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Foxconn, aka Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., has been around for quite awhile. Founded in 1974 as a plastics manufacturer, they have evolved into one of the largest electronics and computer component producers on the planet. Foxconn makes the Mac-mini, iPod, iPhone, Intel motherboards, Dell components, HP parts, Sony Playstations, the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360s and Motorola cell phones. Not impressed yet? They are Taiwan's largest private company, China's biggest exporter and had a mind blowing 2006 revenue of $40.6 billion dollars. That's serious business baby.
The market is currently flooded with P45 motherboards at every price point and it's tough for consumers to make a confident choice since a lot of products share similar specs and performance. Foxconn makes its presence felt in the budget P45 Express circle with the new P45A-S motherboard featuring Penryn 45nm processor support, a 1600MHz front side bus, 100% solid capacitor design, PCIe 2.0, eSATA, CrossFireX support and up to 16GB of DDR2-1066. If you're in the market for a new motherboard, you should definitely check out this review. Read on as HardwareLogic throws this board on the test bench to see if it can stand out from the crowd and possibly become the foundation of your next build.
| PRODUCT | |
| CPU SUPPORT | Socket LGA 775
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| CHIPSET |
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| MEMORY |
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| EXPANSION SLOTS |
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| STORAGE | Intel ICH10R Southbridge
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| AUDIO | Realtek 8-channel Audio Chip
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| LAN |
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| REAR I/O PANEL |
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| INTERNAL I/O HEADERS |
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| SYSTEM BIOS |
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| FORM FACTOR |
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| WARRANTY |
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| CURRENT PRICING |
Bundle
| ACCESSORIES |
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| CABLES |
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| APPLICATION DVD | Foxconn Motherboard Support DVD
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| DOCUMENTATION |
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The P45A-S comes with a standard bundle that will get you set up quickly. Here, you'll find the bare essentials and not much more. Highlighting this group of goodies is the support DVD which features essential drivers and useful utilities to get everything running smoothly. The quick installation guide could come in handy for first time builders as it comes with step by step directions and plenty of color pictures to help with the install process. In the future, I would like Foxconn to include more SATA cables in their bundles to match the number of ports found on the board. That way, I won't have to go hunting for extra cables to hook up my drives.