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.

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!

There’s been a few unsubstantiated rumours flying round about Foxconn’s Quantum Force division, suggesting that it’s closing down and they won’t be making or supporting motherboards soon. That’s simply not true folks, QF will have a couple of new P55 motherboards (called the Infernal Katana) and there’s more to come after that.

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

Nice box, colourful, interesting. That’s about all you can say about the box!

The Board

Oh yes, Foxconn kept the same red and black colour scheme for their budget board that they did for their premium BloodRAGE. This is a big plus for the motherboard in my opinion, it’s a shame other manufacturers spoil the appearance of cheap boards with dull brown PCBs. The board also has the same ‘quality’ feel to it like the BloodRAGE.

Video Tour:

BIOS:

FlamingBlade Bios:

It seems like it is possible to flash the non-GTI FlamingBlade BIOS to this board. I suspect this will unlock SLI for the board and can now see the little SLI logo in the corner of the splash screen. It also appears to unlock RAID for the board, but it only enables the option in the BIOS, you aren’t able to configure any RAID drives as this is obviously missing from the hardware. It also unlocks some hidden DIMM voltage options.

Test System:

Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI (P06 BIOS)
Intel Core i7 920 (C0 Stepping)
2GB A-DATA Vitesta Extreme Edition DDR3-1600 7-7-7-20
nVidia Geforce 9500GT
Antec TPQ-1KW

Vapochill LS Phase-Change unit.

Tests and Results:

Simply great results. This board matched the BloodRAGE clock-for-clock and out-clocked a full range of boards from MSI and Gigabyte as tested by other BenchTec reviewers.

I’ll say that again, just so it’s not missed. This board hit the highest benchable bclk for every benchmark that BenchTec reviewers have seen. Now, whether I’d recommend this over a board from MSI, Gigabyte or Asus depends on a  lot more factors than raw performance, but this is a very big tick in the performance column for Foxconn and I’m impressed.

CPU-Z:

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=635308

SuperPi 1M:
227×21=4771Mhz
BenchTec #1

Pifast:
228×21=4793Mhz
BenchTec #1

SuperPi 32M:
224×21=4708Mhz
BenchTec #1

wPrime 32M:
221×21=4644Mhz
BenchTec #1

wPrime 1024M:
218×21=4591Mhz
BenchTec #1

3DMark05:
224×21=4708Mhz
BenchTec #1

3DMark06:
217×21=4559Mhz
BenchTec #1

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 FlamingBlade GTI is a pretty well behaved board. I leave the word ‘pretty’ in due to a couple of niggles that I experienced. When upping the PCI-E Frrequency over a certain amount, whenever the board rebooted, it would hang on the debug LED code “PP” and then kick in the overclock recovery. I wasn’t able to find out exactly where in the PCI-E scale this happened, but it could be down to a bad solder job as I needed to mod the board to go above 103Mhz. Don’t fret though, new retail boards don’t need this mod so you may not even see this issue.

The last thing is that this board overvolts the DDR3 by about 0.03v. Not a huge amount, but with reports of Elpida “Hyper” memory modules being extremely sensitive, giving them 1.68v when you think you’ve within the 1.65v limit is a little concern. That being said, now you know, you can happily set 1.62v in the BIOS and rest easy.

Conclusion

When you take a manufacturer’s bottom-end board, priced aggresively and gunning for the builder-on-a-budget, you expect to scraping the barrel with regards to good things to say about it. This board thoroughly surprised and pleased me. It’s built and works in the same way as the top of the range BloodRAGE and it performs equally as well.

The lack of RAID is something worth pointing out, but there’s the non-GTI FlamingBlade for that if you need. SLI is supported (unofficially) as well as Crossfire (officially), and the spacing between the slots is perfect for a two-card setup allowing the top card to breathe. Also, on-board power, reset and clear CMOS buttons would make things a heck of a lot easier. That being said, I only needed to clear the CMOS once, the overclock recovery works very well.

I’d recommend this board to anyone building an i7 system, and as long as P55 boards don’t severely undercut it in price, the triple channel DDR3 should keep it ahead in the benchmarks. There’s also future planning with Intel’s 6-core CPU’s rumoured to be just around the corner and only supporting the X58 chipset, these will be just a BIOS update away.

By r1ch.

Here’s hoping this is as big a deal as it promises to be. First, the boring but oh-so-required legal bit.

NEITHER I, NOR BENCHTEC ACCEPT ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS. I, WE, NOR FOXCONN WILL WARRANTY THIS MODIFICATION. IF YOU KILL YOUR BOARD YOU ONLY HAVE YOURSELF TO BLAME.

You’ll need to remove the heatsink assembly, and just to the right of the X58 chipset  you’ll find the following resistors.

Remove resistor from R128 and solder onto R125.

Before:

After:

The Foxconn BloodRAGE has taken some stick from early reviews, some justifiable, some just outright insulting. These reviews were based on immature BIOS’s and an apparent hard limit of 220 bclk, which at the time put the board toward the back of the pack in terms of overall satisfaction.

What this mod promises is something that is new to the BloodRAGE and that’s an open PCI-E clock range. Testing so far has taken the PCI-E from a fixed 100Mhz on early BIOS’s to 103Mhz using the G25 BIOS and now with this mod, I’ve just booted at 119Mhz and SetFSB to 120Mhz. As you’ll see from the desktop, this is my daily rig install so I’ve not gone past 120Mhz for the sole risk of SATA HDD corruption – it may well go further.

Ignore the CPU Mhz, I run 220×12 daily (need a better heatsink that isn’t a SS Phase) and dropped back to 133 Bclk for PCI-E testing.

Just 103Mhz opened up the bclk from a 220 hard limit to 229 with my i7 920 C0 stepping, this is looking good to finally take it over 230 – more testing to follow.

So, feel free to try it and report back in this forum thread. I’d be interested to hear how this mod helps you.

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:

• The latest motherboard the Quantum Force segment,based on Intel® X58 chipset
• Supports Intel® Core™ i7 and i7 Extreme processors with Intel® QPI technology
• 4*PCle2.0 x16 slots with ATI CrossFireX™ and NVIDIA SLI™ support
• 3 channel DDR3 memory suppprt up to 1800MHz(O.C.)
• Quantum Power- advanced motherboard power system including 14 phase Hybrid PWM and DirectFET™ MOSFET technology
• 4in1 Quantum Cooler provides unique modular NB/SB/VRM cooling solution with inter-changeable NBcooling adaptors for air,water or extreme cooling
• SONAR X-Fi audio card provides outstanding audio fidelity and supports the latest gaming sound effects
• Bundled QF Panel for quick & easy overclocking from case-mounted 5 1/4 drive bay device
• Quantum BIOS provides new features and enhancements for overclocking including context-driven menus
• Serial Attached SCSI interface brings high-performance storage solutions to desktop PCs

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

Pretty standard packaging, it’s going to stand out on a shop shelf nicely.

The Board

Wow, what can you say? That has to be one of the best looking motherboards I’ve ever seen. Anything with a black PCB looks good to start with, but I love red and it just tops it off. Other manufacturers take note, 2 or 3 colours MAXIMUM to a motherboard please!

Video Tour:

Results:

Check the results thread here:

http://www.benchtec.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=41459&postcount=25