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Foxconn Inferno Katana P55 Motherboard Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Monday, February 08, 2010
Conclusion
We have reviewed quite a few Foxconn motherboards over the years and the high end boards tend to have a lasting impression on us. In most cases performance is exceptional; design and style are outstanding. All of these features can be found in the latest Quantum Force motherboard, the Inferno Katana.
The Inferno Katana features a standard black PCB and red expansion and cooling accessories. The heatsinks and logos are rather muted when compared to previous Quantum Force designs, however considering how little heat the P55 produces it is understandable. Expansion slots are arranged in a typical 3 GPU configuration allowing plenty of room for dual slot coolers. Both Crossfire and SLI are supported. The red PCIe slots share 16x lanes while the last slot is limited to 4x.
There are a couple of new features found on the Inferno Katana that make the motherboard a little unique. The first is "Core Nerve". Core nerve is a flashing LED that responds to overall system activity. When thing heat up and load increases the LED heartbeat will flash accordingly.
Another interesting feature is the Fuzzy Equalizer. This feature is designed to promote stability and longevity of the system PWM by cycling the active phases so that each phase is used an equal amount. You can get an indication of how many phases are currently in used by checking the LED lights near the Force Reset Button.
As was mentioned earlier overclocking on the Inferno Katana was extremely easy and didn't require much other than some high performance system memory and a few BIOS tweaks. The resulting overclock was 4Ghz, however we expect that with a different cooling method this could be pushed even higher. Your mileage can, and will likely vary
Now for the ever popular list of Good things and Bad things.
The Inferno Katana features a standard black PCB and red expansion and cooling accessories. The heatsinks and logos are rather muted when compared to previous Quantum Force designs, however considering how little heat the P55 produces it is understandable. Expansion slots are arranged in a typical 3 GPU configuration allowing plenty of room for dual slot coolers. Both Crossfire and SLI are supported. The red PCIe slots share 16x lanes while the last slot is limited to 4x.
There are a couple of new features found on the Inferno Katana that make the motherboard a little unique. The first is "Core Nerve". Core nerve is a flashing LED that responds to overall system activity. When thing heat up and load increases the LED heartbeat will flash accordingly.
Another interesting feature is the Fuzzy Equalizer. This feature is designed to promote stability and longevity of the system PWM by cycling the active phases so that each phase is used an equal amount. You can get an indication of how many phases are currently in used by checking the LED lights near the Force Reset Button.
As was mentioned earlier overclocking on the Inferno Katana was extremely easy and didn't require much other than some high performance system memory and a few BIOS tweaks. The resulting overclock was 4Ghz, however we expect that with a different cooling method this could be pushed even higher. Your mileage can, and will likely vary
Now for the ever popular list of Good things and Bad things.
Good Things
Red/Black Color Scheme
Excellent overclocking experience
14 phase hybrid powersupply
2 physical BIOS chips
4x PCIe video card support
Backlit motherboard buttons (power, reset, force)
Excellent overclocking experience
14 phase hybrid powersupply
2 physical BIOS chips
4x PCIe video card support
Backlit motherboard buttons (power, reset, force)
Bad Things
Fancy activity lights difficult to see when fully assembled
BIOS loading screen control "buried" in the BIOS
Heatsink design seems blocky and disconnected.
BIOS loading screen control "buried" in the BIOS
Heatsink design seems blocky and disconnected.
Ninjalane Rating
Foxconn Inferno Katana P55 Motherboard Review
Furious 5 of 5
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