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: |
FPS |
Ranking |
| Foxconn 955X7AA-8EKRS2 (955X 200/667) |
96.9 |
   |
| Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2 (945P 200/667) |
94.3 |
|
| ECS 945G-M3 (945G 200/667) |
97.6 |
|
| MSI P4N Diamond (NF4 SLI 200/800) |
97.3 |
|
| Foxconn NF4SLI7AA-8EKRS2 (NF4 SLI 200/800) |
95.9 |
|
| ECS C19-A SLI (NF4 SLI XE 200/800) |
97.8 |
|
| Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H (975X 200/667) |
104.3 |
   |
Is there any doubt which motherboard is fastest? The
Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H is kicking some major butt in this game!
Quake 4 is the latest shooter from ID and is based on the
Doom 3 engine. Tweaked to for more eye candy, Quake 4 promises to be tougher on
videocards and systems than its predecessor was. Quake 4 also does not have a 60
fps limiter like Doom 3, with the Ultra setting, graphic textures can surpass
the 500MB mark! Each test is run three times and with the third run being
recorded.
| Quake 4 |
| LQ 640x480 |
FPS |
Ranking |
| ECS 945G-M3 (945G 200/667) |
115.4 |
|
| ECS C19-A SLI (NF4 SLI XE 200/800) |
116.4 |
|
| Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H (975X 200/667) |
127.3 |
|
Wow, the Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H is almost 11 FPS faster
than the competition in Quake 4!
|
experts tip: bios flashes made
easy! |
|
for some, flashing the motherboard bios can be one
of the most aggravating things in the world. avoiding bios flashes is
never a good idea, so foxconn has done its part to make things easier on
the end user.
now this next part requires a 1.44mb floppy drive
(remember those?) with the current bios image on it (you can find these on
www.foxconnchannel.com). At the POST screen insert
the floppy diskette into the drive and press ALT + F2. That will
decompress the AWDFLASH.EXE executable that's stored in the BIOS and load
the flasher into memory. The program will look for the new BIOS image on
the floppy drive, if it detects one it will automatically start flashing
process. Let the system do its thing (it will take about 10 seconds) and
reboot the system when the program says to. Viola, BIOS flashing made
simple. |
| Comments and Feedback? Suggest a
Tweak. |
Intel back in the
game!
After years of domination, Intel has been upset both in
the processor and chipset fronts. With the Intel 975X chipset though, it looks
like chipzilla is starting to claw its way back to the core-logic peak. While
its processor are still outmatched by AMD's Athlon64, Intel's chipsets are
retaking the performance lead away from nVIDIA... somewhat.
To take on nVIDIA SLI and allow users to run two
videocards in tandem, Intel has adopted ATi's CrossFire technology. The Intel
975X chipset is still missing DDR2-800 memory support, but as the benchmarks
have indicated that's not a big issue.
The Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H is a very fine motherboard which
is absolutely filled with useful onboard features. The highlights in our book
are the additional Serial ATA II RAID controller with eSATA port, dual Gigabit
NICs and 400Mbps IEEE 1394a Fireware connections for external devices.
The performance of the Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H
motherboard was quite good in SYSMark2004, 3DMark05 and Doom 3. It is one of the
fastest Intel-based motherboards that PCSTATS has tested to date, and you'll
find no major complaints from on us component layout or anything else for that
matter. With a retail price of $274 CDN ($241 US, £134 GBP), the Foxconn
955X7AA-8EKRS2 is pricey as motherboards go, but in line with what a similarly
equipped Intel 975X-based motherboards will set you back. From what the
benchmarks have shown us, the Intel 975X chipset once again lends credence to
the argument that Intel processors function best on Intel chipsets. That'll do
Foxconn, that'll do. ;-)
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Review
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