As
the Intel Core 2 Duo specifications were introduced, a lot of
motherboard manufacturers had to go back to the drawing boards
and revamp already released Intel chipset based motherboards to
meet these new specifications. The Intel 975X is the one to have
needed this, as the 965 was tailor made to support the Core 2
Duo.
Foxconn,
who we have seen make large strides towards enthusiasts offerings
over the last few years, has sent VL their latest 975X based motherboard,
the Foxconn
975X7AB. Interesting to note that the 975X7AB is part of Foxconn's
“Fox One Technology”, their latest push into the enthusiasts
space.
While
the updated 975X7AB maintains use of the ICH7R south bridge, there
has been some subtle changes (besides support for the C2D of course).
Lets look over what is included.
Specifications
|
Form
factor
|
ATX |
|
Chipset
|
Intel
975X/ICH7R |
|
CPU
|
LGA775
supporting the Intel Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Duo / Pentium
D / / Pentium 4 (@ 65nm and 80nm) |
|
FSB
|
1066/800/533
|
|
BIOS
|
Pheonix
- Award BIOS, Inc. |
|
Memory
|
4
DDR2 (240-pin) DIMMS / Max 8GB / Dual Channel capable (ECC
or non-ECC) |
|
PCIe
|
2
– x16 (PCIe1 x16 / PCIe2 x16) / 2 – x1 |
|
NIC
|
Marvel
Yukon |
|
IDE
|
ICH7R
- 2x IDE (1 ATA133, 1 ATA100) / 4x SATA-II (RAID 0/1/5/0+1)
|
|
Audio
|
Realtek
ALC882M HD 8-Channel CODEC with S/PDIF Optical/Copper |
|
Ports
|
10x
USB 2.0 (4 rear, 2x2 headers) / IEEE-1394 (1 rear, 1 header)
/ E-SATA / PS2 (2) / S/PDIF (Fiber and Copper) / RS-232
riser
|
Not
listed above, but most definitely of note is this little thing
called “Digital
PWM”. You may raise your eyebrows with disdain and/or
ask what this means? The Digital Pulse Width Modulation is the
digital voltage regulation that we have heard about for some
time; yes Tommy, this is the one that replaces all of those
capacitors around the CPU, be it Japanese or Korean flavor,
not to mention the space they occupied. Can you say plenty of
room for Phase Change cooling systems? Thought so... The interesting
thing is that Foxconn, not a name you would necessarily utter
when asked who is at the forefront is coming out with Digital
PWM ahead of most of the crowd.
As
with most motherboards out today, the Foxconn 975X7AB is packed
with ports and features. There is plenty of USB support and enough
SATA-II ports to make most people happy.
FOX
ONE Technology
FOX
ONE is a high-performance ACPI controller IC on the motherboard,
this is a specific to Intel IC. The FOX ONE chip integrates a
“charge pump” engine to provide more robust driving
voltage during standby. Concurrently, the FOX ONE IC offers current
limiting intelligence that protects each of the PWM outputs, thus
providing a soft, linear start to avoid the over rush of current
on initial power up. Finally the FOX
ONE integrates all of this control, monitoring and protection
in a single package, which is exclusive to Foxconn. What, you
may ask, does this do for me, the typical end user? It allows
for a single point of control over the motherboard and its operations,
be it voltage or temperature adjustment needs, this chip will
assist and alleviate issues.
Other
Features
Some
other nice features worth reading about, as well as investigating
while building your system, is the “Human Technologies”
that Foxconn has deployed on the 975X7AB. Lets look over each
briefly:
Exclusive
Graphics Power – Using the previously mentioned FOX ONE
and Digital PWM circuitry, Foxconn is able to provide exclusive
power for the graphics card to provide better overall graphics
performance and to allow room for future growth.
One
Click Resume – Push “reset”, and return to the
previous state of Overclocking, or none, thus reducing the number
of power off and CMOS resets.
Quick
BIOS update – Easily reset your BIOS to default with a push
of a hot button.
Multi-Boot
Agent – Once POST has completed, you can simply press the
“ESC” key and you will be prompted as to which device
you would like to boot from THIS time, it is not a hard BIOS set
and save.
BIOS
Rescue – Sets aside a small portion of the hard drive for
BIOS backups and therefore quick recovery if a flash has gone
bad.
The
Foxconn motherboard was packaged unlike any Foxconn package
I have previous seen. The outer package is Gold and Silver with
sharp graphics and a large “FOX ONE” font in the
background. The back of the gold sleeve denotes some of Foxconn's
innovative technology that the 975X7AB deploys. Inside the gold
sleeve is a platinum colored box with similar logo's and rather
thick cardboard. This motherboard is protected well.
Opening
the package I was surprised to see what was included; not that
there was a plethora of extras, its just that they are all black
and look as 'l33t' as the cover itself. This is an extremely
nice addition and quickly raises expectations of the motherboard
housed inside. Lets take stock of what comes as “extra”
with the motherboard itself:
4
Black SATA cable's (enough to use each and every SATA slot)
2
Black Rounded IDE cable's
1
Black Rounded Floppy cable
1
Black USB Riser (4 USB ports)
1
Black IEEE-1394 Riser (2 Firewire ports)
1
Black RS-232 Riser
1
Driver CD
1
Manual
1
Large Quickstart guide
There
is a theme here, and its called high quality additions and color
scheming for your windowed case. Everything looks nice in black
and the rounded cables look and feel well built.
 |
 |
The
quick-start guide supplied with the 975X7AB is large, in fact
it would not fit on my desk. The flow of the quick-start is
very nice in that it offers exactly what it proposes, which
is a quick method for getting things up and running for those
of us with little time or need (tsk tsk) to read the manual
. I am rather impressed at the level of detail Foxconn has achieved
with the quick-start guide. The front page has 8 steps that
walk you through installing your CPU and HS/Fan. On the bottom
are blown up pictures of needed and possibly needed riser, such
as your FP connector and High Definition Audio riser. Turning
the quick-start guide over you get the typical BIOS settings
walk through and then a step by step guide of how to install
the Drivers and Utilities from the included CD. This has to
be one of the most complete guides I have seen to date, not
to mention it is in full color for ease of reference. My only
beef would be that due to it's size, it could get lost or tossed
once the system is built, but thats just me.
The
Foxconn 975X7AB manual is similar to other manuals I have from
Foxconn As well as other motherboard manufacturers. The layout
is logical and easy to follow. There is no color once you flip
the cover, color coding being something that is gaining popularity
in other manuals I have seen. It would be nice to at least have
the motherboard view in color (when denoting where everything
is) so you can easily locate connectors or risers etc (they are
color coded on the motherboard), at minimum have the Front Panel
IO connector in color for quick reference. Granted color coding
is done for you on the quickstart guide, I just see that getting
lost eventually, and I still have manuals from motherboards I
don't have anymore, like my P3V4x.
The
motherboard itself is standard Foxconn red; I almost expected
Black once viewing the cables, needless to say I was a tiny
bit disappointed. However, the look of the red background with
the black cables is appealing, maybe Yellow would have been
a nice color too? An overview of the layout and you notice there
is one fan, if there was anything that would take away my perception
of an enthusiast board, this would be it. I would have much
rather seen a heat pipe solution that is so popular among the
high end brands of today. As I mentioned earlier, everything
appears to be color coded nicely to help you locate connectors
and risers.
The
socket used on the Foxconn 975X7AB is of course of the LGA775
format and is located on the right rear quadrant as with most
solutions today. There appears to be ample room surrounding the
socket retention mechanism for most HS/Fan combinations. Just
above the LGA-775 is the Digital VRM. It is somewhat strange looking
as there are only a dozen or so capacitors seen in this area,
where we would typically see more then 30. Add to that the Northbridge
is adorned with a fan, that as mentioned previous, is out of place
on this class of board. Also in this area is the 4/8 pin 12V-Aux
power connector, nice to see the 8 pin option here. The 12V-Aux
connector, when used in 8 pin mode, utilizes both 12V rails of
dual rail PSU's.
Moving
to the left rear of the motherboard we see the dual x16 graphics
slots, and two x1 PCIe slots. There is also your additional molex
power connector for that 2nd graphics card power requirement and
2 PCI slots, although we are seeing fewer and fewer things utilize
PCI these days. As you may recall from previous reviews, the Intel
975X chipset supports Crossfire. The blue connector is for RS-232
and the yellow for your Firewire connection. Also in this quadrant
is the system speaker, which either conveniently or not, is no
longer a jumper to the case (which means you can't leave it disconnected).
Moving
to the left front section of the motherboard we see our Front
Panel connector, USB risers and our SB heat sink. Also in this
section are your 4 SATA-II connectors as well as a unique IDE
solution. Unique you ask? Yes, the white one on the left is ATA-100
capable and the blue one on the bottom right is ATA-133 capable,
I call that unique. The solution does allow for a total of 8 drives
(4 SATA and 4 PATA). A nice touch, for me at least, is if you
look in the lower left corner, you see a small yellow button.
That is a power on button which is a huge advantage to someone
pre-building a system based on this motherboard, or doing reviews.
Finally
the right front section of the board where we connect our 20/24
pin main power. We also have the memory slots, which are color
coded for Dual DDR2 functionality, you simply plug each module
into the same color. Note that there is separation between the
memory modules when running just two, which probably will be the
primary scenario, this should allow ample cooling of the memory
sticks.
The
Rear I/O Panel for the Foxconn 975X7AB features (from left to
right) 2 PS2 ports for your mouse and keyboard, LPT, RS-232, 10/100/1000
RJ45, 4 USB slots and the 6 connector Audio panel. The floppy
connector and IrDA riser are also in this section.
Installing
the 975X7AB, like many motherboards, is only an issue if something
is amiss, that being said, the Foxconn installed without issue.
Of note is the extra molex connector on the motherboard is spaced
a distance away from the video card, giving you ample room to
install and remove either. As mentioned earlier, memory is inserted
in either the yellow or blue slots if you want to run them in
Dual DDR2 mode. Making sure to connect the Samsung HD to SATA1,
lets boot her up.
NEXT
