MSI's and Foxconn's motherboards (P45)
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Date: 01.09.2008 |
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Layout and Features
Due to the second PCI Express slot, Foxconn P45A-S looks even more impressive than MSI P45 Neo. At the same time, the first slot is located far enough from the DIMM slots, which allows replacing memory modules without having to remove the video card. We also add that the main and additional power connectors are located over the board's edges.
On the MSI board, the power connectors are also positioned over the edges, plus an additional 4-pin connector, and on the Foxconn board - 8-pin connector.
Note that the video card installed on the MSI board blocks the latches of DIMM slots.
There were no complaints about the cooling system of the motherboards: on the "north" and "south" bridges there are quite large radiators.
Besides, on the Foxconn board there is one more radiator on the components of the power converter.
Each motherboard has four 240-pin DIMM slots for DDR2 memory modules, with the overall supported memory capacity being up to 8 GB.
Now a few words on the connectors to plug in fans. On each of the boards, there is a mandatory 4-pin connector to plug in the CPU cooler.
Besides that, the Foxconn board uses two 4-pin connectors, and on the MSI board - one 3-pin connector.
Foxconn P45A-S uses two PCI Express x16 slots; MSI P45 Neo - one slot.
On the Foxconn P45A-S, there are two PCI and two PCI Express x1 slots. On the MSI board, there are three PCI and two PCI Express x1 slots.
Let's now examine the expansion capabilities. There is the south bridge ICH10R on the Foxconn's board. In the end, the board supports six SerialATA II links with the option of setting up a RAID array. On the MSI board, there is the ICH10 "bridge": there are also six SerialATA II links, but RAID is not supported.
Besides, an additional controller made by JMicron is installed onboard to support the ParallelATA. On the Foxconn board, that is the chip JMB361 (1 SATA + 1 PATA), and on the MSI board - JMB368 (1 PATA).
An additional SATA port on the Foxconn board is brought over to the rear panel, so in the end you can plug in as many as nine hard disks (7 SATA + 2 PATA) to the board; to the MSI board - eight disks (6 SATA + 2 PATA).
Then, the south bridge ICH10(R) supports 12 USB2.0 ports. On the Foxconn board, four ports are positioned on the rear panel, with eight more plugged in with brackets (missing in the bundle). On the MSI board, the configuration of ports is absolutely the same, nor there are any additional brackets.
Besides, the Foxconn board offers support for the Firewire bus. For that, there is an additional controller made by VIA. That is a VT6308S chip which supports two matching ports.
The configuration of the ports is the following: one port on the rear panel, with one more plugged in with a bracket (missing in the package bundle). The MSI P45 Neo does not support the Firewire.
Now a few words on the High Definition Audio subsystem. The boards use the ALC888 codec:
Both the motherboards offer support for a high-speed network connection. On the Foxconn board, there is a Gigabit controller RTL 8111B, and on MSI - RTL 8111C:
The board's rear panel is of the following configuration:
The panel of the MSI board is almost standard, missing is only one COM port because engineers at the company have reserved its are for a VGA output of a motherboard based on the integrated chipset. As regards the Foxconn board, the engineers have completely removed support for the LPT, as well as sacrificed one more COM port. On the other hand, on the rear panel of P45A-S there is an eSATA port and a coaxial SP-DIF output.
Now on to the BIOS settings.
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