Foxconn Mars

Author: Richard Swinburne
Published: 18th October 2007

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SATA

Six SATA are clustered in the bottom corner which make them easy to access and they avoid incompatibilities with a long second graphics card in the blue PCI-Express x16 slot. None of the ports are 90 degrees; however their orientation doesn’t allow it and two 90 degree cables are provided in the box.

The single eSATA port is from a JMicron chipset, which also supplies the IDE socket. Foxconn aren’t the only people to use this chipset, but ideally we’d prefer other solutions since there are numerous documented problems with CD burning performance in Vista and selective eSATA compatibility. Thankfully no internal ports have been sacrificed for eSATA duty though, which is a plus.

Memory

Four DDR2 sockets represent both channels coloured blue and white respectively. A single phase of power is dedicated to the memory and the slots are placed both high enough from the PCI-Express x16 slot and far enough from the CPU that they don’t interfere with either. Thankfully Foxconn has gone for inexpensive DDR2 here to provide a more viable upgrade for more people, however unlike some other brands there is no DDR3 version of the MARS.

Cooling

A simple heatpipe array snakes through the centre of the board covering southbridge, northbridge and just four out of the six mosfets. The central northbridge heatsink looks just like the “engine-esq” one found on the Foxconn nForce 680i board we reviewed earlier this year, but this time the fan is now entirely optional. No fan is included for the mosfet power regulator area though if you’re water or passively cooling the CPU, and Foxconn doesn’t state that one is required in the manual however we could advise that there should be some airflow at least.

As stated, only four of the six mosfets are cooled, which means the other two will be inherently hotter and are likely to be your limiting factor sooner. In addition, they aren't even placed in such a way that makes them easy to cool even if you wanted to.

The optional fan for the northbridge heatsink goes on just one side and takes a little finger effort to flick on and off. Also, being just 35mm in diameter, it’s a little whiny. The two Foxconn branded panels on the top slide off if you want to get to the fins underneath to provide some alternative and direct airflow instead.

Power Sockets and Connectivity

The 24-pin ATX and 8-pin 12V power sockets are very well placed around the edges of the board, however the additional Molex power socket is nestled on the inside edge, between heatpipe, rear I/O, two fan plugs and PCI-Express x1 socket. It also means you have to drag a cable (with other Molex connectors you likely end up sacrificing) across the face of the board as well, making it look untidy and potentially hindering airflow.

All the additional pin-outs except the front panel audio are plastic shrouded and the board still labels what each pin does underneath, however there is no Q/M connector alternative thrown in to help make use of it and the provided PCI bracket is not keyed either. The colours are differentiating and do match the overall theme which is a small consolation.

There are on-board power, reset and clear CMOS buttons which are ever useful for us bench testers and for troubleshooting if your system has a fit. A colour coordinated front panel pin-out is also included which is great, but Foxconn commits the unforgivable crime of soldering a speaker to the board itself. Please use two digit alphanumeric LED display like others, or even a simple LED array is often more informative and less annoying than having something scream at you when it goes wrong. It doesn’t end up helpful: it just adds to the irritation when something doesn’t work.

No BIOS backup or specific protection is added to the board, however Foxconn has made the BIOS a socket type, rather than soldering it to the board which means you can whip it out should something go wrong. It still means you have to contact Foxconn for a replacement though.

Network Connectivity

A single PCI-Express Gigabit Ethernet is provided which should suffice for most people, and there is limited appeal and spare PCI-Express lanes for dual Gigabit, however WiFi would be nice and it’s a feature the competition has over that of the Mars on paper. But isn’t that what peripheral slots and USB keys are for? Better to invest in a feature if you need it, rather than pay for it and not use it.