Intel P35 / X38 Motherboards Roundup
Foxconn MARS (Intel P35; DDR2)
Foxconn has made another attempt to win the hearts of computer enthusiasts through release of the MARS motherboard. This product falls within the Quantum Force series which is some sort of an analog to the ASUS Republic of Gamers series. We must admit, Foxconn has done a good job of that: not only does the board offer powerful expansion options - it does a superb job of overclocking Intel processors.
The cooling system of Foxconn MARS motherboard is standard for high-end systems: on all the key components there are massive radiators interlinked with heat pipes. Also, you can install an additional fan on top of the radiator of the north bridge:
Then, the board uses a Gigabit LAN controller, there is an additional Serial ATA II/Parallel ATA RAID JMB361 controller, two Firewire ports, 12 USB 2.0 ports, and 8-channel integrated audio.
The board also uses two PCI Express x16, three PCI, and two PCI Express x1 slots:
It is hard to judge how abundant the board's package bundle is because the retail price of the product is unknown. Nevertheless, apart from the standard components, enthusiasts will be pleased by the "army" metal tokens with a unique number:
Among the board's special traits, we note the additional FoxOne chip whose functionality has been repeatedly discussed in the previous reviews:
Besides, the reset of CMOS is implemented in a non-standard way - by means of a button.
There is a couple more buttons: one to power-on, and one to reset the system.
The special trait of the rear panel is in that one SerialATA II, a Firewire port, as well as an optical and coaxial SP-DIF output are brought over to it.
In terms of functionality, the board is rather powerful. The set of memory latency timings is wider than the standard, and the board showed a good compatibility to memory modules.
The system monitoring settings are also wider than the standard:
The board displays the current temperature values for the CPU, system, north bridge, and offers a feature to adjust the rotational speed of the CPU cooler depending on CPU temperature (SmartFAN) as well as coolers connected to the SYS_FAN and NB_FAN (a dependence on the temperature of the system and the north bridge, respectively).
A few words on the overclocking tools.
The board allows adjusting the FSB speed within 100 to 999 MHz, raising the CPU voltage to 2.0736 V (in very small increments), on the memory - to 3.365 V, as well as raising voltage on the north bridge to 2.395 V, on the south bridge - to 1.95 V, and on the FSB - to 1.725 V. In real overclocking, the motherboard showed superb results - a stable operation at FSB=552 MHz.
Another useful feature is about storage of four independent BIOS profiles in the memory:
Pros:
- High stability and good performance level;
- Two PCI Express x16 slots;
- Support for SerialATA II /RAID ( 7 links; ICH9R + JMB361);
- Support for one P-ATA link (JMB363);
- Integrated 8-channel audio and Gigabit Ethernet LAN controller;
- Support for USB2.0 (12 ports) and IEEE-1394 (Firewire, 2 ports);
- Additional FoxOne chip + utilities (BIOS profiles, AEGIS Panel);
- Attractive package bundle;
- Passive/active system for cooling the chipset and the power supply module;
Cons:
The board's specific features:
- Superb results of overclocking the CPU (FSB = 552 MHz) and the memory;
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