FIRST LOOK: Foxconn 755-A01 for Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on May 10, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
The number of new computer products seems to grow exponentially, while the lifetime of new products becomes shorter and shorter. Since you come to AnandTech for information, we will be using our FIRST LOOK reviews to bring you hands-on, shorter reviews of more computer gear. First Looks and Roundups will be used to bring you more information comparing products. Our in-depth reviews will be reserved for new chipsets, significant new products, or boards that simply deserve a more in-depth look. When we gave our Editor's Choice to the SiS 755 chipset, we really expected to see motherboards from some of the familiar names in the motherboard market. First out of the gate was the ECS 755, which was clearly designed to be a value board. The first generation ECS fell short in many areas, but ECS continued to improve the board. It certainly had matured by revision A2, when we did a full review of the ECS 755-A2. The ECS performed well, but had modest overclocking controls and a very basic feature set. We continued to hope that some manufacturers would do even more with the excellent 755 chipset.
Foxconn is the second manufacturer to supply a SiS 755 motherboard for review. For those of you who are not familiar with Foxconn, they are probably best known for their electronic components, particularly slots and connectors. Regardless of who made your motherboard, you are likely to have some Foxconn connectors on the board. Recently, Foxconn has been bringing motherboards to market. While early offerings have been geared toward the value segment, Foxconn has plans to extend their line and bring more cutting - edge boards to market in the future. For now, their only Socket 754 offering for Athlon 64 is the 755-A01 based on the SiS chipset. Foxconn has been in the Intel motherboard segment a bit longer, and has a broader range of chipsets available for the Pentium 4.
The 755 was an impressive chipset. Does Foxconn bring a better feature set to the market? How does the 755-A01 compare to other SiS 755 boards? We also took a closer look at the 755-A01 performance compared to other motherboards that we have tested for the Athlon 64.
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tOiRb - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
Yes, it does not come with a frame, but lots of aftermarket hsf's come with one, I actually complained to Foxconn...they sent me one (probably a fluke) I got it 10 days later and I was already up and running with a Thermaltake Venus 7. (Not enough oomph to cool that beast, but it sufficed for the time).I actually thought this mobo sucked at first, but here are my findings after having it for a couple of months. Be advised that while I was doing all this testing on this board, I also purchased a Gigabye K8NS Pro (a big audience on Anandtech). I RMA'd one and am now on my second. Believe me, these boards have problems.
1) It only likes 1 stick of memory. I'm using Kingmax PC3500 running at 2-4-4-7 (512)
2) Send email to Foxconn and get a beta bios (the one I'm using is dated in May 2004). It allows lock of AGP, PCI and etc. The bios they publish does not have this function.
3)Put some other kind of cooler on the bridge. I stuck a Zalman silent on.
4) Set max mem at 166
5) I overclock the CPU to 2.25 running an Athlon 64 2800+. Beats FX53, 51.
6)Probably leaving something out, but this works for me. Have upgraded to a Thermaltake Venus 12. Provides better cooling, Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro. Great Marks. Stable as Sh*t. Thinking about replacing the gigabye which seems very buggy and runs much hotter than this mobo.
tOiRb - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
Asmo79 - Monday, May 24, 2004 - link
I purchased this MB for a friend after reading this review, and because of all of the on board features, it's a bang for the buck. Unfortunatly it does not come with a heatsink retention frame, and after purchasing a Thermaltake Silentboost, I had no way of mounting the thing. So unless you know how to get a retention frame, as I couldn't find one anywhere, you might want to consider a different solution. I RMA,d the board and am going with the Asus K8V SE Delux. The only downside is the price difference, $97 vs. $124. Too bad for Foxconn, for just a minor but major issue.plonk420 - Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - link
it would be nice to see Xvid added to video encoding (in both 64 and P4 tests and XPs, if they're still being developed) since it's becoming a pretty widely used standard (does ANYONE use Divx5 anymore?) and it's skewed towards Athy platforms, or at least the XPs compared to P4s... or are Tom/Anand waiting for a 1.0 release?LoneWolf15 - Monday, May 10, 2004 - link
It'd be nice to have seen some USB performance tests. I've been reading that the SiS 755 chipset has very poor USB performance, so this board would be great for people who don't use USB mass storage devices, but a poor choice for those who do.Odeen - Monday, May 10, 2004 - link
Only the NF3-250gb and Intel i848 /i865 / i875 chipsets support Gigabit Lan - anything mentioning Realtek means it's on the PCI bus.Unless it's an RTL8201, of course, which is just a PHY for another MAC (usually a chipset-level 10/100 MAC)
KillaKilla - Monday, May 10, 2004 - link
Damned lack of 'edit'. Regardless, what bus is the Gb LAN on?KillaKilla - Monday, May 10, 2004 - link
Just to let you know, typo on p2. Memory should be DDDR400/333/266, not DDR44/333/266.FluffyTapeworm - Monday, May 10, 2004 - link
Interesting that you were able to do 2x512MB at (presumably) ddr400. Maybe foxconn knew they had a problem like ECS, but waited until they had a fixed revision before sending a board to anyone for review? Was it tested with memtest?(Background info: I have a 755a01 from about a month ago, it won't pass memtest86+ with 2x512MB at ddr400. Tested with 2xkingston valueram and OCZ EL dual kit. Individual dimms would work at ddr400, but not a pair.)