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Foxconn New Products – Quantum Force and DigitLife
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Monday, June 08, 2009
Quantum Force - Inferno Katana
The next motherboard to be shown was their P55 solution in the Quantum Force line. Following suit with the Flaming Blade naming convention the new Quantum Force board is named Inferno Katana and comes in the standard and GTI editions. The color theme is identical to the Bloodrage and in some ways feels like a very similar motherboard.
Specification Summary
(From the Foxconn Product Kit)
- Supports Intel® LGA1156 processors with Intel® Turbo Boost technology
- 3* PCIe2.0 x16 slots with ATI CrossFireX™ and NVIDIA SLI™ support
- 2 channel DDR3 memory support up to 1800MHz
- Quantum Power-advanced motherboard power system including 12 phase Hybrid PWM and DirectFET™ MOSFET technology for CPU power and 2 phases for VTT and Mem
- i-Tewaker provides unique items for Power control & voltage control & frequency control solution
- Fuzzy Equalizer - Green power for end-users, support efficient power for different solution; User-friendly LED solution for showing PWM loading status.
- Dolby & DTS audio solution provides outstanding audio fidelity and offers gamers best sound effects (not for GTI)
- Quantum BIOS provides new features and enhancements for overclocking including context-driven menus
The Inferno Katana comes with some pretty cool features. Along the side near the Force Reset button you will find a series of LEDs (blue ones to be exact) that light up based on how many power phases are currently being used.
There is no Northbridge on the P55 so many motherboard makers have opted to fill the space with fun little gadgets and decorative heatsinks. The Quantum Force logo in the center lights up when the motherboard is operational and beats based on system load. So when the system is at idle the light will blink on and off very slowly. When the system is under heavy load it will blink very fast.
There is no Northbridge on the P55 so many motherboard makers have opted to fill the space with fun little gadgets and decorative heatsinks. The Quantum Force logo in the center lights up when the motherboard is operational and beats based on system load. So when the system is at idle the light will blink on and off very slowly. When the system is under heavy load it will blink very fast.
Motherboard cooling always comes in to question and so far most everyone has told us the P55 runs very cool, so cool in fact you don't need a heatsink at all. This may change when you start accessing the PCIe lanes in the Southbridge but on this working demo at Foxconn the chip was completely bare.
The PMW will still require heatsinks however.
An additional note on the PCI Express configuration, Inferno Katana features 3 16x PCIe slots. The 2 red slots are full bandwidth meaning that if one is used it is at 16x, if both are used they are both at 8x. The last PCIe has 4x lanes available based on what is provided by the Southbridge. Not full bandwidth by any means but should work quite nicely for things like hardware RAID, PhysX, or additional video cards.
The PMW will still require heatsinks however.
An additional note on the PCI Express configuration, Inferno Katana features 3 16x PCIe slots. The 2 red slots are full bandwidth meaning that if one is used it is at 16x, if both are used they are both at 8x. The last PCIe has 4x lanes available based on what is provided by the Southbridge. Not full bandwidth by any means but should work quite nicely for things like hardware RAID, PhysX, or additional video cards.
