Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H Motherboard Review

Fox One is a new feature found on the 975X7AA that allows you to select a performance option in the BIOS that will in turn automatically overclock your system. The little chip here appears to be the brains behind the new technology. You also have full control over many of the BIOS features from either the standard BIOS screens or from the handy included software.

Another big feature on this board is the dual 16x PCI Express slots. When two video cards are installed the 16 lanes PCI Express are divided between the two giving each card 8 lanes of PCIe bandwidth. In most cases this is more than enough but is still worth noting. The board also features 2 regular PCI slots and 2 1x PCI Express slots for future expansions.

The processor is located in the standard location and uses the required 4-phase onboard powersupply. In addition to the 24pin ATX power requirements you will find a new 8pin 12v connection. While you can run this board using a 20pin ATX and 4 pin 12v PSU it is not recommended by Foxconn.

The 975X chipset supports up to 8GB of DRR2 memory at speeds of 800/667/533. In terms of overclocking if you start with the fastest modules you can use the memory clock divider to reach some pretty impressive overclocks, provided your hardware can support it.

In every review we do there is at least one photo of the ATX connector, back in the early days this was an area of little or no interest to anyone. However the current push by many mfgs is to "expand" the connection options and give the user a little more to play with. The Foxconn 975X7AA features many of the standard connections in addition to, dual Ethernet, 4 USB, 1 Firewire, digital audio and a single SATA connection. Yes, you read that correctly a SATA port on the ATX connector. To add in the fun there is a second located nearby as an additional internal connection option. This brings back memories of the LanPartyUT 915p with its rogue front mounted PCI Express slot.

Speaking of SATA, there are two onboard SATA controllers that both support RAID, the ICH7R (or Southbridge) supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 0+1 (or 10). In addition the Silicon Image controller supports 2 SATA connections in RAID 0, 1, and JBOD but can be expanded to support RAID 10 and 5 provided you use a Serial ATA port multiplier.