Foxconn show up with a new Intel P55 chipset motherboard, the Inferno Katana GTI. r1ch takes a look at it here.

First up, let’s let Foxconn introduce themselves and the Quantum Force line up:

Amen! That sort of mission statement is exactly what we’re after here at BenchTec, a committment to enthusiasts and overclockers to produce the sorts of motherboard we dream of…hopefully!

Specifications:

Now if specifications aren’t your sort of thing I’ll move swifty on to the retail packaging and the board itself. Here’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

Packaging

Standard affair that we’ve come to see from Foxconn. Well presented and functional.

The Board

Foxconn have used the same sexy (yes I did just use the word “sexy” in a review) styling for their P55 motherboards as they did for the X58 motherboards. Black and red just work together so well and make it look like a classy piece of kit.

The board features three PCI-E 16x physical slots, and no NF200 chip which means you’ll get the best possible performance out of your single card and dual card setup with 16x PCI-E2.0 and 2x 8xPCI-E2.0 respectively.  It supports a third card in the lower black PCI-E slot, but this is limited to 4x PCI-E2.0 so would only be suitable for a low end graphics, PhysX or RAID card.

An 8-phase hybrid PWM circuit of DirectFET MOSFETs supplies the Core voltage while a 2-phase circuit supplies the Uncore voltage. The DDR3 voltage is also supplies bya  2-phase circuit.

On the side of the board we can see the voltage read points which first appeared on the BloodRAGE and it is good to see a few more added for this board. Also on this pic we can see the space where the “Fuzzy Equalizer” feature would be on the Inferno Katana board. This shows the number of active phases in use by the CPU at any time. It works together with the new i-Tweaker logic chip.

Video Tour:

BIOS

Foxconn have had to move from the Phoenix Award BIOS they have become used to on the BlackOps and BloodRAGE boards to an AMI (American Megatrends) BIOS for the Inferno Katana. This means that things are done in a slightly different way to normal for someone like me who is used to an Award BIOS. That being said, I am quickly getting used to it and it’s not all that bad.

Test System:

Foxconn Inferno Katana GTI (P02 BIOS)
Intel Core i7 870 LGA 1156 Engineering Sample
4GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 RAM
nVidia Geforce 9500GT
Antec TPQ-1KW

Evocarlos’ single stage rotary phase.

Intel TurboTech:

One ace that these P55 boards have up their sleeve is Intel’s Turbo Modes for the CPUs which are an extension of EIST. Simply with a stock BIOS, the CPU will adjust it’s multiplier on-the-fly to give you the best performance. Here’s a little table showing what happens with the Core i7 870 with Turbo disabled:

With Turbo enabled:

These are the potential multiplers and speeds that the CPU can automatically achieve, given a set of conditions are met. The CPU must be operating with temperature, current and power draw limits. If any one of these limits are exceeded, the CPU will drop to a lower multiplier until within the limits again. This is really good news gor us as extra multiplier mean the potential to overclock higher as we can overcome a potential motherboard limitation, but also because it gives us much more flexibility on the DDR3 multiplier.

Tests and Results:

For an early BIOS, the board is doing very well. Overclocking on this board really couldn’t be simpler, there are only two voltages to increase to achieve 90% of what the board can offer. CPU Vcore and CPU VTT can be increased as and when each one is needed. For the other two voltages, the CPU PLL can actually be reduced for less stress on the CPU down to 1.7v from 1.8v. Lastly, the PCH voltage can be increased from 1.05 to 1.10-1.15 when overclocking above 4Ghz for some added stability.

Due to a couple of reasons, one being simply time, and secondly the lack of a Windows tool to adjust the bclk, I wasn’t able to get the maximum performance possible out of this board. I’d be willing to put money on being able to get to 220bclk with setfsb or an equivalent, as the system could fully boot and run SuperPi 32M at 215.

CPU-Z:

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=720254

Bclk:
215

Potential for a lot higher, lack of setfsb limits

SuperPi 1M:

201×24=4820Mhz
Hwbot #4

Pifast:
198×24=4756Mhz
Hwbot #4

SuperPi 32M:
198×24=4756Mhz

wPrime 32M:
210×22=4624Mhz

wPrime 1024M:
208×22=4581Mhz
Hwbot #5

Usage:

One thing I like to do when I review a board is to talk a bit about how the board is to use. It’s my way of trying to convey all those aspects of using a motherboard that you don’t get from just screenshots and pictures.

The Inferno Katana GTI is a very easy board to use. The new BIOS layout is a breath of fresh air and overclocking involves just two voltages.

One thing the BIOS/board is lacking is an override for the Intel Turbo mode, if we had a “Current Feedback Override” like there is available on the BloodRAGE then it would be possible to force a 24x mutli for 4 cores, 26 multi for 2 core and a 27 multi for 1 core all the time, rather than it dropping to a lower multi under large current/power draw. I’ll write this one off as there’s only the one BIOS available, but this is something that needs to be in the next release.

In gereral, the board was extremely well behaved, and the overclock recovery worked fine every time. That being said, it would be nice to be told when it had recovered, and have it pause on the POST screen rather than boot to Windows only to realise it was at stock speeds.

Like I mentioned in the Flaming Blade GTI review before, this board overvolts the DDR3 and this time by 0.04v. I’m slightly disappointed to see this get worse with this board, especially with the Elpida “Hyper” kits dropping left right and centre, you’d think Foxconn could have this undervolting rather than over.

Conclusion

Foxconn might just be onto a real winner with this motherboard. We’re yet to hear what the final pricing will be, and actually whether it will be coming to all the global markets, but with some good news on those two fronts there’s nothing to stop this from being a serious contender for your hard-earned and well-saved money that wasn’t spent on a LGA1136 i7 rig.

While this GTI version doesn’t come with a few of the more fancy features of the non-GTI Inferno Katana like the Fuzzy Equalizer, extra 4-phase CPU PWM and Force Reset button, I think it offers the more sensible approach to a Lynnfield-based setup. P55 rigs will be built around price/performance parts and Foxconn have done right by this board.