Doom 3	Source: id Software

Doom 3 is the most advanced game to date. it takes advantage of the latest videocard technology and pushes the processing power of the CPU to its absolute limit. At its highest setting, Ultra quality, texture sizes pass the 500MB mark which means even tomorrow's videocards will have a hard time running everything. The frame rates in the game itself are locked at 60 fps so anything above that point is wasted. Each test is run three times with the third run being recorded.

Doom3
LQ 640x480:	Points	Ranking
ECS RS400-A (RS400 200/400 Onboard Video)	8.1
MSI 661FM3-V (SiS 661FX 200/400 Onboard Video)	5.2
Albatron K8X890 Pro II (K8T890 200/400)	125.7
MSI RS480M2-IL (RS480 200/400 Onboard Video)	14.2
MSI RS480M2-IL (RS480 200/400 7800GTX)	110.4
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 (Uli M1695 200/400)	119.5
Chaintech Zenith VNF4 Ultra (NF4 Ultra 200/400)	124.7
DFI LANParty NF4 SLI-DR (NF4 SLI 200/400)	126.9
ECS KN1 Extreme SLI (NF4 SLI 200/400)	124.4
Epox 9NPA+ SLI (NF4 SLI 200/400)	124.3
Foxconn WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS (GF6150 200/400 Onboard Video)	21.1
Foxconn WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS (GF6150 200/400 GeForce 7800GTX)	123.3

Doom 3 is too much for the integrated videocard, but it is still faster than ATi's alternative. Performance with a GeForce 7800GTX installed is excellent, and turning the Foxconn WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS into a gaming machine is quite easy.

An excellent versatile motherboard!

The trend towards physically smaller PCs is increasing in popularity and it's only a matter of time before computers as we know it become extinct. Those of you looking to build a high powered yet small AMD-based HTPC/workstation PCs have been pretty much out of luck until now. ATi released its Radeon Xpress 200 a few months ago, but only for the Pentium 4 processor. nVIDIA on the other hand has more command over the AMD motherboard market, and manufacturers are lining up to build the new GeForce 6100-series motherboards.

The Foxconn WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS is one of what I am sure will be many GeForce 6150 powered motherboards to hit the market. For a MicroATX board it is pretty well equipped with 7.1 channel audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE 1394a and of course onboard video which includes nVIDIA's PureVideo for HD content. If you need to upgrade, its PCI Express x16 and three PCI slots should be sufficient.

The performance of the Foxconn WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS was quite good; in workstation style benchmarks like SYSMark 2004, Business Winstone 2004 and Content Creation 2004 the little motherboard had no problems keeping up with much higher end models. While the integrated nVidia GeForce 6150 videocard is weak with respect to 3D games, it should be enough for casual gamers and does outperform ATi's Radeon Xpress 200 integrated videocard on the whole. If you need something a bit more powerful, the motherboard does have that open PCI Express x16 slot for a reason. ;-)

While HD playback is supported by PureVideo which is integrated into the nVidia Geforce 6150 chipset, Foxconn has decided not to implement any component output options. That means users can watch High Definition (1080p/1080i) MPEG-2/WMV9 content through their PC monitors only, but not via High Definition Televisions. With HDTV popularity exploding, and high definition content just around the corner, it would have been useful for Foxconn to include component outputs instead of just an S-Video output bracket. While the motherboard incorporates accelerated HD content viewing on the computer monitor, it is a little less attractive than other GeForce 6150 based motherboards hitting the streets for lack of any component (Y, Pb, Pr) outputs.

Ultimately though, with a retail price of $105 CDN ($90US) the Foxconn WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS is an absolute steal!

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