Overclocking is an important factor when purchasing a high end motherboard, and with so many top boards offering similar features and performance, it often makes the difference between a good and a great product. The BIOS of the Foxconn is very comprehensive with an array of advanced tweaking and voltage options. FSB can e adjusted from 100MHz to 500MHz, and CPU voltage up to a mammoth 1.85V. Memory voltage is equally flexible, with up to 2.5V available (remember this is DDR2!). Chipset and a number of other more obscure voltages can also be adjusted which is always welcome to overclockers.
All the tweaks and voltage options in the world don’t mean a thing if they don’t allow the board to gain a good maximum FSB, and in this regard the Foxconn is not quite up to its peers. We now pretty much expect 300MHz HTT from a top end board out of the box these days, and the Foxconn only managed 278MHz before it refused to POST. This will be enough for most users, but not for those hoping to top out a good 3800X2. Since the board features such flexible options we were perplexed by its relatively low ceiling and tried overclocking using nTune from within windows. In this environment it allowed a much better 312MHz before becoming unstable, making us think that the limit is something BIOS related rather than anything to do with the quality of the hardware. Hopefully Foxconn can fix this in an update soon. Something prudent overclockers will want to do is fit heat sinks to the VRM MOSFETs as they get VERY hot at higher voltages and clock speeds.
Conclusion
In Conclusion then, does the Foxconn live up to its high end appearance? Yes and no has to be the answer. On the one hand the board ticks all the boxes for features, presentation and bundle, but falls slightly short of the very best for both layout and overclocking. This doesn’t stop us from recommending the board to the majority of users, but those looking to extract the maximum possible performance from their low end X2 should certainly look elsewhere. Everyone else should include the C51XEM2AA 8EKRS2H on their short list if looking to invest in the AM2 platform today. Customers can purchase the Foxconn board from Aria.co.uk for £119 including VAT, which makes it one of the best priced 590-based solutions on the market.
Click for an explanation of our awards.
Pros:
- Fast
- Every feature you could want
- Great bundle of cables and headers
- Nice presentation
- Feature packed BIOS
- Almost DFI voltage options
- Great value
- Generally sound layout…
Cons:
- …with some slight issues
- Overclocking not what it should be
- No RAID driver floppy
- Ridiculously long name almost impossible to remember
