CES 2008: Foxconn Goes Extreme With Motherboards

The Foxconn BlackOps Intel X48 Motherboard

Foxconn was also showing off their upcoming Intel X48 Express motherboard that is called BlackOps. The BlackOps motherboard comes with several chipset cooling solutions, which means that users can pick between active fan cooling, water cooling or something like dry ice cooling thanks to the ‘tube’ that Foxconn has developed. For those of us that have made our own dry ice tubes, this is a very nice feature that saves a ton of time.

If you are confused what we are talking about or where these coolers go, we got Foxconn to hold up the dry ice tube over the chipset cooling block. The top of the block has an o-ring in it, which seals the deal once four screws are tightened up.

Foxconn also had the X48 BlackOps board running in a water cooled system with the optional copper water block on the chipset. The overclocking results were rather impressive, but everyone knows that Intel 45nm processors can do 4GHz with ease. What was more impressive was the BIOS.

The Foxconn BIOS is out of this world. The CPU voltage on the Foxconn BlackOps motherboard can go all the way up to 2.4400V! That is more than enough for 99.9% of enthusiasts out there and it just goes to show how extreme Foxconn is getting about overclocking. The northbridge voltage for the Intel X48 Express chipset goes up to 2.395V, which again is just nuts.