Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H Motherboard Review

As with our review of the its predecessor the Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H was a real joy to have in the Ninjalane Labs and while it may be difficult to tell the difference between the two there were several improvements to make this board better than before. Feature wise you won't find anything extra outside of what Intel expressly supports. That is with the exception of the additional PATA (IDE) controller. This feature was missing from the previous version but appears to have been planned in advance as a place was set aside for both the controller chip and IDE connector.

Of course the obvious enhancement is direct support for the new Intel Core 2 Duo. While this board supports all 775 Intel processors the Core 2 Duo is really the future in Intel performance. Additionally you'll find a digital power supply that not only cleans up the area around the processor socket but is designed to deliver stable and accurate power for the processor and supporting components.

Being the type that pays more attention to the look and functionally of a product we find the last two updates to be quite distinctive. For instance the 4 "Overclocking" LEDs are something that we've never seen on a motherboard before. Granted there have been LEDs on a motherboards, some are helpful, and some are just for show but Foxconn made these functional based on how the motherboard is being used. Lastly while most will dismiss the small power button we did find it to be helpful on a number of occasions. Never know, maybe the addition of an inexpensive item such as this could have actually saved money when it came to testing boards at the factory.

Of course we can't conclude this review without mentioning the Sexy red PCB one more time, well, ok maybe two more times.

Now for the ever popular list of Good things and Bad things.

Fox One Performance modifications
Overclocking Level LEDs
Dual Video Card Support including ATI CrossFire
Lots of overclocking options
External SATA
7.1 channel, high definition audio
Sexy Red PCB

Issues with overclocking above 340Mhz
Isolated RAID with additional PATA connector
Limited to 1x PCI Express expansion card options

I would like to thank Foxconn for helping to make this review possible.