As we got used to Intel presenting new chipsets quite often, it is rather strange that the 975X chipset managed to remain on the high-end market for nearly two years (the 975X chipset appeared on the market in December 2005 for the first time). In the meantime, we have tested 965 and P35 chipsets, which were significantly cheaper, but the 975X remained in the high-class seat. Well, not anymore.
Intel X38
Finally, the 975X got its successor to the throne, codenamed X38, which was definitely worth waiting for. If we have a look at the schematics of the chipset, the more experienced users will see everything that this chipset brings, however, the less experienced ones might need some explaining. Well, that's why we're here.
| Motherboard | Foxconn X38A Digital Life | | Memory | 2 x DDR3 (Max 4GB) + 4 x DDR2 (Max 8 GB) | | Chipset | Intel X38 + ICH9R Chipsets | | Sound | Realtek ALC888S 7.1 HD Audio | | Storage | 6x SATA2 + 2x eSATA2 + 1x IDE PATA + 2x IEEE 1394 | | LAN | Realtek RTL8111B + Realtek RTL8110SC 10/100/1000 Controller | | RAID | Serial ATA RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 | | Connectors | 3 PCI Express x16, 2 PCI Express x1, 2 PCI,12 USB 2.0, Firewire |
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Just like the P35 chipset, the X38 will be working on symbiosis with the ICH9 Southbridge. The ICH9 itself will be in charge of USB ports, audio, LAN and other ordinary things. One thing that X38 introduces is official support for DDR3-1333 memory, being more “advanced” than the P35 (which supports DDR3-1066) in that segment. Support for the upcoming 45 nm CPUs is also there, and Intel guarantees that every 45 nm Quad-Core CPU (Yorkfield series) will function on this chipset with no problems at all. Of course, older generations (90 nm and 65 nm CPUs) are 100% supported as well. Intel rates its chipset branch by the total power consumption of the CPU, so you can have a look at that chart as well. One of the biggest (and most important) novelties is the PCI-E 2.0 standard which has been implemented herein, bringing higher bandwidth for graphics cards while retaining compatibility with the 1.0 cards.
It's nice to see this feature, although there are currently no cards with such a high bandwidth request. Another important question that was raised many times is when CrossFire will finally work on Intel chipsets as supposed to, as the competition has had no problems with this for a longer period of time (Nvidia nForce680i and ATi CFX3200, for example). This issue was resolved as well, as the chipset now has a couple of full PCI-E 16x slots. Intel Extreme Memory is another new thing – it's the easiest to compare it with Nvidia's Sli-memory support.
The board auto-overclocks parameters by reading the SPD directly, thus retrieving information about the best possible stable settings. Many manufacturers already possess such features, named “Intel Extreme Overclocking Utility” or similarly, but it's nice to see this gone official. However, all this is theory, and we're here to see how the board WORKS. So let's get down to business :-)
Foxconn X38A Digital Life
We had the opportunity to meet the new chipset on this motherboard. Inside a large, neat box we found a lot of things. However, first things first. We have to acquaint you with the new “naming” principles of Foxconn, which were rather confusing in the past few years. For example, the motherboard we received was labeled “X38A”. The first three characters are the chipset name, and the final character signifies the format: “A” for full ATX, “M” for microATX and so forth. There are also a fifth and a sixth character which give a clue to whether you are dealing with an upgraded board (“P”) or its cheaper variant (“X”) etc., respectively.
The sixth character signifies the bundle. If there is no sixth character, you are dealing with a standard bundle, and if you see an “S” at the end, you can expect a premium bundle. The first thing you will notice on this board are six memory slots. We were kind of expecting that somebody will create such a concept, as the X38 chipset supports both DDR2 and DDR3 memory. Four out of these six slots are for DDR2, which is great, concerning the current price of DDR3. And when the upgrade time comes, you will still have a DDR3-ready motherboard. The layout is very good. We fancied the fact that the user can add a fan (comes in the bundle) atop the passive heatpipe system on the Northbridge.
The blue PCI-E slots are in charge of CrossFire, whereas the black PCI-E slot is a 4x one. Voltage filtering is 6-phased, and the board has all of the capacitors magnetic-plated. Power, Reset and Clear CMOS microswitches are located in the lower right corner, which we believe is the most suitable place. Signal lamps and a display are present as well, indicating the state of the motherboard – very useful when overclocking. The only possible flaw is the position of the SATA connectors, which could be a problem when a couple of long graphics cards are used, but even this can be surpassed by using the so-called “G-SATA” connectors.
The board is definitely a “multimedia” one. Connectors are aplenty, and we shall concentrate on the most important ones. Foxconn “Dual Digital Audio” offers a high-quality sound over a digital or analog output, therefore enabling the user to reproduce two separate audio signals via two different outputs. On the back side of the motherboard there is also a F.D.C. (Foxconn Digital Connector) on which various Foxconn devices can be attached. There will be a certain sort of display showing pictures, e-mails etc. We do not currently know exactly how this concept will work, but rest assured that you will be notified as soon as we find out. It sounds interesting indeed.
The BIOS was made by AMI. The BIOS itself is very thorough, and we admit we have never before seen some options such as choosing the exact number of available USB ports etc. It is also possible to set fan speeds for every temperature range in percent. Monitoring of all vital parts is very quick and efficient, which is not so common these days. All overclocking options are contained within the “Foxconn Overclocking Engine” option. All the required options are there, but we didn't like the fact that every single one of them has a separate “folder”, so to speak. The maximum FSB is 800 MHz, while the CPU voltage is raised in 12.5 mV steps (!), which there are 31 of.
The memory will go up to +0.476 V from the nominal voltage (both DDR2 and DDR3), in 0.032 V steps. The Northbridge can go up to +0.380 V, and the Southbridge can be “driven” up to +0.424 V. There are four memory dividers. Although the X38 chipset is by itself quite overclocking-friendly, we couldn't get our motherboard to work with the E6750 CPU. Memory overclocking was possible, but any sort of FSB-tweaking was brutally punished – the processor was downclocked to 8x266 MHz. We remind you that the default FSB of this CPU is 333 MHz. Foxconn's staff later notified us that the motherboard BIOS was causing all these problems, and that an update will solve them. In any case, we are sure that the Foxconn mobo will turn up being on the same level as all other X38 chipset-based motherboards.
| | Foxconn X38A Digital Life | | Cinebench 10 | 5,261 | | Nucelarus 2 ALU / FPU / Multi | 5.068 / 5.680 / 10.433 | | Photoshop CS3 | 40.1 s | | DivX 6.7 | 185.5 fps | | WinRAR 3.7 | 1.421 KB/s | | WPrime | 32.751 s | | Everest | | | Memory Read | 8.178 MB/s | | Memory Write | 6.112 MB/s | | Memory Copy | 6.577 MB/s | | Memory Latency | 65.2 ns | | 3DMark06 SM2 / SM3 / CPU | 2.417 / 2.145 / 2.401 | | COH (HighQ) | 52.7 fps | | Quake4 (UltraQ) | 96.4 fps | | FarCry (VeryHighQ) | 103.9 fps |
Testbed: C2D E6750 @ 2.66 GHz, 2x1GB KingstonHyperX DDR3 1066
7-7-7-20, 8600 GTS, Win XPSP2 |
All in all, we are very satisfied with the new face of Foxconn. If we take for granted the promised price of 170€ for this board, with all the possibilities it has, this is definitely a “Best Buy” motherboard in the upper segment. Foxconn obviously found its path in the multimedia-overclocking philosophy, which is a truly promising concept. Good work.
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