The number of new computer products seems to grow exponentially, while the lifetime of new products becomes shorter and shorter. Since you come to AnandTech for information, we will be using our FIRST LOOK reviews to bring you hands-on, shorter reviews of more computer gear. First Looks and Roundups will be used to bring you more information comparing products. Our in-depth reviews will be reserved for new chipsets, significant new products, or boards that simply deserve a more in-depth look. When we gave our Editor's Choice to the SiS 755 chipset, we really expected to see motherboards from some of the familiar names in the motherboard market. First out of the gate was the ECS 755, which was clearly designed to be a value board. The first generation ECS fell short in many areas, but ECS continued to improve the board. It certainly had matured by revision A2, when we did a full review of the ECS 755-A2. The ECS performed well, but had modest overclocking controls and a very basic feature set. We continued to hope that some manufacturers would do even more with the excellent 755 chipset.

Foxconn is the second manufacturer to supply a SiS 755 motherboard for review. For those of you who are not familiar with Foxconn, they are probably best known for their electronic components, particularly slots and connectors. Regardless of who made your motherboard, you are likely to have some Foxconn connectors on the board. Recently, Foxconn has been bringing motherboards to market. While early offerings have been geared toward the value segment, Foxconn has plans to extend their line and bring more cutting - edge boards to market in the future. For now, their only Socket 754 offering for Athlon 64 is the 755-A01 based on the SiS chipset. Foxconn has been in the Intel motherboard segment a bit longer, and has a broader range of chipsets available for the Pentium 4.

The 755 was an impressive chipset. Does Foxconn bring a better feature set to the market? How does the 755-A01 compare to other SiS 755 boards? We also took a closer look at the 755-A01 performance compared to other motherboards that we have tested for the Athlon 64.

Basic Features: Foxconn 755-A01 for Athlon 64

Foxconn is using shades of green packaging for the 755-A01. The motherboard is available for less than $90 at on-line retailers.

Considering the low selling price of the Foxconn 755-A01, the feature set is truly amazing. Gigabit LAN, Firewire and 4-drive SATA RAID are features you don't normally find in a $90 board, but Foxconn includes all 3.

Motherboard Specifications
CPU Interface	Socket 754 Athlon 64
Chipset	SiS 755/964
Bus Speeds	200MHz to 232MHz (in 1MHz increments)
PCI/AGP Speeds	Auto, 66/33, 75/37, 80/40
Core Voltage	No Adjustments
DRAM Voltage	No Adjustments
AGP Voltage	No Adjustments
Memory Slots	Three 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Single-Channel Configuration Unbuffered DDR400/333/266 to 3GB
Expansion Slots	1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots
Onboard Serial ATA RAID	SiS964 (2 Drives - Raid 0, 1) PLUS Silicon Image 3112 (2 Drives - Raid 0,1)
Onboard IDE	Two Standard SiS ATA133/100/66 (4 drives)
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394	8 USB 2.0 ports supported by 964 2 Firewire Ports by VIA VT6307
Onboard LAN	Realtek 8110S Gigabit LAN
Onboard Audio	Realtek ALC655 AC '97 2.3 6-Channel with UAJ
BIOS	Phoenix/Award

The only overclocking controls in the Award BIOS were a very limited range of FSB speeds from 200-232. The BIOS has no options for voltage adjustments. Foxconn did provide a complete selection of memory timings, which will allow you to get the most from your memory in the 755-A01.

Basic Layout: Foxconn 755-A01 for Athlon 64

Click to enlarge.

The 755-A01 is back, and is slightly smaller than standard ATX size. There are mounting holes for 6 standoffs for chassis mounting. Despite the smaller size, the Foxconn has a long list of features that you don't expect at this price point.

The layout of the 755-A01 is quite good, with all DIMM sockets clear of the 8X AGP slot. The IDE and floppy connectors are in the preferred upper right edge location. ATX and 12V connectors are split on each side of the center-board CPU location, but presented no cooling problems. The 4 SATA connectors are spread across the board behind the PCI slots. These would have been better grouped in the same general area near the right edge of the board.

The only concession to price and size appears to be the 2-phase power regulation. You rarely find 3-phase designs at this price point. However, all-in-all, the components and connectors are logically laid out with no glaring oversights. Foxconn put some effort into the layout of the 755-A01 and it shows. Good job!

Yes, there is a firewire port on the back. There is also a Gigabit LAN connector and 4 USB 2 ports. Headers on the board provide additional port expansion.

Test Setup

Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz) AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2GHz, 400MHz FSB)
RAM:	2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II OR 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd
Hard Drive(s):	Seagate 80GB or 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers:	SiS AGP 1.17 (10-07-2003) VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.51 (12-02-2003) NVIDIA nForce version 4.12 Beta
Video Card(s):	ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X)
Video Drivers:	ATI Catalyst 4.4
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards:	Foxconn 755-A01 MSI K8N Neo (nVidia nForce3-250Gb) AOpen AK89 Max (nVidia nForce3-150) nVidia nForce3-250 Reference Board AOpen AK86-L (VIA K8T800 3200+) ECS 755-A2 (SiS 755 A64 3200+) SiS 755 Reference Board (A64 3200+) Abit KV8-MAX3 (VIA K8T800 A64 3200+) ChaintechZNF3-150 (nForce3-150 A64 3200+) MSI K8T Neo (VIA K8T800 A64 3200+) DFI NFII Ultra (nForce2 U400 Athlon XP 3200+)

Tests on Socket 754 Athlon 64 motherboards and Socket A Athlon XP used either Mushkin PC3500 Level II or OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd memory modules. Both memories use Winbond BH5 chips and perform virtually the same in our benchmarks.

All performance tests were run with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card with AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32 unless otherwise noted.

General Performance

PCMark 2004 will be used in all First Look and standard motherboard reviews in the future. We will continue using the full Winstones for standard motherboard reviews, as well as the full gaming and workstation suite of benchmarks. We will try to include at least PCMark 2004 comparative results in future motherboard First Looks. First Looks may include a larger group of tests as you will see here with the Foxconn 755-A01, or tests may be more basic, depending on what best shows the board's unique capabilities.

General Performance and Media Encoding

The Foxconn does well in PCMark 2004, matching the performance with the same CPU of the new nVidia nForce3-250. Media Encoding performance is also competitive.

Gaming Performance

The 755-A01 is competitive in gaming with other Socket 754 boards that we have tested. Neither the ECS or Foxconn 755 reach quite the levels of the SiS 755 Reference board, but there is nothing to apologize for in gaming performance compared to K8T800 or nForce3 boards.

The Foxconn did very well in DirectX 9 performance, being at the top in Halo performance and 1 or 2 in Splinter cell. While it was closer to the bottom in Aquamark 3, keep in mind that the "standard score" in Aquamark is basically the test frame rate multiplied by 1000. That means the range from fastest to slowest among Athlon 64 boards was less than 2 frames per second - certainly not a significant performance difference.

Overall gaming performance would place the Foxconn in the top half of Athlon 64 gaming performance.

Workstation Performance

While it is not likely that many will be looking at the 755-A01 for their graphics workstations, we were impressed enough with the Foxconn performance to be interested in seeing how it would compete in SPECviewperf. The 755-A01 was generally in the top half of Athlon 64 performance scores, which is really good performance considering that the majority of our tested boards are top-of-the-line models.

Our Take

We still don't have the killer SiS 755 board that we have been searching for, but the Foxconn can hardly be faulted on the solid performance it delivered. Across the board, performance was competitive with the top Athlon 64 boards that we have tested and it was generally a "top-half" board. When you consider the majority of our tested motherboards are top-of-the-line, the Foxconn performance has to be considered outstanding.

Where the Foxconn particularly stands out is in value. While most every top-end board has Gigabit LAN, Firewire, and SATA RAID, it isn't often that you find a board that costs less than $90 that includes all theses features. Not only is SATA RAID present on the 755-A01, but the Foxconn even has a second Silicon Image controller and supports up to 4 total SATA drives. The layout was also excellent, and did not suffer from the sloppy connector placement that we see too often in less than full-size boards.

The area that was particularly weak on the Foxconn was overclocking controls, as in there really aren't any. You can do some modest overclocking with the limited FSB controls, but that's it. This is really a shame, because the 755-A01 has decent Dram timing adjustments that would make it ideal for using fast memory. However, with no vDIMM adjustments at all, you won't be able to do much with high-end memory. We do hope Foxconn will add more of the types of adjustments that overclockers like to see on motherboards. The 755-A01 is too good to be hampered by no voltage controls.

If you are looking for a Socket 754 board, the Foxconn provides a great list of standard features at a bargain price. You get a lot of board for less than $90. If you are not an overclocker or you only want to try your hand at very modest overclocking, then you will not be disappointed in the Foxconn. It competes well at stock speeds with the best Athlon 64 boards that we have tested. However, if you have any interest in overclocking your Athlon 64, you need to look elsewhere. The 755-A01 is not the board to combine with a low cost 2800+ or 3000+ if your goal is to reach the performance levels of a 3400+ or higher. The Foxconn would also be a disappointment for those trying to run memory at the higher speeds possible. With no vDIMM adjustments at all, you would be limited with some of the better high-end memory that wants 2.8V or 3.0V to reach best performance at high-speed.

The Foxconn 755-A01 is an excellent value and it will fit the needs of many. It will not meet the needs of the Enthusiast, but it shows great promise for the future of Foxconn boards.