Next I install the add-on cards, which is only the Video card at this point. Its nice to be able to install the memory or video card in either order, with the 875A02, neither interferes with each other, although I could see if you had a full size AGP card, you might want to install the memory first. Foxconn has a unique approach to the locking mechanism for the AGP slot.

Lastly I connect the SATA / IDE / Floppy cables, everything is laid out nicely, the only thing I could suggest here, and many of my fellow VL members agree, is connectors at the edge of the board. Situated in that fashion the cabling would be cleaner and there would be less pressure asserted when installing/removing cables.

Foxconn uses the Phoenix Award BIOS. We see nothing out of the ordinary from the main page, as we dig a little deeper, we some differences however. The BIOS Features page is new to me and having worked with several motherboard manufacturers in the past, this is saying something.

Superboot allows you to store your BIOS settings to CMOS so that the boot process is faster; this is a nice feature if your hardware does not change.

SuperBIOS-Protect is supposed to protect your BIOS from Viruses (i.e. CIH), by using a HW/SW double BIOS lock technology.

SuperRecovery is explained as "Provides users with an excellent data protection and HDD recovery function."

Then there is SuperSpeed, which at this point is anything but. The only options to date (for a P4C) are 200 to 233 FSB (this equates to a maximum 2.796GHz on my P4 2.4C), that is if your CPU can do 233MHz FSB with no Vcore adjustment, because there are none.

The Advanced BIOS Features Page is pretty much in line to what we are used to from the mainstream motherboard manufacturers. One thing I noticed on this page is near the end, see the Small Logo (EPA): Disabled? That's the energy star statement that you tend to see now days. Wouldn't it be nice if we could disable that manufacturer splash screen? The only other standout page is the Frequency/Voltage Control Menu. Interesting in that there is basically no Frequency or Voltage control in this menu.

One other note about the BIOS, there is no place (at least that I could find) to turn off the Silicon Image RAID Controller. This means we save a little time booting with the SuperBoot enabled, and throw it back out the window (if we are not using RAID) because it checks that we have 0 disks each boot.

With the 875P (Canterwood) chipset, I was hoping for some nice overclocking ability. Unfortunately, the BIOS that is currently shipping with the 875A02 does not support it beyond what your CPU can do with the standard Vcore settings. I contacted Foxconn about this and they stated:

"At some point in the future we will offer a performance BIOS that includes a much wider range of FSB settings plus voltages adjustments."

Hopefully this will be sooner than later. I was able to raise my FSB to 230MHz using the SuperStep utility in Windows XP, the same held true in the BIOS settings for the FSB, I could not boot past 230MHz FSB (2.76GHz). The interesting note on this is that my scores across the board were much faster when I set the BIOS to 230MHz relative to using the SuperStep Utility to set the FSB. If it was a mere fraction of a percentage point I would not have even mentioned it. On a ~16% performance increase from 200MHz FSB to 230MHz FSB, there was a ~43% difference in performance scores from BIOS settings to SuperStep Utility settings.