With external Serial ATA racks and port multiplier devices starting to spring up, this gives users a super high bandwidth link to external storage devices like a hard drive. With Serial ATA II's 300Gbps, it is six to seven times faster than the traditional USB 2.0 (480Mbps) or IEEE 1394a (400Mbps) connection!

Many of the latest generation high performance motherboards including the Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H come equipped with an eight pin ATX12V connector, but most power supplies are still compatible. Conventional four pin ATX12V connectors are compatible with the 8-pin socket on this motherboard, as is the 20 pin main ATX connector with the 24-pin socket on this board. Although, we do not recommend the latter.

The Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H has a ton of integrated features, and a good set of upgrade options. There are two PCI Express x1 slots available for high bandwidth devices and two traditional 32 bit PCI slots for older peripherals. The two physical PCI Express x16 slots share 16 PCI Express lanes, so for example when two videocards are installed the bus is split evenly (8 PCI-E lanes apiece) between them.

Thanks to the four Pericom chips next to the second PCI Express x1 slot, when two cards are installed, no hardware manipulation is required for configuring SLI; the motherboard automatically splits the PCI Express lanes.

One detail that's really nice about this package are the high quality rounded cables bundled in. The set included with the 975X7AA-8EKRS2H are not regular IDE cables folded and wrapped in rubber, these have the individually cut wires lines.

That means these cables can flex and move to wherever you want them to go. Let's just say this, the rounded IDE cables that come with the Foxconn motherboards are the same $10 IDE cables you would buy in the store, not the cheap $3 models. For some reason though, Foxconn included two rounded Ultra/133 IDE cables with the 975X7AA-8EKRS2H motherboard even though this particular model only has one IDE channel.

The layout of the Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H motherboard is absolutely perfect and I have no complaints, so let's cut short the tour-de-PCB and move onto the subject of Fox One Technology. Breaker. Echo Tango Out.