MSI's and Foxconn's motherboards (P45)

Today, we are reviewing two motherboards built on the P45 chipset. Both the products are aimed at middle-end systems and offer support for the basic set of expansion options. Along with that, Foxconn P45A-S offers two PCI Express x16 slots onboard, which makes it rank a step higher. At the same time, it supports the FireWire and basic overclocking tools.

Some overclocking tools are also available on MSI P45 Neo which is a typical "workhorse" with a standard feature-set and expansion options. However, we haven't yet been able to try them in action.

Specifications

Retail boxes

The package of the Foxconn board looks more impressive.

Package bundle

The package bundles of both the boards are minimum but fully meet the retail price.

Now, regarding the user's manual and the software. We had nothing to complain about the main documentation of both motherboards, nor about the CDs with drivers, utilities and third-party software (antivirus software). The Foxconn's board also offers a brief assembly and system setup guide.

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.

BIOS

The BIOS of both the motherboards is based on the AMI BIOS version.

The section in charge of memory operation settings looks like this:

The next important parameter that affects the performance is setting the memory operating frequency. In both the boards, the feature is located in the overclocking section.

Now look at the system monitoring sections.

The board displays the current temperatures of the CPU and the system, keeps track of the voltage levels and rotational speeds of all the fans.

Besides, both the boards support the Smart Fan feature.

Finally, we note that the boards allow the user to control the technologies integrated into the Intel processors. At that, the Foxconn board takes a lead.

Overclocking and stability

Before we move on to overclocking, let's look at the power converters. The PWM of Foxconn P45A-S uses a 4-phase scheme in which there are nine 820 mkF and four 330 mkF capacitors. The PWM of the MSI board uses a 3-phase power scheme, in which there are nine 820 mkF and four 470 mkF capacitors.

On the Foxconn board, all the overclocking tools are gathered in the "Central Control Unit" section:

and on the MSI board - in the "Cell Menu" section.

We also note the feature for dynamic overclocking (D.O.T.) in the MSI board:

Now let's look at the practical results of overclocking. The maximum stable FSB speed of the Foxconn board is 374 MHz, which is extremely little, even in view of the lack of a feature for reducing the CPU multiplier, and a very low limit in increasing the Vcore. The thing is, the clock speed capability of E6550 is at about 3.85 GHz upon substantial raise of the Vcore and ~3.3 GHz under the nominal voltage.

As regards the MSI board, unfortunately we got a faulty specimen which hardly started up at the nominal speed (just because of that, part of the performance tests were not passed).

Performance tests

While determining the starting FSB speed, we found that the Foxconn board sets it at a high enough precision, as compared to the MSI board which overstated it by over 1 MHz.

In our test setup, we used the following hardware:

Apart from our motherboards in question, we used ASUS P5Q Deluxe (Intel P45) in our tests.

Let's first take a look at the results of synthetic benchmarks.

Now on to the gaming benchmarks.

Tests of application software.

Video encoding (DivX, Xvid) was measured in seconds, i.e. the less the better.

Data compression (WinRAR) was measured in K/sec, i.e. the more, the better.

Final Words

For now, we are not making any conclusions regarding MSI P45 Neo, because the test specimen proved to be absolutely inoperative. Probably, later we'll be able re-testing the board and publish the final verdict in a comparative overview of motherboards based on the Intel P45 chipset.

As regards the Foxconn P45A-S, the conclusions on that have proved to be preliminary. We found nothing to complain about the stability and operability, as well as other parameters of this product. However, the retail price is still unknown, and besides that we note the low overclocking capability. Quite possibly, the problems of overclocking are related to the BIOS version, and to all appearances we'll need to re-test the board by the end of the year.

Conclusion

Foxconn P45A-S	MSI P45 Neo
Pros: high stability and good performance level; two PCI Express x16 slots; support for SerialATA II /RAID (8 links; ICH10R + JMB361); support for one P-ATA link (JMB363); integrated 8-channel audio and Gigabit Ethernet LAN controller; support for USB2.0 (12 ports) and IEEE-1394 (Firewire; 3 ports). Cons: Not found. The board's specific features: poor overclocking results.	Pros: high stability and good performance level; support for SerialATA II/RAID ( 6 links; ICH10); support for one P-ATA link (JMB363); integrated 8-channel audio and Gigabit Ethernet LAN controller; support for the USB 2.0 (12 ports). Cons: (faulty test specimen) The board's specific features: Not found.