Doom 3
Far Cry
Unreal Tournament 2004
It pretty much comes as no surprise that onboard
video will not do for enthusiasts. Understanding that the X1800
XL is not a competitor to the 6150 GPU, anyone looking to play
games with the 6150, even casually, will want to consider doing
so at resolutions lower than 800x600.
Overclocking
We didn't have very high expectations for the Foxconn
WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS motherboard in the overclocking department
given what we've experienced with the ASUS A8N-VM, but the Foxconn
was quite surprising in this department. Using our Koolance EXOS,
we managed to reach a final overclock of 222MHz, which is a nice
bump up from our previous experiences with the GeForce 6100/nForce
400 series.
Final Words
Overall we were pretty happy with the Foxconn WinFast
6150K8MA-8EKRS. Performance was on par with the ASUS board, but
for those who stick with raw numbers, Foxconn held on to a slight
lead overall in both application and game testing. The 6150 GPU
is easily one of the fastest and most advanced onboard video solutions
we've used during the past 12 months, but that being said, we
would not even consider using it if you're a serious gamer.
While the 6150 is totally servicable under most
desktop scenarios, any gaming above 640x480 will be an excercise
in frustration with post-2004 gaming titles. Things are different
with a dedicated PEG video card. In application testing, the Foxconn
WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS is a little quicker since the memory used
by the 6150 is now freed up for the system. Gaming with a high-end
dedicated card is a no brainer, and the performance is near that
of premium NVIDIA solutions. For gamers looking to build a small
LAN box, this is certainly one direction they can go.
While gaming enthusiasts won't be too keen on the
6150, HTPC fans probably will be. Despite the poor gaming performance,
the GPU does have some upside to it. The PureVideo Technology
has a lot of HTPC application potential should that be the route
you choose. HD acceleration isn't something you'll often find
in motherboards with integrated video. It's a shame Foxconn couldn't
bundle some kind of component output with the board to take advantage
of the chipset's HD acceleration support for TV-Out viewing. Since
noise is always a concern with HTPCs, the Foxconn board can make
a good base since everything onboard is passively cooled.
Other than that, Foxconn uses most of the GeForce
6150/nForce 430 features to full effect. Many enthusiast goodies
are present, such as Dual Channel DDR, Gigabit Ethernet, hardware
Firewall, x16 PCI Express, HD Audio and multiple RAID options.
The bundle is decent, albeit unspectacular. The
motherboard is the story though, and for a cool $81
USD, AMD Socket 939 users have an excellent all-in-one
solution that is flexible enough that even gaming elitists should
probably take notice so long as they BYOVC (Bring your own video
card).
Pros: Good performance (especially with a
PEG video card), good overclocker, feature-rich, stable, good
price.
Cons: Video card removal required for memory
upgrades, no HD output for televisions.
Bottom Line: We're not going to list the
6150 as a "con" since we feel that anyone interested
in this board will understand the GPU's gaming limitations. Armed
with a discreet video solution, the WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS proved
to be quite a performer, near the levels of the nForce 4 Ultra
and SLI (minus a second PEG NVIDIA card). If the FlexATX SFF PCs
aren't for you, but you still want something compact, this Foxconn
board is worth a look.
If
you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.
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