Foxconn Intel i945/i955 Dual Core Motherboards

Final Thoughts

Overclocking

My main fear with overclocking started and ended with the avaiable voltages. The layout and cooling of the boards components seemed to be directed at the enthusiast market and overclocking (active cooling on the 955X7AA, well placed passive cooling on the 945 boards, clean layout, embedded cooling strips in the PCB), but once I broke open the BIOS, I was amazed/disappointed to find the board had very conservative voltages, especially for the memory.

The 955X7AA allowed for a maximum of 1.98 on the memory voltage, which we talked about earlier as being totally inadequate to run Corsair’s 5400UL memory even at its default timings of 3-2-2-8 at 667MHz. With more and more “Enthusiast” memory sure to be released as DDR2 matures, how will this board survive in what is sure to become a strong market? To compare, ASUS’s P5WD2 Premium allows for a memory voltage of 2.3V without any tweaks or mods…..this should be the norm for all boards.

As to the 945P and G boards, they both allow a max of 1.9V on the memory voltages, which regardless of what memory you are planning to use, really limits high end performance.

In the end, the Foxconn series of boards are decent overclockers, though when compared to offerings from other, better known enthusiast companies, they are better suited for what really are, a great entry level board.

Final Thoughts

The 955X7AA definitely had its pluses, incredible features, great layout, rock solid performance, easy installation and a very nice BIOS layout. But, on the other hand, it also had a few drawback, mainly the voltages available for overclocking. The board I recieved could not even power the Corsair PC5400UL I wanted to use for benchmarking. If an enthusiast board can not even handle high performance memory at its default voltage, how can it overclock? As more memory companies release more extreme memory that sucks up the voltage, the 955X7AA will be left far behind other enthusiast boards. Here’s hoping this can simply be addressed with a BIOS fix….. if not, its very hard to recommend this board over other 955X boards or even Foxconn’s own 945P or G based boards.

When it came to the 945 boards I was really impressed. both boards performed extremely well, almost on par with a pretty good 955X board. The 945G7MA is a great solution for those looking for a simple home computing solution, while both 945 boards are feature rich solutions missing only a few small optimizations exclusive to the 955X7AA. The 945P7AA is a board that should be happy in any system or situation you choose. As with earlier Intel “Budget ” boards, the 865, 875, and 915 based boards, the 945 should end up being a very popular solution for anyone from the gamer to overclocking enthusiast.

My only real gripe about these boards would be the overclocking aspect. The voltages simply are not there for the extreme user. Sadly the boards will not even allow the usage of high end memory at default settings, such as Corsair’s PC5400UL. Other than some poor memory voltage limitations, these boards are very good performers.

The Legit Bottom Line

The Foxconn boards we looked at today would be fine choices for anyone looking at modestly priced 945/955 boards. While not for the extreme overclocker like those produced at DFI or ASUS, all of these boards provided very good performance, excellent stability, very easy set up, and great bundles. In the end, Foxconn is definitely putting themselves on the map by producing some quality boards at very good prices.