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Foxconn 975X7AB – 8EKRS2H


Date
: 10/18/06 – 03:15:04 AM

Author
:

Category
: Motherboard

Page 1 : Index

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

Price:
$

The first major decision anyone has to make when building a new Intel system based on the popular Core 2 Duo processor is which motherboard chipset to go with. The options aren't many but the differences of performance and features can vary greatly between the candidates. Our friends at Foxconn now have a choice of three different chipsets to choose from in their motherboard lineup: the Intel 975X, P965, and G965 chipsets.

Foxconn is no stranger to us here at Overclockers Online as we have had a steady supply of their motherboards find their way onto the pages here at O2. I have had the pleasure of looking at a number of them myself and have always been impressed. Foxconn is certainly no rookie when it comes to making motherboards and are actually the number two producer worldwide, having been the supplier for OEM motherboards to a number of the largest builders for a number of years. Their retail division doesn't have as long a history but that is changing with every new series they put out, most recently the enthusiast aimed FoxOne Technology series of motherboards.

Today we will be looking at one of the motherboards that ships with Foxconn's FoxOne Technology, the 975X7AB-8EKRS2H. This motherboard is the best of the best thus far produced by Foxconn that is Core 2 Duo compatible and sports the 975X Intel northbridge chipset and ICH7R southbridge. If the package is any indication to what type of motherboard this is, then we are in for a treat. We will start off by looking at the package and accessories that complement this fantastic looking motherboard.

Page 2 : Package & Contents

I hinted earlier that the package this motherboard came in was fancy but I didn't prepare us all for just how fancy it is.

It's gold… and very shiny. There is no mistaking this package from any others sitting on the shelves at your local computer hardware store. The front is fairly simple yet still provides some insight on what is inside.

Along the bottom edge, there are four badges that indicate just what we have in store for us including the 975X Express chipset logo, a Fox One Technology logo, your typical Windows XP logo, and the most interesting: a badge indicating a Digital PWM.

The edges of the package are not clad in gold leaf but still have their own level of shiny in the form of the Foxconn label down in silver on a black background. The only information that can be found on the sides is on the UPC/Serial sticker that is found on all motherboard packages.

The gold theme continues around to the backside but the amount of information the backside provides is much higher with paragraphs and a plethora of badges.

I won't go into the entire list of features here as the specifications section will cover that but I have to admit that the package does list a lot of information, but most of it is either standard features or simply repeating what is listed earlier. Either way, the presentation is very nicely done and many languages provide the information.

Underneath the fancy gold sleeve is the main box that the motherboard and its accessories are packed within. The Fox One Technology logo is very prominent and it is clear that Foxconn is really intent on advertising the Fox One Technology for all to see.

Once inside the interior box, we are bombarded by many plastic packages containing everything from PCI expansion brackets with USB and FireWire ports to 90 degree SATA cables. This is definitely not a budget accessory package.

I have spread out the accessories as best I can but there is just too many to see all of them so I will list what is included below:

2 x 4-pin Molex to dual 5-pin SATA power adapters
2 x Rounded ATA133 HDD cables
1 x Rounded Floppy cable
4 x SATA cables with one 90 degree end
1 x USB 2.0 PCI expansion bracket with 4 ports
1 x FireWire PCI expansion bracket with one 4-pin and one 6-pin port
1 x Serial port PCI expansion bracket
1 x Rear I/O panel

There is also the thick manual, drivers CD, and a poster that contains the layout of the board with pin-out diagrams of the onboard headers.

Under a protective shelf that holds the accessories above is the motherboard itself, safely packaged in an ESD bag. The contents of the package provide a very safe and secure home for the motherboard during transport.

Page 3 : Specifications

Here is a brief overview of the important specifications that Foxconn provides with the 975X7AB:

And here is the complete list of specifications that can be found at most motherboard manufacturers' web sites, including Foxconn's:

The above is a replica of what can be found at the Foxconn web site which also has links to complete CPU, Memory, and GPU compatibility charts. Everything that is compatible with the 975X7AB-8EKRS2H is outlined in plain English including C2D support, DDRII memory up to DDR800, dual PCI-E X16 lanes that function as X8 slots when both are being used as well as the full gamut of I/O connectors both on the rear plate and onboard. Now let's take a look at some of the features that the Intel 975 Express and ICH7R chipset offer in the next section.

Page 4 : Chipset

The 975X chipset is not the newest from Intel or even that new at all having been out since the end of 2005 but the Intel 975 Express chipset is still one of the highest performing Intel chipsets. The feature list and specifications sheet is a long one with everything a desktop computer could need. Here is a specification sheet I pulled from the Intel web site.

With features like integrated High Definition audio, integrated RAID storage known as Intel Matrix Raid, PCI-E flexibility providing single X16 slot width or dual X8 slots, the Intel 975X chipset is certainly a favorite for motherboard manufacturers and rivals the feature sets of any NVIDIA chipset. Here is a diagram that simplifies the 975X chipset with a flowchart.

There is no denying the flexibility and capabilities of the 975X chipset but performance cannot be measured by flow charts and specifications. Benchmarks have to be run for that information and I will be comparing the Intel 975X chipset performance on the Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H with the performance of the newer 965X chipset on an Asus motherboard.

Page 5 : Layout

Now, my favorite part of a motherboard review aside from the overclocking section: the layout.

A complete overview of the motherboard shows off a rainbow of colors that really give the 975X7AB an interesting feel to it. We start with the bright red PCB that acts as a backdrop to the lime green and royal blue slots and connections. From this overhead photo, there is nothing that stands out from the layout as being problematic. The 975X7AB-8EKRS2H is off to a good start in the layout section. Let's move in for a closer look.

I start with the biggest innovation on the mainboard and that is the digital PWM area that replaces the traditional maze of chokes, MOSFETs, VRMs, and capacitors. The 8-pin EPS power connection is in an ideal spot at the top of the board for easy routing. Just below the EPS connection, we have a heatsink and the CPL-5-50 power inductor. The CPL-5-50 is a 5-phase power inductor supplied by Cooper Bussmann.

Underneath the heatsink are our 5 ICs that are at the heart of the power regulation for the motherboard. The etching on the ICs didn't allow me to find any information online but here is what is on them:

VT1135SF
AE0626
1807909

The benefits of a digital PWM is the ability for finer control over voltage, less heat generated, and less space taken up around the CPU socket.

The open, capacitor-free zone around the CPU socket is quite evident in this photo. Normally we would have a row of MOSFETs, large capacitors, and chokes but not with the digital PWM. This opens the door for all kinds of possible cooling abilities and provides an extremely easy way to insulate for the extreme coolers in the house. If the overclocking proves to push beyond air cooling capabilities of the processor I will use for testing, then I will pull out the Mousepot©, lay down my insulation, and get to some dry ice action.

The 4 memory slots are nicely spaced and for dual-channel operation we have to use the same color slots which provides a nice gap between two modules for ease of cooling. I prefer the split slots versus dual-channel slots side by side. The one Intel controlled IDE connection, floppy connection, and 24-pin power connection are also tucked along this edge. Again, the placement of these connections is perfect for keeping cables to the outside of the motherboard for easy management.

We will now take a tour of the capacitors that are used on the motherboard starting with those around the DIMM slots. The large blue capacitors are easily identified as Rubycon MBZ with an OST capacitor right next to the choke.

The collection of capacitors used continues with another OST, a KZJ, and a Sam Young NXC right next to the 24-pin connection. This variety makes it difficult to say that the capacitors are all of high quality Japanese design because some are of the mid-range variety.

The center point of the motherboard could be considered the northbridge. This is the nerve center to the motherboard as all information passes through it. The Intel 975X chipset does get rather warm and that is why we find a good sized heatsink with active cooling.

The contact between the heatsink and the 975X northbridge underneath was very good from the factory as seen here. I was unable to get a photo of the information etched on the northbridge chip but this is what my magnifying glasses were able to get from it:

QG82975X
SL8YS
L602A154

The underside of the heatsinks were quite good, especially the northbridge heatsink which is extremely smooth and flat, which is the more important of the two as it will be generating far more heat than the southbridge.

More Rubycon MBZ capacitors can be found near the northbridge and the top PCI-E slot. This indicates that the better capacitors are being used in the primary roles and the lesser quality capacitors are only providing supporting roles.

Moving south, we come to the southbridge part of town which includes a couple of USB headers, our four SATA connections that are controlled by the ICH7R southbridge, the socketed BIOS and the color-coded front panel connections.

The Intel ICH7R southbridge runs a lot cooler and doesn't participate in as much hard work and only requires a small passive heatsink. Again, contact from the factory-applied thermal compound was very good.

Out in no man's land, just to the left of the ICH7R southbridge, is where the CMOS battery is located. At first I was concerned with its placement but soon realized the CMOS clear jumper is not near the battery and tucking it here under the first PCI-E slot is perfectly fine.

The bottom edge starts out with a second IDE connector, a FireWire header, and tucked into the bottom right hand corner of the motherboard is the nice addition of a power button.

Just in-behind the two connections on the bottom edge are the ICs that control those connections. The top IC is a Texas Instruments chip that is in charge of the FireWire connection and the bottom is a J-Micron IC that is responsible for the second IDE connection.

The rest of the bottom edge is riddled with more connections which include the serial port, front panel audio connections, and CD-in audio connection. There is also an onboard speaker that is located down here with a header for the case speaker if you have one as well.

The PCI expansion slots are arranged in a pretty standard format of X1 PCI-E, X16 PCI-E, X1 PCI-E, and the second X16 with two PCI slots below that. The gap between the two X16 slots does look a little tight but we will explore that during installation.

To the left of the PCI expansion slots is where both of the Marvell ICs are located and their corresponding MOSFETs. With both ethernet connections being Marvell gigabit, two ICs are required as seen here. Both chips are labeled as 88E8056-NNC1.

I also grabbed a photo of the capacitors that are paired with of each PCI/PCI-E slot and they are Teapos, again not of the top-tier serving only secondary roles.

The rear I/O panel, despite being a very standard layout, is plentiful with useful connections. The far right is the common spot for the audio connections followed by the dual network connections and four USB 2.0 connections that are housed underneath. To the left of the USB ports is a 6-pin FireWire connection and the digital audio outs followed by an E-SATA connection. Hanging overhead of those is a parallel port. The far left is simply the PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors. The included expansion brackets that provide the extra USB connections and serial port allow for the 6-pin FireWire and E-SATA connections that you would normally not see on many motherboards.

The last of our layout section is simply a shot of the backside of the motherboard. There isn't much to see here but the time I don't include it, someone will e-mail asking why so I always try to throw it into the mix.

Page 6 : Installation

I won't be installing the motherboard in a case because… well why would I? Not much of the hardware I test ever makes it into the interior of a case as testing is much easier while sitting on the desk beside me.

I begin the installation of hardware with the E6300 CPU and the Corsair 8500 C5s I will be using for testing. There were no surprises getting either of those components installed so next up will be to see how the Thermalright Ultra-120 will fit with its large wingspan.

I started with the width of the Ultra-120 extending out over the northbridge heatsink/fan and there are clearly no problems there. With plenty of gap I would think it is safe to say most large CPU coolers should fit although ones with heatpipes sticking out like the XP-120/SI-120 might be a bit tighter. The socket also allows a wide cooler in this orientation to stay within the boundaries of the motherboard edge so there shouldn't be any interference with power supplies.

Turning the Ultra-120 around shows that there is even more room over the PWM heatsink on the left and the memory to the right. You can't see but there is also plenty of room to mount the fan on the front of the Ultra-120 without interfering with the northbridge heatsink/fan. So far, the Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H seems to be playing nicely with large CPU coolers. Let's see how it does with large heatsinked video cards.

With the card sitting naturally in the slot it actually angles itself towards the top of the board and it appears that even with a dual slot cooler, the bottom X16 slot is easily accessible. Of course, the X1 slot directly beneath it is unusable but that wasn't a surprise.

When I slipped a second card in the other X16 slot we can see they touch but the top card isn't being pushed as it naturally sits on the upward angle we see here.

My one big issue with the X16 slots is the release tabs. This is impossible to get at unless you have fingers the size of a 12 year old or use a screwdriver. I really want to see a retention setup for video cards where a silly clip like this doesn't have to be pushed to release the card… DFI has been doing it without a clip for a while, why are they the only ones?

Here we have the Ultra-120 installed and ready to roll in the orientation that I think is best as it will be pushing the hot air coming off the PWM area away from the setup.

Pulling back a bit we get an overview of the whole setup as it will be for testing. Time to get started on some work I guess, I will start with the BIOS and provide a full buffet of photos.

Page 7 : BIOS

As with all my BIOS sections, I will be providing a complete set of BIOS screen shots and not just a couple so I will keep the comments to a minimum as there are a pile of screenshots. My method for getting ultra clean screenshots of the BIOS did not work on the 975X7AB-8EKRS2H so photographs of the BIOS will have to do.

Full screen Logo

Main Menu

The BIOS is laid out in an easy to navigate manner with the main sections housing exactly what they say and nothing more so you shouldn't have to hunt for any specific setting.

Standard CMOS Features

FOX Central Control Unit

This is where all the overclocking settings are housed and being an all-in-one section is very nice. Everything is in this one screen except the DRAM settings which have their own sub-menu.

DRAM Configuration

Unfortunately, the DRAM settings are quite minimal with just the basic timings available for adjustment.

CPU Clock

Back in the FOX Central Control Unit we see the range of FSB clocks. 600 as a maximum is nice but there is very little to no chance that any 975X chipset will be reaching 600FSB.

PCI Clock

CPU VCORE

I will be testing for the VCORE maximum in the overclocking session so be sure to see what voltages these settings equal out to in actual voltage. My calculations should get us close to the 1.6V range which would be nice.

DRAM Voltage

DRAM voltage shows a 0.600V increase possible from stock of 1.8V which would get us to 2.4V, so again pretty good voltage and more than enough to run any enthusiast memory at stock speeds.

MCH Voltage Select

CPU Termination Voltage

Advanced BIOS Features

The advanced BIOS Features section takes care of the boot devices and order.

Advanced Chipset Features

The PCI Express Root Port Func allows the enabling and disabling of the extra PCI-E ports.

Integrated Peripherals

OnChip IDE Device

Onboard Device

The Onboard Device section allows full control to all the onboard controllers such as USB, Audio, and the J-Micron Controller.

SuperIO Device

Power Management Setup

PnP/PCI Configurations

PC Health Status

The PC Health Status section is a one stop shop for all voltage, temperature, and RPM readings on the motherboard. We are also provided with the SmartFAN function which allows us to setup fan speeds based on temperatures of the sensor but if you look at the CPU Temperature sensor you quickly realize that it won't work too well when the temperatures are this far off. There is no way an air-cooled CPU can be 17C when ambient temperature is 22C-23C.

I messed around with the PWM control but because of the low temperature readings, the PWM functions would not work because it was out of their working range.

Page 8 : Software

The software section concentrates on the software provided with the motherboard and in the case of the 975X7AB-8EKRS2H this means a single CD.

Upon popping the CD into the drive we are greeted with a full screen space scene with the interface seen in the photos. There are two options, one for drivers and one for utilities. In the first photo I have already installed the chipset drivers and the Marvell LAN driver with only the audio driver left to install. The selections remain highlighted until installed to make it easy to keep track.

The Utilities section has a couple extra options but the only two actual programs are the FOX LiveUpdate and FOX ONE. Obviously the LiveUpdate is a way to update the BIOS from within Windows and it makes updating the BIOS as easy as updating Windows. The FOX ONE software is what I will concentrate on in this section.

Once installed and started, it was clear that a similar interface was used for FOX ONE and despite its intricate design and unorthodox layout, it is very easy to use and figure out. The above screenshot is the main section which provides us with all our vitals. Along the top of this main window are the sections we can make adjustments in including CPU, Freq, Voltage and FAN.

Starting with the CPU section you can see it is very straight-forward to operate… up arrow to increase FSB and down arrow to decrease. With the right setting in the BIOS, you can also choose between the predefined options that are also available in the BIOS.

The frequency section allows adjustment of the DRAM frequency which I thought meant asynchronous adjustments but it simply raises the FSB as well. PCIe Frequency is grayed out because I have it manually set in the BIOS; on Auto we can adjust that from within Windows as well.

The middle selection is simply the monitoring page which is great but again, the onboard sensor for the CPU temperature is shot so it pretty much defeats the purpose.

What is really impressive are the voltage adjustments on the fly. I tested all three and they work perfectly, using a multimeter and CPU-Z to verify the adjustments. Again, DRAM and NB adjustments are grayed out because they were not on AUTO in the BIOS.

I skipped the FAN screen because, well, I couldn't get it to work anything for the life of me. Who knows, I am not very good with simplified software like this. I would rather volt mod the fan to run at less than 12V than to turn it down through software; that is just me though. Instead I show the settings page which allows the ability to choose what values we get to see in the Minimum view.

And this is the Minimum view which shrinks the panel down to a tiny little blip on the radar that cycles through the values we choose in the settings section. This is used for monitoring purposes and no adjustments can be made when in the Minimum view.

Overall the FOX ONE software was pretty impressive. No bugs or quirks showed up as I was testing and the adjustments were exact and actually worked. The only issue was the same I found in the BIOS, VCORE was not able to be raised over 1.48V. Other than that, I would have to vote the FOX ONE software to be the best of the overclocking software I have ever used with a motherboard.

Page 9 : Overclocking

Now I know I said the layout section is my favorite for motherboards but the overclocking section usually fights for that top spot on my list, that is unless the overclocking doesn't go too well. This is unfortunately one of those reviews where the layout section is the clear winner as my favorite without much competition. I will generally have five separate sections but due to the lack of overclocking ability of this motherboard, this section has been compressed into three sections. I begin with finding the maximum VDIMM and VCORE the board can actually supply, not what is simply selectable in the BIOS.

Max CPU Voltage (VCORE) = 1.48V BIOS / ??? Digital Multi-Meter / 1.49V FOX ONE in Windows

The maximum CPU voltage is actually pretty decent offering up a solid 1.48V to the CPU using the
+12%
selection from the BIOS. If you recall from the BIOS section there is the option for +24% but if I selected anything over +12% I would not get POST and have to clear the CMOS to get the board running again. This was the first sign that the BIOS was in need of a lot of work.

Max Memory Voltage (VDIMM) = 2.38V BIOS / 2.36V Digital Multi-Meter / 2.39V FOX ONE in Windows

The VDIMM lets us pump up to 2.4V to our DDR2 modules which may sound like a lot to many users but for the enthusiast this will just be enough to run all but the highest end of memory kits. Some modules you can buy these days actually require 2.3V~2.4V to run their rated speed. The BIOS maximum selection of +0.600V worked and provided the actual amount when measured by a digital multi-meter. Having a full 2.4V is still very nice and not as limiting as many motherboards that only offer up to 2.2V.

Max Overall 24/7 Overclock = 330*7 – 2316MHz @ 1.29V / DDR993 5-5-5-12 @ 2.20V

As I mentioned in the opening of this section, I was not able to really give this board a proper flogging because the Front Side Bus was so terribly limited. In the above screenshot you can see that the maximum FSB was only 330 which this processor has no problem doing on stock voltage with air cooling. The E6300 I will be using for this review actually has no problems running 3.15GHz stable on stock 1.30V in an Asus P5B-Dlx so to be limited to 2.31GHz is pretty disappointing. For the users with E6600 and E6700s, a 330FSB will allow for you to almost max out most processors on air cooling but with better cooling they would be held back by the low FSB offered by the 975X7AB-8EKRS.

I also ran into issues trying to get memory to run at DDR1000+ with CAS 4. No amount of MCH voltage would allow memory to overclock particularly well. I suspect it was actually the memory dividers not working properly indicating again that the BIOS will need some refining to make this motherboard an overclocking contender. The good news is that the FSB maximum of 330 was easily obtained with the MCH and CPU Termination Voltage at the default values. Raising either or both did not allow for a higher overclock so again I think the BIOS is holding the FSB back. When Foxconn can update the board with a better BIOS, further overclocking potential is sure to be had.

Page 10 : Test Setup

We have seen the layout, the installation, and the overclocking section; now it is time to meet the test system and get to know its individual components a little bit better.

Obviously the main character in this story is the motherboard but here is the complete cast of characters in this tantalizing tale of overclocking and benchmarks:

The processor being used in this system is a very strong E6300 and the backbone to this very stout set of system specifications. All benchmarks will be run with the single HD listed above but two identical drives will be used for the RAID 0 and RAID 1 benchmarks.

This is how each motherboard is prepared for benchmarking:

Page 11 : System Benchmarks

The system performance will be tested by a number of programs and benchmarks. I start off by concentrating on memory and begin the results with Everest Ultimate, and SiSoft Sandra memory benchmarks. I will also run the CPU and Multimedia tests in SiSoft Sandra 2007 SP1. Next up will be more memory and overall system speed testing with ScienceMark followed by SuperPi 1M and 32M runs. HD Tach will be used to measure the hard drive performance of the two motherboards with single SATA drives as well as in a pair in RAID 0 and RAID 1. Finally, the section will be wrapped up with PCMark 04 and 05 benchmarks results… let's get to the numbers.

Everest Ultimate 06 2.50.480

I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of memory performance between the two chipsets and the results aren't exactly conclusive. The read performance of the 975X chipset seems to be better but that is offset in write performance where the 965X chipset has a slight advantage.

Unlike the read/write performance, memory latency is a no doubter as to who the winner is. The 975X chipset on the Foxconn 975X7AB is the clear winner here with the stock settings even outperforming the overclocked numbers of the 965X chipset. Memory timings are not identical for the two chipsets so there may be an advantage out of the gate for the 975X chipset but based on these numbers, I would expect to see SuperPi show the advantage to the 975X chipset ever so slightly.

SiSoft Sandra 2007 SP1

Both the CPU and Multi-Media Arithmetic tests in SiSoft Sandra 2007 show an identical dead heat between both of the systems at stock and overclocked settings. These tests are dependant on the processing power of the CPU so it is not a surprise to see any difference but we can see there is a significant performance gain on both systems once overclocked.

The Sandra memory results are based off of a calculation based on timings and frequency and are not an actual test, but more of an estimate of the memory performance. That makes these results match up to the Everest latency results quite well as they are both dependant on secondary timings. It appears that the 975X chipset definitely has the advantage in memory performance because of secondary timings.

ScienceMark v2.0

Both of the charts above show basically what we have seen all along with the Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H winning the battle and by a fairly reasonable margin. The ScienceMark results are heavily dependant on memory performance and the 975X has proved to be a superior platform in that aspect in every benchmark thus far and this continues with ScienceMark.

Super Pi Mod 1.4

Because of the advantages shown in memory performance for the 975X chipset I assumed we would see a noticeable difference in SuperPi results with the Foxconn motherboard holding that advantage but I was obviously wrong. SuperPi is heavily dependent on memory performance and latency and slight secondary timings changes can lead to tenths in 1M calculations and seconds in a 32M calculation but both 1M and 32M show both motherboards to perform almost exactly the same. I am not sure why this is but in all 3 runs that were made and averaged, the results never skewed from what we see in the chart.

HD Tach 3.0.1.0

I finally had a matching pair of Seagate SATAII hard drives to run RAID 0 and RAID 1 benchmarks for this review. I setup a RAID array with the Intel Matrix controller for both motherboards and installed Windows on each of the 4 arrays then benchmarked the arrays once I had Windows installed and updated with drivers. The only conclusion one can make about the results is that there is very little performance difference between the two motherboards. The RAID 0 performance is as good as expected and the RAID 1 performance matches that of the single SATA drive which makes RAID 1 a viable option for everyday users without sacrificing performance.

PCMark 04 v1.3.0/05 v1.1.0

For the last of the system benchmarks I run PCMark 04 and 05, the default system tests of each program. These two benchmarking programs test everything from hard drive performance to multi-tasking capabilities and all that is in-between. The score is then calculated on these results to give us a nice clean comparison of overall system performance. Clearly the Foxconn 975X7AB is the winner in both programs and this is likely due to the same advantage we saw earlier in memory performance.

Page 12 : Gaming Benchmarks

All the benchmarks on this page were run 3 times each, like the system benchmarks, and the results were averaged and then recorded. The gaming benchmarks are custom recorded time demos run by BenchEmAll and run at the low resolution of 1024×768 so the video card would not be the bottleneck. We start with the full suite of 3DMark programs by FutureMark:

It doesn't get much closer than this and to be honest, there really isn't a difference between the 965X and 975X chipset in this testing. All the results favor the Foxconn 975X7AB slightly and it really only shows in the overclocking numbers but the difference between the overclocked results are still very small. This should indicate similar gaming performance in the next graph.

Like I expected, the gaming benchmarks mimic the 3DMark results. The Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H puts up slightly higher numbers throughout the testing and the overclocked results stretch the gap a sliver more. I would like to run these same benchmarks with a stronger video card to see if the two chipsets perform as equally when the PCI-E gets saturated a little bit more but as it stands, the 7300GT seems to perform equally on both of the motherboards I have tested here.

Page 13 : Conclusion

My opinion is somewhat biased because I am an overclocker, first and foremost. The Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H is not an overclocker's motherboard… right now. I hinted at it in a couple of sections, with some BIOS work, this motherboard might take off. Currently, however, this motherboard should only be thought of as an excellent Intel 975X chipset offering if you're not into overclocking.

The layout is very nice and aside from a couple of minor gripes such as the PCI-E slot retentions, I thought the layout was near-perfect. All major connections around the edge of the motherboard will facilitate easy cable management and the open area around the CPU socket allows it to accept the biggest of coolers.

The features that the 975X chipset offers are plentiful and the chipset is at a mature stage where all the bugs have been worked out and we are left with a very stable and reliable chipset to work from. Foxconn has built an excellent motherboard from an already excellent Intel chipset for arguably the best processor available right now, C2D.

Advantages

• Layout… near-perfect for system building
• The Intel 975X chipset is feature-rich
• An extremely stable system backbone

  Disadvantages

• Overclocking ability is not ready for the enthusiast
• Heavy BIOS work is required yet

  Overclockers Online would like to thank Ed Leckliter from Foxconn for yet another Foxconn motherboard review.