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- Date:
- Thursday , October 09, 2008
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Foxconn A79A-S - 790FX SB750 Motherboard
While Foxconn certainly isn't the first name that normally comes to an enthusiasts' mind while shopping for a motherboard, its motherboards are certainly becoming more common. Foxconn's A79A-S certainly looks like a product that just might gain them some attention in a market crowded by ASUS and Gigabyte.
Introduction
Foxconn isn't a name that every enthusiast is familiar with. Well not in regard to producing enthusiast boards. But look at almost any motherboard made today and you'll probably see the Foxconn name on it somewhere. Foxconn manufactures connectors, ports, plugs, motherboards and tons of other stuff like those little covers that protect LGA775 sockets during shipping. Regardless, Foxconn has rarely if ever wowed the enthusiast market with their products. In fact this board marks only the second Foxconn motherboard I've ever worked with. Regardless their reputation seems to be growing and for the better.
The Foxconn A79A-S is based off of AMD's 790FX chipset which is nothing new around here as it's been around about as long as the AMD Phenom processor has. However this time Foxconn has added something new to the 790FX in the form of AMD's SB750 south bridge. Normally a south bridge isn't all that exciting but AMD added a new feature called ACC or Auto Clock Calibration. What this feature does in a nutshell is increase Phenom overclocking headroom by 100MHz-300MHz. How exactly this is achieved on a technical level is difficult to know as AMD is keeping the details on how this is accomplished vague at this point.
Keep in mind that we aren't talking about the FSB but rather the CPU's total clock speed increase in overclocking. I'd expect to start seeing AMD enthusiast boards begin adopting these new south bridges very quickly in support of this much needed feature as well as the other improvements that SB750 brings to the table. It offers support for up to 12 USB ports, improved USB performance, RAID 5 functionality just to name the highlights. Basically aside from ACC the SB750 brings to the table features that AMD's competition has already had for at least 2 years. The Foxconn A79A-S supports the latest AMD Phenom processors, Athlon 64/X2/FX and Sempron socket AM2/AM2+ processors. As with all newer motherboards few additional components are required to complete a functional machine. The required components are a socket AM2/AM2+ compatible CPU, DDR2 memory, video card, power supply and drives. Foxconn integrated the following components into the A79A-S: 1 ATA 133 port, 1 floppy port, 6 SATA ports, 2 eSATA ports (JMicron JMB36x), 12 USB ports (6 on the IO panel, 6 via USB headers), 2 GigE Ethernet ports, 6 mini-headphone jacks, 1 optical port , 1 S/PDIF port, and standard PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports.
Main Specifications Overview:
Detailed Specifications Overview:
Packaging
Unlike most of the boards we usually work with the A79A-S isn't a retail sample. The box it came in was generic and wasn't finalized. It came with only an I/O shield and generic packaging. No accessories were provided.
Board Layout
Normally I hammer the crap out of every socket AM2/AM2+ board I've seen in the last year or so for having a terrible layout. Amazingly enough I don't have to do that here. Instead I have only a couple of gripes to talk about in regard to this issue. The main issue I've got is with the fact that not all of the SATA ports are using the right angle style connector. Port placement, DIMM sockets, chipset cooling, and everything else are placed appropriately. Auxiliary power is placed about as well as to be expected given the usual placement on boards such as these. I'd prefer the aux power connector get moved over next to the other power connectors, but I seldom get my wishes granted on stuff like this. I'm just happy the CPU socket is reasonably clear and that you can install or remove memory modules with the graphics card installed. While that last point wouldn't have been a deal breaker for me, I can't think of a reasonable excuse for it. It is quite annoying when motherboard manufactures fail to leave enough room to add memory to the system with a video card installed. Memory upgrades are quite common and its' something that many PC noobies attempt to do themselves from time to time.
I'm not generally one to comment much on a boards' color but the color scheme of the A79A-S is ugly. I don't know why such unflattering and chaotic color schemes are chosen for so many boards in the industry but this isn't exactly an isolated incident. The board has white, gold, red, blue, yellow, brown and florescent green on it.
As I stated earlier, the CPU area is relatively clear of obstructions. Yes the memory slots are closer to the CPU than I care for but that's just the way it goes with AMD processor compatible motherboards. Most people shouldn't find the proximity of the memory slots to be too big an issue. You'd have to be using a giant CPU cooler and really tall memory modules for this to become a problem.
Like most enthusiast class AM2 boards the Foxconn has four DDR2 DIMM slots. Like the rest of the boards color scheme the memory slots are colored in a semi-hideous fashion. Blue for one channel and yellow for the other. As I said before the memory slots are placed in a manner that allows for memory to be installed and removed with a large video card installed.
The north bridge is located in the usual area between the expansion slots and the CPU socket. The chipset is cooled with a heat pipe and I found the north bridge to be fairly poorly cooled compared to other 790FX chipset based boards I've dealt with in the past. It wasn't horrible but the chipset is definitely hot to touch which could seriously effect overclocking should the ambient temperature in the case or the room the system resides in be a bit on the warm side. (I'm working with 78F ambient temperatures on that note.)
The south bridge is placed in front of the expansion slot area. It is directly in front of the two brown PCI-Express slots. Also the IDE port is directly in front of it and to the left of that are the SATA ports. The south bridge is kept cool by a small and flat passive gold colored heat sink. It did get a bit warm to the touch when under heavy usage but it's not hot enough to seriously injure you should you touch it while in operation.
The Foxconn A79A-S supports the PCI-Express 2.0 specification and supports CrossfireX. The slot layout is actually quite excellent for multi-GPU configurations. The top slot is ideally placed for single GPU and Crossfire configurations. With one dual slot cooled video card installed you lose but one PCI-Express x1 slot. This still leaves you with three PCI-Express x16 slots as well as a single PCI slot. The brown slots denote x8 operation while in a CrossfireX configuration. If only the two blue PCI-Express x16 slots are used the blue slots operate in a 16x16 configuration. When four GPUs are installed all four slots operate at x8 speeds. There is only one legacy PCI 2.2 slot but fortunately the need for these slots diminishes all the time. I applaud the choice Foxconn made to provide only one of these rather than potentially losing a PCIe slot to accommodate more standard PCI slots.
As you can see the Foxconn A79A-S has the following ports on the rear I/O panel: PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, 1 IEEE1394a port, 2 eSATA ports, 2 RJ-45 GigE ports, 1 S/PDIF port, six mini-stereo headphone jacks, 1 optical out jack, and 6 USB ports.