a taste of the power that this SLI board offers. Other games such as Far Cry, Unreal Tournament 04 and Half-Life 2 that tend to rely on overall system speed will also be benchmarked. I will also be testing the RAID 0 performance of the different RAID controllers the two motherboards offer using HD Tach v3.0.1.0 for comparison purposes.

  Testing will be completed on my Winchester test system which includes the following components…

  3000+ AMD64 Winchester
  VapoChill Micro CPU cooler
  2 x BFG 6600GTOC 128MB 525MHz core / 1050MHz memory for both single card and SLI modes
  2 x 512 OCZ PC3200 Premier Dual Channel in 2T for both motherboards
  2 x WD Raptor 10,000RPM 36.7GB in a RAID 0
  MGE Magnum 500W (review to follow)
  Windows XP (32-bit Edition) SP2 + Latest Drivers
  All held together in my generic mid-tower test case

  Motherboards:

  Asus A8V-E Deluxe K8T890 / VT8237

  Foxconn WinFast NF4SK8AA-8EKRS

  Drivers:

  NVIDIA nForce4 Chipset drivers: 6.66
  NVIDIA ForceWare: 77.77

  PCMark 04/05

  

  PCMark shows a very even battle. Their is such a wide array of tests run in PCMark that this is not surprising, but both chipsets are equal here.

  Super Pi 1 Million, 2 Million, and 32 Million Digits

  

  A couple seconds in SuperPi at the 1M or 2M level shows a bit of an advantage to the K8T890 chipset.

  Science Mark v2.0

  

  The memory bandwidth obviously stands out in this benchmark showing a decided advantage to the VIA chipset. I thought this was an error in testing so they were run again with no change to the outcome. Clearly the memory bandwidth is being bottlenecked by something in the nForce4 chipset.

  SiSoft Sandra Pro 2005 CPU Arithmetic

  
  Another virtual tie.

  SiSoft Sandra Pro 2005 CPU Multimedia

  

  SiSoft Sandra Pro 2005 Memory

  

  Again, the overclocked results show a wide gap between the VIA and NVIDIA chipsets. I doubled checked all settings and the RAM timings were identical so it looks as if there is a clear victory for the Asus board, but I believe it is more of a victory for the chipset than the manufacturer.

  Everest Ultimate Memory Benchmark

  

  Well, Everest doesn't show near the gap as the other two memory bandwidth measurements did, but still a small margin of a difference in favor of the VIA chipset. I believe it has something to do with the K8T890's improved relationship with the CPU through the HyperTransport as the difference was really magnified when overclocked and the HT was operating over 1000MHz.

  HD Tach v3.0.1.0

  

  The last of the benchmarks for the system before we move onto the gaming results is the RAID controller performance. I was quite interested in seeing the difference between the 3 controllers and was surprised at how close to each other they actually were. The Silicon Image controller showed far less tax on the CPU but was the under-performer when it came to random access and burst speed. It appears as though the onboard NVIDIA controller of the NF4SK8AA and VT8237 controller on the Asus motherboard are pretty much equal.

  Through this round of benchmarks, we really don't see that much of a difference between the two motherboards aside from the memory bandwidth but, as stated, I believe that is a by-product of the improvements VIA has made with the K8T890 chipset recently. I am impressed with the Foxconn being able to stand up to a solid motherboard like the A8V-E Deluxe as it is at the top of the heap in Asus's VIA chipset equipped motherboard pile and is really the newest chipset out there being a K8T890.

  
  Page 10 : Graphics Benchmarks
  

  The gaming benchmarks provided some very interesting results and point out that sometimes an SLI setup is not always the best way to go.

  3DMark 03/05

  

  No surprise here as the 3dMark scores get almost doubled by having the 2 BFG 6600GTOCs in an SLI configuration. The scores are fairly uniform and the Foxconn motherboard even has a slight advantage when we used just one video card. This is obviously just a synthetic test but it shows that the SLI performance of the NF4SK8AA-8KRS is where it should be.

  Aquamark

  

  Aquamark shows less of a jump in the performance when in SLI mode and indicates that it is more dependant on the entire system more than 3DMark is.

  Doom III

  

  With Doom III being the biggest to rely on video card performance, it is easy to see why the SLI performance starts to pull far ahead when the resolution gets up to 1600×1200. This is when pure GPU power is needed to keep Doom III at an acceptable frame rate and the SLI mode does not disappoint giving an almost 50% increase in FPS. We can also see how the NVIDIA chipset seems to be favored here over the VIA chipset, a change from the earlier benchmarks on the previous page.

  Far Cry

  

  The results in the Far Cry benchmarks had me concerned that something fishy was going on so I repeated the tests using different driver sets for the NVIDIA cards used and the results were pretty much the same each time. These results are the first indication that my system is slowing down the performance as even at 1280×1024 there is virtually no difference between the SLI mode and single card mode. Once again however, at 1600×1200, the SLI setup starts to pull away.

  Half Life 2

  

  Very much like Far Cry, we don't see an advantage in the results until we get to 1600×1200. The lower resolutions actually favor the single card setups.

  Halo

  

  Halo, another 3D rich game that shows the SLI is the way to go when the power is required.

  Unreal Tournament

  

  Unreal Tournament is more of a CPU intensive game so the benefits of the extra processing power of having two graphics cards just doesn't show up until we get to the higher resolutions.

  For the most part, the results of the various benchmarks show that the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS is a very solid motherboard. Its performance in the gaming ring was comparable to the Asus motherboard used for comparison and I look forward to matching these results up to other NVIDIA nForce4 chipset equipped motherboards as I think this Foxconn offering will hold its own. The memory performance was a bit disappointing and the fact that my RAM was not able to run at all in 1T was a setback, but there is really nothing else to complain about. I will now wrap up this lengthy review with a few of my thoughts on the last page.

  
  Page 11 : Conclusion
  

  Foxconn is not known as a producer of high-end, feature rich, overclockable motherboards but I think the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS will begin to change that and it is a step in the right direction for Foxconn and their WinFast line. Despite the BIOS not being the best for overclocking and it certainly does fall short in certain areas, it is still very capable of allowing a user to squeeze the most out of a mid range set of components. The list of onboard features is very long and all of those features function extremely well. The onboard sound is very good and uses the standard AC'97 chipset to function. The 6 SATA connections will give most users plenty of connections no matter how many drives you use and the different RAID configurations will allow for those power users to setup their system as they wish. The NF4SK8AA-8EKRS really doesn't fall short anywhere in providing all of the features it offers.

  The main focus of my review was really the overclocking ability of the motherboard and as I said a number of times, I was fairly impressed with what it was capable of doing. The amount of voltage it is able to supply to the RAM will be a major setback for a lot of users as newer faster modules need in the range of 3v+ to be able to run their ideal timings and speeds. These are usually the extreme overclockers and gamers and they will have to look elsewhere. For the average gamer and enthusiast, the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS offers plenty of punch and provides them with the tools they need to run the most demanding games.

  I have to say that the NF4SK8AA-8EKRS is a solid offering by Foxconn and will recommend it for any mid-range computer user or gamer out there looking for a great motherboard with SLI capability. The layout is nice, the BIOS allows to tweak far more settings than any budget board I have seen, and the performance of the motherboard is right up there with a top offering from one of the big boys, Asus. The overclocking abilities surprised me and the overall implementation of all the features really pleased me. I honestly had no real complaints in doing this review and I think that says a lot about just how good this motherboard really is. With the low price tag that it sports I have to give the Foxconn WinFast NF4SK8AA-8EKRS the
  Overclockers Online Budget Award
  as the performance and capabilities certainly earned it.

  

  Advantages

• Expansive feature set
• Excellent layout
• Quite overclockable
• Affordable

  Disadvantaages

• No useable PCI-E expansion slots
• RAM voltage setting in BIOS

  Overclockers Online would like to thank Foxconn for making this review possible.