Installation and Testing

     Using the Foxconn turned out to be quite the dilemma. It wasn't as forgiving as our Epox 9nda3+ when it came to power requirements. IDE errors, crashing benchmarks were all witnessed until we were able to attain a proper power supply. Going from a 350W quality PSU to a 500W Fortron Source, and flashing to a newer BIOS cured our problems and everything starting working the way it should. Oddly we had none of these problems with our supposedly "buggy" Epox 9nda3+. Its a real irony that a SIS chipsetted mainboard would demand more power than a NF-3 Ultra, since SIS has been historically known to be efficient. We won't place any blame, we just thought it should be important to acknowledge that if you intend to jump onto the 939 bandwagon be aware of the power requirements, and this is without testing a 6800 series card.

     After getting hold of the 500W PSU we loaded up WinXPSP2, and threw in the Foxconn CD... We were impressed with the package so much that we just had to grab a screenshot...

Foxconn CD driver page

     From a reviewer standpoint it seems to me that a lot of different motherboard manufacturers have started to include a huge array of untilties, drivers, and essential files direly needed. It's nice to see Foxconn join the bandwagon in offering such things as Norton Internet Security, Speedstep, and even Direct X. it saves time for the consumer and makes out lives much easier.

System Setup

Our system setup is as follows:

AMD Athlon 3500 Winchester core 90nm Socket 939
Visiontek Xtasy x800 Pro 256mb AGP
Crucial Ballistix PC-3200 2x512mb 2-2-2-5 2.75v
Danger Den TDX/Maze4 Watercooling system
Fortron Source AX500A 500W PSU

     Our testing consists of the kind of use that we would take a PC through on a daily basis. The staff at ClubOC typically plays several games, and we focus out attention on that, and of course the drag racing aspect of 3DMark and other synthetic benchmarks. Using some Arctic Silver, we run our benchmarks much the same as you would at home to give you a better idea of what to expect from a motherboard.

Gaming Benchmarks

     As far as Gaming goes the Epox looks as though its a faster board. We noticed an interesting trend though, the newer the game the more the Foxconn board caught up to the Epox. This could be due to the fact that the newer games are more video card dependent, and the Foxconn has better AGP communication...

Synthetic Benchmarks

     On 3DMark 2005 the Foxconn gets the crown by only a small margin, but it proves that the Foxconn has better AGP communication. 3Dmark 2005 pretty much brought our x800 to its knees so its definitely ranked up their in video card dependence as mentioned previously...

SisSoft Sandra 2005
CPU Arithmetric Benchmark

Foxconn

Epox

SisSoft Sandra 2005
CPU Multimedia Benchmark

Foxconn

Epox

Interesting numbers... Notice the gap between Integer and Floating Point with the Foxconn.. Makes you wonder how accurate Sandra really is.

Memory 2-2-2-5 2T at 200Mhz 800Mhz HTT

Foxconn

939 Love...

Epox

Dual Channel is simply awesome with socket 939's...

Conclusion

     All in all, the SIS chipset wins in most of the synthetic benchmarks whereas the Epox 9nda3+ cleans its clock in our gaming tests and 2001SE. This is more than likely as a result of nVidia's careful engineering towards the NF3-Ultra chipset being geared towards gamers. The SiS FX755 Northbridge it a odd one at most, and one tends to wonder what its doing on the motherboard when the A64 clearly has its own ability to control much of the previously tasks that Northbridges tend to take on as their duty on a motherboard. Nevertheless, the Foxconn is a fairly good performer, and would clearly win over a Via platform.

     Overall the Foxconn board is not an overclocker. You may find it somewhat odd to notice we water cooled our test setup, but that's more out of preference towards silence. Of course we could, but with the lack of memory, chipset, and AGP voltage we made the decision to not undergo any type of comparison to the 9nda3+ which has a huge amount of choices to get your processor far beyond what the Foxconn would be capable of. Plain and simple, this board is a good solid board that is being provided to those of you that are wanting to go the A64 route in dual channel style, and since Overclocker's statistically represent a small portion of the DIY PC market we would have to say that Foxconn has chosen wisely since the board is a typical $25 savings over other 939 boards.