Not many motherboards on the market can claim to have every colour accounted for, however if aesthetics aren't an issue, Foxconn have created a competitive motherboard worthy of consideration at the right price. At time of writing it would appear that availability is limited. There is a very competitive market for A75 motherboards from BIOSTAR, ASRock and GIGABYTE within the £55-60 region. For this board to be Really competitive, it would need to be priced around £45-50. The board functions well, but not including the ability to increase the speed of the DDR3 memory really lets it down.
And here is why
That 10% can really mean the difference between playable and not in games. Not being able to overclock the CPU or GPU isn't as huge an issue as memory overclocking for that reason. Not being able to Crossfire with the HD 6570 too is a fairly big loss. This option to increase graphics performance as an affordable upgrade is a fairly substantial feature of the platform.
Those major issues aside, the board is efficient and has some neat features, such as the digital power management and the use of solid capacitors on all vital components. Performance is on near on par with GIGABYTE's GA-A75M-UD2H with only memory bandwidth seeming to be the cause of any minor short coming. All things considered, is this a product I would buy? At the right price, Yes, to upgrade my mother's or my Gran's aging PC. Is this a product I would recommend? When staking my professional integrity, I can't recommend something that cannot perform as advertised or stated by the manufacturer and for that reason the Foxconn A75M just misses out on an award. Let's hope some of those issues can be fixed.
**UPDATE**
We have been informed a BIOS is due out in November to resolve issues with CrossfireX and CPU/Mem modifications.
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
And here is why
An average of 9.5% increase of FPS from 1333MHz to 1600MHz.
That 10% can really mean the difference between playable and not in games. Not being able to overclock the CPU or GPU isn't as huge an issue as memory overclocking for that reason. Not being able to Crossfire with the HD 6570 too is a fairly big loss. This option to increase graphics performance as an affordable upgrade is a fairly substantial feature of the platform.
Those major issues aside, the board is efficient and has some neat features, such as the digital power management and the use of solid capacitors on all vital components. Performance is on near on par with GIGABYTE's GA-A75M-UD2H with only memory bandwidth seeming to be the cause of any minor short coming. All things considered, is this a product I would buy? At the right price, Yes, to upgrade my mother's or my Gran's aging PC. Is this a product I would recommend? When staking my professional integrity, I can't recommend something that cannot perform as advertised or stated by the manufacturer and for that reason the Foxconn A75M just misses out on an award. Let's hope some of those issues can be fixed.
Pros.
+ Power efficient
+ Digital power management
+ Competitive base performance
+ BIOS Protect
Cons.
- CrossfireX does not seem to work
- Not able to adjust RAM speeds/ No overclocking functions at all
- Does not have advertised features
- Questionable aesthetics
+ Power efficient
+ Digital power management
+ Competitive base performance
+ BIOS Protect
Cons.
- CrossfireX does not seem to work
- Not able to adjust RAM speeds/ No overclocking functions at all
- Does not have advertised features
- Questionable aesthetics
**UPDATE**
We have been informed a BIOS is due out in November to resolve issues with CrossfireX and CPU/Mem modifications.
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
