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Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H


Date
: 08/29/06 – 01:32:33 AM

Author
:

Category
: Motherboard

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer:
Foxconn

Price:
$120.00 USD (Froogle)

With the release of Intel's new Core architecture came with it a couple of new chipsets: the 975X and P965. Anyone looking to get a Core processor with an Intel chipset will be looking at these. Today we have Foxconns most mainstream addition to their line-up of socket 775 boards supporting the Core processor by way of the P965.

The
Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H
is an ATX motherboard that should provide a nice upgrade path to anyone looking to move to a Core based processor with the possibility of using a cheap Pentium 4, D or Celeron as a stop-gap.

Page 2 : Board & Specifications

The P9657AA-8KS2H comes with a very basic bundle, the typical cables and driver CD, and little else. This is all well and good, as the important stuff are the motherboard and its BIOS. However, the package lacks a manual and ships only with a quick install guide that doesnt begin to scratch the surface of the motherboards functionality. On the bright side, the manual is available online and Im in favor of saving trees.

The board uses the P965, which adds support for the Core architecture as well as a few other additions over the 945P the chipset replaces. These additions include USB Port Disable (ability to enable/disable individual USB ports for security reasons), Fast Memory Access (updated graphics memory controller hub optimized for better memory bandwidth and latency), and Quiet System Technology (more efficient algorithms for managing fan speed).

The board itself is shown below. It has most of the features you could want in a motherboard, however it lacks the more expensive options of dual GbE, dual PCI-E graphics slots, SATA RAID and FireWire. The south bridge utilized is the ICH8 which most notably drops any native PATA support as well as the AC97 digital controller. The board does feature one PATA channel through the third party JMicron JMB361 PCI Express to SATAII/PATA Host Controller. High definition (Azalia) audio is provided by the Realtek ALC883 codec.

Marvell's 88E8056 PCI-E GbE host takes care of the networking here. The board provides all the standard I/O including support for 7.1 channel audio, optical audio out and GbE. A little bonus, not available on every motherboard, is the eSATA port.

Everything is laid out well, though how well will also always depend on the layout of your enclosure. Plenty of clearance is given around the CPU socket, front panel I/O is labeled by color and the memory slots are amply spaced away from the graphics slot.

Page 3 : BIOS & Installation

The BIOS Foxconn uses with this board is an AwardBIOS that supports a variety of options, many of which we are accustomed to: adjustable front-side bus, voltages, etc. The BIOS incorporates an auto-overclocking feature on top of the standard manual control. The front-side bus is adjustable up to 600 MHz while the CPU voltage is adjustable to +.3000 V in .0125 V steps. The CPUs termination voltage is adjustable from -.090 V to +.180 V in .030 V intervals. An option for adjusting the CPU multiplier (only on Extreme Edition processors) is missing.

The DRAM frequency has four settings (three memory dividers): Auto, 533 MHz, 667 MHz and 800 MHz. The DRAM voltage is adjustable from -.150 V to +.600 V in 0.050 V intervals. Other voltage adjustments included the north bridge, which stretches from -.120 V up to +.240 V in .040 V intervals.

Installing the Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H went without a hitch. The only snag some may hit is to booting to the CD-ROM. Rather selecting the typical "CD-ROM" to boot to first if you're using PATA, you will instead need to select the actual model drive you have – it's in there (I missed it originally and just booted from floppies, so don't do that! :P).

The following components were used for the installation:

Page 4 : Overclocking & Testing

Before the testing procedure I wanted to see if the board would fare better or worse than previous boards in terms of overclocking. The board doesnt lack anything in the BIOS that could hold a person back except for multiplier adjustments, but then youd also need an Extremely Expensive processor, so I set out and was pleased with the results. While it is certainly nowhere close to the boards limits (other users have pushed above the 300 MHz FSB and the board officially supports up to 266 MHz FSB), I was able to get 257 MHz (3.6 GHz CPU clock up from 2.8 GHz) safely into Windows stably. Its the best Ive seen my old Prescott do!

The standard testing procedure was used. We average out multiple runs of each benchmark to get the computed score. The benchmarks used include Super PI, SiSoft Sandra, ScienceMark, RightMark 3DSound, PCMark 2005, 3DMark 2003, 3DMark 2005, Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Far Cry. HDTach results were omitted; I/O control hub/hard disk performance was identical to results obtained on previous Intel chipsets with the same HDD.

Well begin our tests by looking at memory performance.

Memory performance, on the average, is a little behind compared to these other boards and their respective chipsets. This is the first 965P tested here, so whether this is a trend for the chipset or just the board could use some fine tuning in its BIOS/drivers is hard to say. What we can say is that the performance is acceptable, but definitely not a marked improvement over other boards weve tested.

Page 5 : Testing (continued)

More of the same story here and probably hurt most by underwhelming memory bandwidth and latency illustrated on the previous page. The Realtek codec and ICH8 get the job done nicely using few CPU cycles with respect to the other solutions tested.

Page 6 : Testing (continued, gaming)

The performance here isnt incredible; the board finds itself being outpaced by all the platforms tested including the good old 915P, but the margins are slim and for an entry level part this is certainly acceptable; features and processor support more than make up for the gap.

Page 7 : Conclusion

All-in-all the Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H is a solid board for anyone looking to upgrade to what is now arguably the fastest platform for almost any task, provided youve got the right CPU of course. With the low prices of the Pentium D, it would be a great complement for an entry level machine with great potential for cheap Core 2 Duo upgrading in the future. Whats more, despite this being a mainstream part, the board is bundled with software thats actually useful in keeping your hardware up-to-date without sacrificing stability and all the overclocking features are available for getting more out of your machine.

Advantages:

Wide processor support
Quality utility software included
Affordable

Disadvantages:

Stock performance a bit under previously tested chipsets

I'd like to give our thanks to Foxconn for supplying the motherboard that made this review possible.