http://www.benchtec.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=6011

We’ve previously looked at Foxconn’s Quantum Force range of boards for our reviews, including their BloodRAGE X58, Flaming Blade GTI X58 and Inferno Katana GTI P55 boards. Today we look at their more run-of-the-mill “Channel” business which is aimed at your everyday PC builder, offering value for money ahead of overclocking prowess.

As today’s review is going to be aimed at the HTPC crowd, overclocking isn’t going to the be-all and end-all of this review. All those other everyday considerations are going to come into it, while system cost will likely dictate what we choose.

Specifications:

The two Foxconn micro-ATX motherboards we’re going to be using today are the H55MX-S and Cinema II Deluxe boards based on the Intel H55 and AMD Socket AM3/785G chipset’s respectively.

Foxconn have done a good job of laying out the features and specifications on their website so I won’t bother copy-pasting.

H55MX-S

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/product/Motherboards/detail_overview.aspx?ID=en-us0000484

Cinema II Deluxe

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/product/Motherboards/detail_overview.aspx?ID=en-us0000472

It’s worth mentioning at this point that the Cinema II board comes from Foxconn’s “Digital Life” range of motherboards and is designed and marketed for the HTPC audience. The H55 board should achieve this as well, but isn’t marketed as such.

While the Cinema II Deluxe board provides connections for RGB, DVI and HDMI, the H55MX-S lacks the RGB port and offers the two more important DVI and HDMI.

Both offer 7.1 channel audio with an optical audio out option.

The Cinema II supports up to 4 sticks of DDR3 RAM, while the H55MX-S only accepts 2 sticks. The story is reversed for the SATA ports, 4 and 6 respectively.

The major difference is in the GPU platform. The Cinema II board sports ATI’s HD 4200 GPU whereas the H55MX-S will be relying on Intel’s latest “Clarkdale” range of CPU’s with integrated GPU. The Cinema II Deluxe also provides 128MB of DDR3 1333 sideport memory, which is dedicated to the HD 4200, providing a 20% extra performance according to Foxconn’s website.

Packaging

H55MX-S

Cinema II Deluxe

Both packages are fairly bargain basement. You get the board, a quick-start guide, a manual, a driver CD and a couple of SATA data cables.

The Board

H55MX-S

Cinema II Deluxe

One board certainly steals the show in terms of presentation here, and it’s not the easy-off-the-tongue H55MX-S. The Cinema II Deluxe board looks stunning with it’s black PCB and orange accents, perhaps even on a par with Foxconn’s Quantum Force range of board in the looks department.

Video Tour:

Foxconn H55MX-S tour:

Foxconn Cinema II Deluxe tour:

Test Systems:

While this is pairing an AMD Quad Core with an Intel Dual Core, the 661 has HyperThreading and the Phenom II is actually substatially cheaper.

BIOS:

H55MX-S

Cinema II Deluxe

Soon.

Tests and Results:

First up, let’s look at the SATA, USB, and DDR3 speeds using HDTach and Everest.

Not much to seperate these two at all, the drives themselves are most definitely the bottleneck here. Cinema II just edges it on the SATA performance.

For raw bandwidth the H55 platform wins with higher read and write speeds and only slightly losing out on the copy speed. Latency goes to the AM3 785G platform, by a considerable margin.

MPEG-4 HD decode is up next – Two sample MPEG-4 movie clips, in 720p and 1080p were played while using the Windows “perfmon” tool to log CPU utilisation. Media Player Classic was used with two registry settings to switch the GPU acceleration on and off.

The H55MX-S storms this, making light work of the HD decode. On both platforms the picture was clear and crisp over HDMI and the was no stutter or jitter to the picture or audio.

Windows Media Video (WMV) HD decode as well – Two sample WMV HD clips, in 720p and 1080p were played while using the Windows “perfmon” tool to log CPU utilisation. Media Player Classic was used with two registry settings to switch the GPU acceleration on and off.

Both systems handled the files with ease, although in both cases CPU utilisation by the audio driver was in the region of 4-5%. This may account for the lack of variation in results, but I suspect something was at fault for the Cinema II tests as identical results indicate an issue with enabling GPU acceleration.

This one surprised me. The Core i5 661’s 900Mhz IGP runs rings around the Cinema II’s HD 4200, even with the 128Mb DDR3 sideport memory. Faster in the DirectX9 3DMark03, and also much faster in DX10 – the “Entry” game tests were nearly twice as fast on the i5’s IGP.

Intel has always been strong in SuperPi and Pifast.

This one was also a turn up for the books. Intel’s faster clocked and HyperThreaded dual core edging out AMD’s native quad core. Turbo Boost ramps the 661 up to nearly 3.5Ghz through this multi-threaded test, adding 1Ghz per core over the Phenom II X4 805. With 7Ghz vs 10Ghz of total processing power, the AMD should still win on paper, but Hyperthreading and the improved clock-for-clock performance see the dual-core win this.

On the whole, the AMD platform gets pipped at every post, losing out in key areas such as HD decoding, gaming, single threaded and multi-threaded performance with the low memory latency it’s only significant ‘win’.

I can’t complete this review without owning up to a proper face-palm moment with the Cinema II Deluxe board. I completed this full set of testing, including screenshots and overclock with the board in single channel memory mode. Doh! My last AMD system was a S939 Athlon 64 3800+ and I’ve since had Intel which has made me ritually install memory in 1/3 or 2/4 slots. On this Foxconn board, and I’m assured all Foxconn boards, dual channel modules should go in the same coloured slots which in the Cinema II Deluxe’s case is 1/2 or 3/4. While I understand this might be better from a technical point of view with the signalling and latency, I would always prefer to see the 1/3 or 2/4 layout for compatibility and simply basic airflow reasons. The BIOS and/or motherboard traces can be designed to account for the technical aspects.

FoxOne:

Here is Foxconn’s FoxOne software. It looks identical for both systems but the H55 CD came with a slightly newer version. First up is the choice of 4 skins…

Moving swiftly on. Also featured is a range of frequency, voltage and fan adjustments with some monitoring. This is the only overclocking facility for the H55MX-S board and your options are limited to upping the bclk, which raises the core frequency and the memory frequency, or upping the memory frequency that ups the bclk as well…Yeah, they do the same thing.

Well, it’s a start. Those of you who read my Inferno Katana GTI review will see that Windows overclocking was something I specifically asked for and so, here it is. I just wish that these things didn’t need to be so garish and childish in their design. Way too much nowadays is made form over function.

Overclocking

H55MX-S

A quick bump of the bclk later, and at stock voltages we’re able to complete wPrime 1024 at 152×26, or 3950Mhz. This improves the wPrime time by 45 seconds.

Cinema II Deluxe

First up, some quick Everest benchmarks after two changes from defaults in the BIOS from Auto DDR3-1333 to DDR3-1600 and set CAS to 8.

Again, just the two changes from defaults in the BIOS for this one – bus speed to 252 which seemed to be the highest is was happy booting with at stock voltages and CAS to 8.

Leaving the CAS on Auto sets it to 11, but 250×12.5 gives a respectible quad core overclock of 3125Mhz. wPrime improves by a massive 90 seconds and finally puts it faster than the i5 661, even at 3950Mhz.

Last up, we’ve got the HD 420 overclocking. Again, this couldn’t be simpler – one option in the BIOS, just keep raising it until it stops working. 1059Mhz through 3DMark03 made for pleasant viewing, but sadly, even at over 1Ghz  it still couldn’t beat the 900Mhz IGP of the i5 661.

The Cinema II Deluxe board really was very simple to overclock and get that added extra bit of performance from. Bear in mind that heat was and will be an issue. I introduced a number of fans onto the board to provide airflow around the chipset and the PWM area.

Usage:

While I didn’t take temperature readings of the CPU/motherboard/chipset/etc during testing, the AMD system was noticeably hotter. I would like to have been able to say “warmer”, but the quad core produces more heat, the board PWM produces more heat and the chipset produces more heat. The Intel system, on the other hand, is noticeably “cooler”. No part of the board got particularly warm and the stock Intel cooler was more than sufficient.

If you’ve studied the Cinema II Deluxe’s BIOS screens well, you’ll notice that some of the options appear more than once. Changing one will change the other so there’s no problem with it as such, but I’m not sure what to make of this. On the one hand it might mean you find something quicker if you don’t know where you’re looking, but on the other hand, it’s duplication where it’s not needed and makes for a more cluttered BIOS.

While the FoxOne software is functional on both boards, it is somewhat generic and limited. Some of the displayed voltages can’t be adjusted and some of the overclocking frequencies can’t be adjusted. There isn’t an option for saving and loading profiles but there has been effort spent to include a number of themes that can be selected.

Both boards proved stable even on their shipping BIOS, working their way through the benchmark suite with ease and even handling some small overclock testing.

Conclusion:

The longer I spent with these two boards, the more I realised that their best use was actually very different.

The Foxconn AM3 785G board, with it’s support for BIOS overclocking, Quad core CPUs, 4 DIMM slots, ATI Hybrid graphics technology etc is best utilised as a small desktop PC, maybe where space is an issue, maybe where a user only wants one PC that can do everything including hooking up to their big-screen tele for HD video playback, fitting a discrete graphics card for some high resolution gaming on a monitor, and with a large amount of RAM supporting a multicore powerhouse AMD CPU. A student fits the bill perfectly, where they live out of the same room and everything is an arms length away.

The Foxconn H55 board is a bit more limited. There isn’t any overclocking options in the BIOS, there isn’t a quad core CPU with an IGP so you’re limited to a dual cores and there’s only 2 DIMM channels so you’re limited to the amount of RAM you can install. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it’s not a jack of all trades, it’s a master of one, which is being a HTPC and providing a cool, quiet, power efficient platform capable of handling HD playback on the big screen. This one is for the living room, sat in a small case next to the digital TV box and the AV receiver.

While on first impressions these two boards might have seemed destined for similar audiences, they do a much better job complementing Foxconn’s product line up than competing against each other.

Foxconn H55MX-S mATX H55 chipset motherboard

Foxconn Cinema II Dexlue mATX AM3 785G chipset motherboard

H55 benchmarked, is it all it’s cracked up to be?

http://www.benchtec.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=5689

]]> http://www.benchtec.co.uk/index.php/2010/01/05/intel-dh55tc-motherboard-review/feed/ 0 http://www.benchtec.co.uk/index.php/2009/12/15/antec-truepower-quattro-1200w-oc-psu-review/ http://www.benchtec.co.uk/index.php/2009/12/15/antec-truepower-quattro-1200w-oc-psu-review/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:01:49 +0000 r1ch http://www.benchtec.co.uk/?p=1050 Something a bit special for you guys today, Paul takes a look at Antec’s latest PSU that’s branded as an “Overclocking Edition”. See what he thinks here.

We don’t just do motherboard reviews here, PSU’s are just as important a component.

http://www.benchtec.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=5563

Is there a P55 board from Asus that Paul hasn’t looked at? All the features explained in depth here:

http://www.benchtec.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=5478

]]> http://www.benchtec.co.uk/index.php/2009/12/01/asus-p7p55d-premium-review/feed/ 0 http://www.benchtec.co.uk/index.php/2009/11/25/asus-p7p55-ws-supercomputer-review/ http://www.benchtec.co.uk/index.php/2009/11/25/asus-p7p55-ws-supercomputer-review/#comments Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:05:52 +0000 r1ch http://www.benchtec.co.uk/?p=1034 I don’t know how he does it. Sacha35 with another P55 board from Asus, this time their Workstation board.

Well done Paul, another incredibly in-depth review. You’ve seen a lot of P55 boards so you know when you’ve got a good one.

http://www.benchtec.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=5425

James runs the board through a number of tests on air, cascade and even LN2. All your favourite benchmarks inside.

http://www.benchtec.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=5397

Full credit to Paul for yet another quality review of an Asus product. This one certainly stands out from the rest.

http://www.benchtec.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=5381

Not that many of you won’t have heard of EVGA before today, but here’s a little introduction about the business and what their objectives are.

EVGA do have what seems to be a sort of ‘cult’ following, with many praising their customer service and Step-Up programme. Recently, they have expanded their motherboard range to include models aimed at the extreme overclocker, after they took on Peter “Shamino” Tan to help in the design.

Their X58-based Classified boards were widely accepted to be ‘the best’ X58 boards available, by quite a large margin. The price of such a high quality and well-performing board was always going to be high, but the sheer potential made it an extremely attractive option to all the extreme overclockers.

Specifications:

Performance

• Based on Intel P55 chipset
• Supports Intel Socket 1156 Processors

Memory

• 4 x 240-pin DIMM sockets
• Dual Channel DDR3
• Maximum of 16GB of DDR3 2600MHz+

Expansion Slot

• 5 x PCIe x16/x8, 1 x PCIe x4, 1 x PCIe x10 x 32-bit PCI, support for PCI 2.1

Storage I/O

• 8 x Serial ATA 300MB/sec with support for RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 0+1, RAID5, JBOD

Integrated Peripherals

• 8 Channel High Definition
• 2 x 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet

Multi I/O:

• 1 x PS2 Keyboard
• 13 x USB2.0 ports (7 external + 6 internal headers)
• Audio connector (Line-in, Line-out, MIC)
• FireWire

Form Factor:

• EATX Form Factor

Features:

• DPHS – Double Play Heatsink Support
• 10+2 Phase Digital PWM using Volterra VT1185S MOSFETs
• EVGA Vdroop Control
• EVGA Dummy OC
• EVGA E-LEET Tuning Utility
• EVGA EZ Voltages read points
• Onboard Clear CMOS, Power and Reset Buttons
• 300 More Socket Gold + Low ESR/ESL Film Cap
• LICC Capacitors
• Onboard CPU Temp Monitor
• Passive Chipset Heatsink
• Triple BIOS Support
• Solid State Capacitors
• Dual Clock Generators
• EVGA Show-Volt
• EVGA ECP V2 Support
• PCIe Disable Jumpers
• EVGA EVbot Support

That’s a pretty long list of specifications. A notable mention for the DPHS, or Double Play Heatsink support which allows both LGA1156 and LGA775 heatsinks to be used. Also extra attachments like the EVGA Show-Volt, EVGA ECP V2 and EVGA EVbot all aim to make extreme overclocking that little bit easier.

Packaging

The box is a fairly standard affair, packed full of the bundled accessories.

The Board

With the exception of the P55 Micro, this is the only board in the P55 range to feature the red and black colour scheme; It also sports an anodised black  LGA1156 socket.  Underneath the PCI-E slots, there is power and reset buttons which double as LED’s for power and HDD activity. Next to these button’s, there the switch to select one of the 3 BIOS’s. The board also has dual clockgens, the one just above the NF200 chip ends with 139AKLF. Lastly, above the ATX power connector is the EVGA Show-Volt.

Video Tour:

And as this board has so many features to cover, I even needed a “Part 2″.

BIOS

Here’s pretty much everything in the BIOS in a logical order from top left Standard features, through to Frequency/Voltage Control, stepping down through each menu each time.

Test System:

EVGA P55 Classified 200 motherboard
Intel Core i7 870 B1 Stepping
2GB A-DATA Vitesta Extreme Edition DDR3-1600 7-7-7-20
nVidia Geforce 9500GT
Antec TPQ-1KW

LittleDevil CPU Pot
Dry Ice

Tests and Results:

CPU-Z:

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=795587

SuperPi 1M:
182.5 x 27 = 4928Mhz
BenchTec #1

Pifast:
183 x 27 = 4942Mhz
BenchTec #1

SuperPi 32M:
178 x 27 = 4807Mhz
BenchTec #1

wPrime 32M:
197.5 x 24 = 4740 Mhz

wPrime 1024M:
Sadly, I ran out of time for wPrime 1024M. Here’s a run on air at 190 bclk limited by voltage and temps.

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.

First up, the board didn’t like my Corsair Dominator 1866C9 1.65v DDR3 set. I suspect this is just an issue with my kit as I’ve not tested them with my other X58 or P55 boards and when I put my older Kingston or A-DATA DDR3 kits in the board, all of the issues went away.

There is quite a lot to learn with the BIOS, with a handful of very useful extensions to the standard AMI BIOS that EVGA have included. The ‘Auto’ settings are actually pretty good and will give you a good start. The good thing with the Auto settings is that the motherboard reports what voltage the Auto settings have chosen in the BIOS screens next to the options. This allows you to give the Auto settings a chance without worrying how high the board is pushing the voltages to achieve the overclock.

I wanted to show you all how the EVGA Show-Volt and ECP V2 features worked, so I made another video and put it on YouTube here.

Conclusion

Clearly, this is a motherboard with a very specific target audience. The board screams ‘extreme overclocker’ and anyone else will struggle to justify the extra cost over the P55 FTW boards. While the price is high, this board isn’t just a recycled design of the rest of the range, it’s specifically designed with the extra features and higher quality components in mind.

With recent studies showing that PCI-E2.0 slots running at 8x speed achieve 95-99% of the performance of full 16x speed, this board is a serious contender for multi-GPU setups as well as those after the ultimate LGA1156 CPU overclocking platform.

EVGA boards are backed by a large community and very good support in terms of product warranty and BIOS updates while the bundled EVGA E-leet software makes pushing that little bit further in Windows easy and guarantees those last few Mhz.

While the price and performance put it dangerously close to a LGA1366/X58-based setup, I predict that we will see quite a lot more of this motherboard when Intel’s 32nm Clarkdale dual-core CPU’s arrive. These CPU’s could have the potential to wipe the floor with benchmarks that are not dependant on multi-core and this board could well provide the ideal platform for many world records. This combination could be the new E8600 with Pifast and  both SuperPi’s, as well as 3D benchmarks like Aquamark and 3DMark01.

Paul Watkinson and Barrie Wynd have done about the coolest thing you can do with a computer.

The pair are among the elite of the UK’s overclocking community. These folks are not satisfied to use a PC as it is delivered from the factory. Instead, they look for ways to supercharge it.

Typically these tweaks are applied to the core processor because the faster that runs then, usually, the faster the computer can complete all the tasks it is being asked to do.

It is known as “overclocking” because every chip has a clock speed, measured in gigahertz (Ghz) or megahertz (Mhz), which describes how fast it completes a basic operation.

Check it out here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8284435.stm