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The Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H is one of
least expensive P965 Express motherboards out there. Onboard goodies include a PCI Express x1-based Gigabit network card and an Intel Azalia High Definition 7.1 channel audio codec.
84% Rating:
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Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H |
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The Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H Motherboard Highlights
The Foxconn P9657AA-8KSH2H motherboard might
only support a single PCI Express x16 videocard but it still requires
a lot of power. If you find the system unstable during load, try connecting
the power supply to the motherboard through the auxiliary molex power connector
just above the PCI Express x1 slot. While PCI Express devices
aside from videocards are hard to come by, it's nice to see
this board supports higher bandwidth peripherals thanks to a PCI Express x4 slot.
For legacy hardware, three PCI slots are
provided. |
There are four USB
jacks at the rear I/O, the other six are available through the three green
USB headers on the PCB. No USB brackets are included however. The Foxconn
front panel I/O is not well labelled so keep the system installation guide
handy to decipher the pins. The low profile Intel ICH8 southbridge chipset
is passively cooled, and mechanically held in place rather than just using
frag tape - nice touch.
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The Foxconn
P9657AA-8KSH2H motherboard has an eight pin ATX 12V power connector but it
is compatible with older 4 pin power supplies. While it might be tempting
to touch the pins inside the socket 775 mechanism, it's a bad idea as you
can damage them easily. The board supports processors operating on a
533MHz, 800MHz, or 1066MHz Front Side
Bus.
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The four DDR-2 memory
slots accommodate up to 8GB of DDR2-800 memory. PCSTATS recommends
installing at least 1GB-2GB DDR-2. There is one single IDE channel at your
disposal so make certain all hard drives are SATA. Next to the memory we
find the legacy floppy and main 24 pin ATX power connector. The Intel P965
Express chipset is cooled by a larger passive aluminum heatsink that takes
advantage of the air currents from the CPU fan exhaust for cooling. Or in
other words, it's a completely silent cooling
solution!
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