Vista Compatible Foxconn 975X7AB Motherboard Review


With the growing popularity of the Intel Core 2 Duo processors, computer enthusiasts have been scrambling to find good motherboard alternatives. While major manufacturers such as Intel and Asus have provided some high-end boards based on the Intel 975 platform, these boards are either very expensive ($225-$260 USD), are missing certain features, or both. Enter the Foxconn 975X7AB. Based on the Intel 975X chipset, this board comes with a wealth of features, including support for the Core 2 Duo’s as well as ATI Crossfire, and at $160 USD it rates very high on the best bang for your bucks scale.

We also wanted to find a board that would run well on Windows Vista, and decided to run the Foxconn 975X7AB through our tests on both Windows Media Center 2005 and Windows Vista Ultimate.



Main Features:

Processor support: Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme, Core™ 2 Duo(Conroe), Pentium® EE, Pentium® D, Pentium® 4 processors, Socket T (LGA775)
Chipset: Intel® 975X + Intel® ICH7R

Front Side Bus: 1066 / 800 MHz FSB

Memory Support: Dual channel, unbuffered, 1.8V DDR2-533/667/800 w/ or w/o ECC; (4) 240-pin DIMM sockets, max 8GB; DDR2-800 requires P15 or later BIOS and updated SPIload

Expansion Slots: 2 x PCI Express x16 (function as 2 x8 under ATI

CrossFire), 2 x PCI Express x1, 2 x PCI

IDE: 1 x ATA 133, 1 x ATA 100

SATA (RAID): 4 x SATA II/300, support RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, and JBOD; second SATA II/300 controller with 1 rear panel/external connector

Audio: Realteck ALC 882 HD 7.1 Channel

Lan: 2 x Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000) controllers, dual ports, PCIe (Marvell)

IEEE1394: 2 x 1394a; 1 x 6-pin in rear I/O area + 1 front via internal header

Back Panel I/O Ports: 1 set 7.1 channel audio (6 jacks)
1 x PS/2 keyboard
1 x PS/2 mouse
2 x RJ45 (LAN)
4 x USB 2.0
1 x parallel (SPP/ECP/EPP)
1 x IEEE-1394a (6-pin)
2 x S/PDIF (1 x coax out + 1 x optical out)
1 x eSATA

Internal I/O Connectors: 1 x floppy disk drive
Front audio header
2 x USB 2-port headers, ver. 2.0
1 x IEEE-1394a header

BIOS Features: 4Mb flash EEPROM with LAN boot, PnP, ACPI, WfM, DMI 2.0

Standards/Manageability: PCI 2.3, USB2.0; WfM 2.0, DMI 2.0

Special Features: STR (Suspend-to-Ram); STD (Suspend-to-Disk); Fox One/Tiger One, Foxocnn LiveUpdate; supports ATI CrossFire; digital PWM, RoHS compliant

Form factor: ATX


First Look:

Upon opening the motherboard box, our impressions rose right at the start. The people at Foxconn have done a great job on packaging, but they have also included the nice extras with this motherboard. Included with the standard software and manual is a large poster which shows the ins and outs of the bios, and then there are the cables, lots of nice cables. 2 tube wrapped IDE cables, one wrapped Floppy cable, 4 SATA cables, and 3 expansion slot ports which consist of 4 USB, 2 Firewire, and a single serial port. The expansion slot ports are add-on items which are a nice bonus. The included manual is clear and easy to read, while including a good look at the features of the motherboard and included software utilities.





Motherboard Features and Layout:

Foxconn has done a great job with the design of this board, and the layout was quite easy to work with as compared to many other boards on the market. We especially liked the extra room around the processor which is accomplished by using a Digital PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) power supply. The Digital PWM replaces the much bulkier mosfet with tiny digital parts and a passive heatsink – the result is more space on the motherboard, and a more reliable and stable power supply to the CPU and components. Some other really nice features on this board are the integrated dual Gb Lan, a power button on the board (which is great when testing), and a feature which is missing on the majority of other boards, support for up to four IDE devices. Adding and removing components from this board was a breeze, and we really liked that the memory slots are places so as to not get stuck under any of the expansion cards.



The Rear I/O panel is nicely color coded, and includes PS2 mouse and keyboard ports, external SATA port, a digital audio port, 6 port Audio Panel, parallel port, firewire port, 4 USB ports, and dual gigabit LAN ports.




Hardware and Software Installation:

Test System Specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
2 x 1 GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 PC-6400
ATI X800 Crossfire Edition + X800XT
Haupage WinTV-PVR 500 Dual TV Tuner
Antec 550W SLI Power Supply
Antec Atlas Quiet Mini Server Case
3 x 160 GB Seagate SATA II Hard Drives
1 X 400 GB Seagate SATA II Hard Drive
1 x 320 GB Seagate PATA Hard Drive
Sony DVD +-RW/RAM Optical Drive
Sony DVD-ROM/CD-RW Optical Drive

Installation of components was a breeze thanks to a well designed board, color coded connections, and the startup poster and motherboard guide. The supplied cables helped keep the case uncluttered and easy to move around in. It was especially nice to be able to have dual optical drives and a backup IDE drive thanks to the JMicron controller which adds a second IDE header on the board. While it should be noted that using two monster video cards would be a tight squeeze, our dual ATI X800 cards left plenty of breathing room. This board uses standard 24 pin power, and 8 pin cpu power socket, and also includes a dedicated GPU on-board socket. Although we went with stock cpu cooling, the Digital PWM power solutions leaves plenty of room for most customized cooling solutions. With the excellent diagrams, and easy color codes, all of our connections were made without a problem.



We chose to install both Windows Media Center 2005, and both the 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows Vista RTM, and both installations went easily. While Media Center 2005 required us to install the LAN and Audio drivers, we were pleasantly surprised to find that Windows Vista installed all the needed drivers during setup, including a Microsoft supplied HD audio driver. This board seems to be fully Vista ready!

Using the Motherboard

This board has quite a few options when it comes to tweaking and overclocking, both in the BIOS and via Foxconn’s Fox One utility which allows overclocking from within Windows. While both the supplied poster and user’s guide give a good look at the overclocking features, and most hard-core enthusiasts will easily understand the settings, we would have liked to have seen a bit more detail as to some of the settings for the novice. We really wanted to see what the average user could accomplish as far as a safe and stable overclock using stock cooling, and where pleasantly surprised to see that pushing our 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Dou up to stable 3.0 Ghz was achieved quite easily by setting the CPU Mhz adjustment with the Fox One utility. With just this simple overclock, we were able to lower our SuperPI 1 MB times from 20.21 seconds to a respectable 17.50 seconds without having to make any voltage adjustments or memory tweaks. Deciding to push it a bit higher we inched our CPU up to 337 which resulted in 3033 MHz. At this level, our SuperPi 1 MB time dropped to 17.063 After performing a few memory and voltage adjustments, we bumped our CPU up to 347 and we were able to achieve a stable 3128 MHz, although running SuperPI 1 MB at this level resulted in an error in the SuperPI program.



With the wealth of available tweaking options, a knowledgeable overclocker can easily increase the performance of their system to much higher levels.
The Phoenix Award BIOS provides a stable BIOS platform with quite a number of advanced options for the casual overclocker, and while this board is not what we would consider an extreme overclocker, the available features do allow an easy and fairly safe overclocking experience. Another great feature of this board is the backup BIOS which will allow the machine to POST if the main BIOS settings become unbootable.

Included on the Foxconn CD is both the Fox One Utility, and the Live Update Utility. Both of these programs work great in Windows XP/MCE, however they must be installed in compatibility mode in Windows Vista. The Fox One utility works well enough in Windows Vista, however some of the readings seem to be incorrect (we won’t hold this against Foxconn, as this software is not made for Vista yet, although we do hope to see an update from Foxconn soon.) Fox One is a great utility to monitor and tweak many settings of the board, from simple overclocking to advanced voltage and memory adjustments as well as real time info on current cpu, memory, and voltage settings, fan speeds, and system temperatures. Fox One also includes 4 preset automatic performance settings: Power Gamer, Data Mining, Office, and Power Saving. A special feature of the motherboard is the inclusion of 4 overclocking LED’s which reflect the overclocking status of the board.

The Live Update utility allows the user to search for any new BIOS, Driver, or Utility updates from the Foxconn server. This is a great feature, and a real time saver which will allow user’s to download and install updates without having to navigate through a website to search for them.



Overall Impression

The Foxconn 975X7AB has provided an excellent experience both in terms of setup and use. Having a motherboard that is both easy to install and configure, and provides a safe and stable overclocking experience is something that a lot of other boards lack. Foxconn has done a great job with the design and functionality of this board. The features of the 975X7AB are easy to use for the novice, while providing many extra options for the hard-core enthusiast. We were highly impressed with the stability of the board, especially under overclocked conditions, and our test system temperatures ran quite cool even under high load. The included extras are a nice touch, and the Fox One software proved very easy to use, even for a novice. With support for a comprehensive list of Intel processors, including the newest Core 2 Duo’s, this board can be used in a variety of systems. The additions of the digital power supply allows plenty of room around the processor for extreme cooling solutions while delivering very accurate and stable power for the processor.

PROs

Superb Motherboard Layout

Easy to safely overclock

Built in HD sound

Dual Gigabit onboard LAN

Dual IDE connectors

External SATA port

Included Fox One and Live Update software

All drivers installed during Windows Vista setup

Outstanding Price

Cons

We really didn’t run into any serious Con's with this board. Foxconn does not advertise this as an extreme overclocking board, so the lack of some advanced BIOS features is not considered.

We would like to see a little more comprehensive users guide when it comes to the BIOS features, however, the guide itself is one of the better ones we have seen.


Final View and Score

We really liked this board and its features. Foxconn has produced an excellent product at a very competitive price, and in our opinion, the 975X7AB is definitely at the top when it comes to best bang for your buck. For the enthusiast who wants a board that will give them great performance, and allow a stable and safe overclocking experience, we highly recommend this product. Although it does not yet have a Windows Vista Logo approval from Microsoft, for users wanting a board that works well with Windows Vista and has full out of box driver support, the 975X7AB fits the bill nicely.

As this board performs very well for its class, and is one of the best values we have seen, we award it a 10 rating and give it the PROnetworks Gold Seal of Approval.