nForce4 Ultra Roundup: Charting the Mainstream
by Wesley Fink on July 5, 2005 10:28 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Winfast NF4UK8AA (Foxconn): Features and Layout
| Specification | Winfast NF4UK8AA |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nForce4 Ultra (single chip) |
| BUS Speeds | 200MHz to 300MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Asynchronous (Fixed) |
| PCI Express | 100MHz to 145MHz in 1MHz increments |
| Core Voltage | Default, 1.20V to 1.80V in 0.025V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | 2.5V, Default, 2.7V, 2.8V |
| Chipset Voltage | Default, 1.6V, 1.7V, 1.8V |
| LDT Bus Transfer | 16/16, 16/8, 8/16, 8/8 |
| Hyper Transport | 1x to 5x in 1x Intervals |
| LDT Voltage | Default, 1.3V, 1.4V, 1.5V |
| CPU Ratios | NONE |
| DRAM Speeds | Auto, 100, 133, 166, 200 |
| Memory Command Rate | Auto, 1T, 2T |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR Dual-Channel Slots Unbuffered ECC or non-ECC Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x16 PCIe Slots 2 x1 PCIe 4 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA | 4-Drive SATA 2 by nF4 |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard NVIDIA ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| SATA/IDE RAID | 4-Drive SATA 2 PLUS 4-Drive IDE (8 total) Can be combined in RAID 0, 1 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 ports supported nF4 2 1394A FireWire ports by Agere FW3226-100 |
| Onboard LAN | Gigabit Ethernet PCIe by Vitesse VSC8201 PHY |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel codec with 5 UAJ audio jacks, CD-in, front audio, and coaxial SPDIF Out |
| Other Features | AMD X2 Support with NF4UK8AA (6/29/05) or higher BIOS |
| BIOS | Phoenix Award Shipping BIOS |
Foxconn may not be well-known to some readers, but Foxconn is the manufacturer of almost every connector that you will find on almost every motherboard on the market. In addition, Foxconn is one of the world's largest motherboard manufacturers. Foxconn makes motherboards for many companies, and counts Intel to be among their clients. The quality of Foxconn boards is well-established, so it should come as no surprise that Foxconn is now interested in marketing their own branded motherboards.
The Winfast NF4UK8AA is another nForce4 Ultra motherboard that is long on built-in features, but is sold at a modest street price of $97. Foxconn includes two Firewire ports, 8-channel audio, a Phoenix Award BIOS with AMD x2 support, Gigabit PCIe Ethernet, and the full implementation of the NVIDIA nForce4 chipset features.
The BIOS feature set also is reasonably attractive with a full range of options for CPU voltage, memory voltage, chipset voltage and HT voltage. There is also a wide range of CPU speed selections from 200 to 300. Frankly, 2.8V is not enough on memory voltage with top memory now going to 3.5V and higher, and 300 looks low when other boards are running at over 300 at a 9X multiplier, but the controls that the enthusiast wants are all here. That is all except CPU ratios or multipliers. The AMD Athlon 64 features unlocked multipliers on all processors downwards, and unlocks up and down with FX CPUs. This is an important feature that differentiates AMD from the competition. However, an unlocked CPU is virtually useless if the multiplier adjustments are not available in BIOS. If Foxconn intends to sell to AMD enthusiasts, then they need to quickly make the same options available to buyers that competitors routinely provide.
Click image to enlarge.
The IDE connectors, 24-pin ATX power connector, and DIMM slots were all in near ideal locations and presented no issues.
Foxconn has placed the 4-pin 12V power connector between the CPU and the rear panel connectors, which can present some cabling challenges in some case designs. It works better at a board edge, but Foxconn Winfast is not alone in using the center of the board location for the 12V connector. The floppy is at the bottom right of the motherboard - a difficult reach in tall cases.
Additional connectors are well located along board edges and out of the way of the slot area. Foxconn also provides a rear coaxial SPDIF connector, which proves that you don't have to give up SPDIF connectors on a $100 motherboard.
While there are certainly several areas that can be improved upon in the layout of the NF4UK8AA, it is a pretty easy board to work with overall. The board is also built with obvious care and quality components, which is not a surprise when you consider the quality reputation that Foxconn enjoys in the motherboard market.
Like every other board in this roundup, Foxconn uses the ALC850 audio codec. Realtek appears to be doing a very good job of convincing Asian manufacturers of the features and value represented by the ALC850.
Epox 9NPA+ Ultra: Overclocking and Stress Testing
Winfast NF4UK8AA (Foxconn): Overclocking and Stress Testing
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Andreos - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Wesley - That helps, thanks for educating me on this stuff.Wesley Fink - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
#51 - We reviewed the K8NXP-SLI in the SLI roundup and the Ultra counterpart is the K8NXP-9. If you will look closely at the Gigabyte website pictures of the K8N Ultra-9 you will see it is the same board with a passive heatsink and fewer features. For information on how your Gigabyte performs at stock speeds (which is all that interests you) then please refer to the single video benchmarks for the K8NXP-SLI in the SLI roundup. We report all benchmarks at stock speeds so you and other readers can compare performance. Overclocking is covered as a separate feature. If you do not choose to overclock that is your business, but the information you are asking for is fully covered in our reviews. ALL the nForce4 Ultra boards perform almost the same at stock speeds, which should not really come as a surprise since the memory controller is on the CPU. If you were expecting the Gigabyte K8N Ultra-9 would perform better at stock speeds that anything else then you are badly misinformed. The Gigabyte boards do very well at stock speeds, but all the nF4 boards are close in performance at stock speeds.#53 - The BFG VNF4 Ultra is a rebadged (relabeled) Chaintech VNF4 motherboard. We did review the Chaintech VNF4 Ultra in this roundup.
VinnyS - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
I would have liked to have seen the BFG NF4 Ultra board included in this round-up, it got high marks in a [H]ardOCP review. Any chance for an update to this review with this board included?TheGlassman - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Well I was tired, You were using the 6-3-05 bios, should have quit while I was ahead. So now I have no idea what the problem was.At any rate the 6-3-05 bios is a dual core bios, so no flashing to a beta is needed for dual core.
Andreos - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
I don't think you guys know your audience all that well. Not everybody is into overclocking to the hairy edge. Some of us wnat a fast and quiet board with dead-nuts solid reliability. For that reason, it is incomprehensible that the Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 was not included in this so-called "roundup". This board has no SLI counterpart, but it is of extreme interest to a lot of folks planning workstations based on X2 processors (and for which overclocking is of lower interest than reliable operation). Wake up dudes - the game is changing! Clock speed is no longer the Holy Grail. Other sites are savvy to this and will soon be eating your lunch!Palek - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
#49, no worries. I don't work for Anandtech, by the way. :)By my "far more than a day" remark I intended to say that I figured a review like this would take more like a week at a minimum - quite possibly even longer - to put together, so by the time the article was released some BIOSes would be outdated, since BIOS updates seem to pop up every other day these days. That is all.
TheGlassman - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Sorry Palek, you didn't write the review, oops. My apologies to you and time for bed.Wesley, can you look into that?
Thanks, and I'm sure glad the over a day remark wasn't yours.
TheGlassman - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Thanks for your comments Palek, especially the latest and greatest comment. I checked the bios you used for the chaintech, it is a dual core only beta, ANY release bios including the 6-03-05 official dual core support (a month older than either of the winning (because they over clock TCCD better?) boards, and older than any dated bios) will perform much better in overclocking and probably every other test.If Chaintech shipped you a board with that bios it wasn't a wise move for a single core test. I think it would be fair to retest the chaintech vnf4 with a release bios, and if the results are different to note that.
As far as the time taken to prepare this round up, much less time could have been used running bench mark after benchmark that shows apprx the same performance, and I would expect it take more than a day to write up such a comprehensive review. To take a few days to do testing that can benefit people who will base their buying decisons on your results, I think would be worth while.
I am happy that I could pinpoint the problem with the Chaintech VnF4 Ultra results, as you may have guessed I am quite familliar with it. In the past, Anandtech has always explained why a beta bios was being used, I guess that it wasn't noted this time because you felt rushed.
PS I know the DFI's are excellent boards, but their site lists a march date for their most recent bios, so maybe you should have used that one instead of their latest and greatest TCCD overclocking beta bios, and since you were using a beta, you should, again, have listed why.
I'm sorry, saying it took more than a day is not good enough for the anandtech standards that have been so high for so long.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
We have corrected the CPU and Memory voltage adjustments for the Abit AN8 Fatal1ty. This version only has voltage adjustments to 2.8V for memory, while the later Ultra and SLI versions do support memory voltages to 3.55V.Palek - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Wesley, that would be "proofreading" - one word! ;) Is that a job offer? :)#41, TheGlassman, you shouldn't have unreasonable expectations. I'm sure this review took far more than a day to put together, so of course some of the BIOSes used will not be the latest and the greatest. Adding three different types of RAM to the mix would require even more time. Then if you want to test them with different divider etc. settings, suddenly you have over a hundred combinations, a benchmarking nightmare. You have to draw the line somewhere. This was not an article focused on overclocking, but a comparison of 7 motherboards. I would have liked to see the new Abit boards included as well, but I guess that review will come soon enough, too.