The BIOS

The BIOS is usually more important to an enthusiast than what features the board has or what color the PCB is, and with good reason, this is where all of the tweaking takes place. Phoenix is the BIOS of choice for this board and for the most part is pretty straight forward, the exception being the Fox Central Control Unit. This is where you will find all of the overclocking and tweaking options. Everything from FSB adjustment to Voltage setting for RAM and CPU.

The only option that looks out of the ordinary for overclocking is the Smooth Over Clock option, it is a simple off or on toggle that is supposed to aid in stability when enabled. In my limited overclocking I didn't see a difference with it on or off, however with more extensive overclocking it may show a difference. The intelligent stepping option is an auto overclock feature, it lets you choose how you use your PC and then the BIOS overclocks your CPU accordingly. You can also choose auto for default settings or manual to be able to manually adjust everything. Choosing manual unlocks the rest of the features like CPU and PCIE clock, CPU and RAM voltage, RAM timing etc. CPU FSB range is from 200-600MHz in 1MHz increments, RAM options are 533/667/800

There are no shortage of RAM tweaking options either, CAS, RAS to CAS, memory clock are all configurable via Fox Central Control Unit.

Fox One and Fox Live Update

Fox One is a software tool provided with the board that allows you to monitor as well as tweak options like CPU frequency, voltage, fan speed etc. In order for the options to be available in the software you need to make sure that the overclocking option in the BIOS are set to manual, and for the SmartFan controls you'll need to have it enabled in the BIOS as well as have fans that support it. Most heatsink fans have three pins and do not support it, four pin fans like those found on factory heatsinks do support it. The Fox one software also allows you to set a temp threshold that can be configured to notify you if you exceed the pre defined threshold.

One other feature is the ability to reduce the size of the window but still get the vital info like temp, clock speed, voltage etc. You can run fox one in what I call widget mode. It removes the large window and gives you a much smaller toolbar that cycles through the info every few seconds.

Fox live Update is exactly what it sounds like, an application you run within Windows to update your BIOS. Updating within Windows isn't as "clunky" as the old school way of booting from a floppy, besides most computers don't even have floppy drives any more. The software is painfully simple to use, you simply start it up, click on update BIOS online and it will query the Foxconn site for a new BIOS, if one is available it will download it and walk you through flashing the BIOS to the newer version.

Benchmarking

The Complete system is as follows:

Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H motherboard
Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz LGA775
2 x 512MB OCZ PC2 6400
HIS X800XL
ASUS Dual layer DVDRW
Lite ON DVDR
2 x WD 74GB Raptor
1 60GB Maxtor
OCZ GameXtreme 700W PSU

For comparison the results will be compared to two previous systems reviewed.

Foxconn NF4SLI7AA-8EKRS2 motherboard
Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz LGA775
2 x 512MB OCZ PC2 6400
HIS X800XL
Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 sound
ASUS Dual layer DVDRW
Lite ON DVDR
2 x WD 74GB Raptor
1 60GB Maxtor
Cooler Master Real Power PSU

ECS PF21 Extreme motherboard
Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz LGA775
1GB Patriot DDR2
HIS X800XL
2 x WD 74GB raptor HDD
Lite On DVD burner
Lite ON DVD ROM
Cooler Master RealPower 550 PSU.

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