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Digital-Daily : Motherboard Reviews : abit_foxconn_770

Foxconn A78AX-S and abit AX78 - value motherboards on the AMD 770 chipset

Foxconn A78AX-S and abit AX78 - value motherboards on the AMD 770 chipset
Author:
Date: 30.06.2008

Layout, expansion options

At first glance, it seems that the abit AX78 board is in many ways superior to Foxconn A78AX-S. In particular, it offers more DIMM slots, more PCI Express x16 slots, and its cooling system includes massive radiators not only on the bridges of the chipset but on the power converter as well. However, the Foxconn board has an ace of trump in the sleeve - installed south bridge SB700, whereas the abit board offers the outdated SB600. Who will win?

Foxconn A78AX-S

abit AX78

Let's start with the cooling system. Since the north bridge of AMD 770 is made following the 65-nm process technology, its heat emission does not go beyond the reasonable limits, even on the overclocking mode. In the end, the engineers have confined to installation of radiators of modest size.

Foxconn A78AX-S

abit AX78

As regards the memory subsystem, two slots are quite enough for an average system with 2 GB installed. But four slots allow for a more flexible control over the memory capacity (e.g., you can add a couple of 512 MB modules to the already installed 2 GB).

Foxconn A78AX-S

abit AX78

As regards the PCI Express x16 slots, in any case two slots is better than one. Even if you don't plan using the CrossFire technology (don't forget that the boards are aimed at the value sector), it is always possible to install one more video card and, if necessary, to plug in four monitors. We should also note that only four PCI Express v2.0 bus lanes are allocated to the second slot. It turns out that the abit board supports the CrossFire and offers a good performance level, since the bandwidth of PCI-E v2.0 is twice as high than that of PCI-E v1.0.

Foxconn A78AX-S

abit AX78

Besides the PCI-E ?16 slot, the Foxconn board uses two more PCI Express x1 and three PCI slots. The abit board offers fewer additional slots: one PCI Express x1, and three PCI slots.

Then, the Foxconn board uses the SB700 south bridge with a radiator. In the end, the board supports 6 SerialATA II and one ParallelATA links. The abit board also supports one PATA link, but since it uses the outdated SB600, the number of SATA links = 4.

Foxconn A78AX-S

abit AX78

In the end, eight hard disks can be plugged in to the Foxconn board (six SATA II and two PATA), while only six hard disks (four SATA II and two PATA, respectively) to the abit board.

Then, the south bridge SB700 supports 12 USB 2.0 ports (plus a couple of USB 1.1 ports). However, on the Foxconn board there are merely ten ports wired: for external and six additional. Quite possibly, Foxconn uses one PCB to produce motherboards with both SB700 and SB600. The latter supports only ten ports, and engineers at abit have wired them following the same scheme: 4+6.

As regards the audio subsystem, the abit board implements the 8-channel HD-system based on the ALC888 codec. The same codec is installed on the Foxconn motherboard.

Foxconn A78AX-S

abit AX78

Now a few words on the network support: both the motherboards use a high-speed Gigabit Ethernet LAN controller. On the Foxconn board, that is the Realtek RTL8111B chip, on the abit board - a Marvell 88E8056 chip.

Foxconn A78AX-S

abit AX78

The board's rear panel is of the following configuration:

Foxconn A78AX-S

abit AX78

On the Foxconn board, there is one parallel and two COM ports. Instead of these outdated interfaces, the abit board uses only the optical SP-DIF output, as well as a switch to clear the CMOS.

Note that on the abit board there is a 7-stage POST indicator.

abit AX78

Here is the components layout of the abit board (we were unable to find such a layout for the Foxconn board).

abit AX78

Now on to the BIOS settings.

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