Foxconn MARS: God of War Performance?
by Gary Key on September 21, 2007 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Foxconn MARS Specifications
The Foxconn MARS is designed with an enthusiast user in mind with an emphasis on BIOS features for those interested in overclocking the system. Foxconn provides the standard laundry list of board options such as the JMicron JMB361 chipset for eSATA and IDE support, IEEE 1394 support from TI, decent onboard audio support from the Realtek ALC888, 12 USB ports, Intel Matrix RAID, and Gigabit LAN support from the ubiquitous Realtek RTL8111B.
The board offers a very good mix of expansion slots although utilizing a CrossFire setup will create the physical loss of a PCI Express x1 and PCI 2.2 slot. The third PCI Express x16 slot operates at x4 electrically and can be utilized for various other PCI Express cards including RAID controllers or a second video card. However, note that the use of CrossFire in this system will negate the use of the two PCI Express x1 slots, both physically and electrically.
| Foxconn MARS P35 | |
| Market Segment | Mid-Range Enthusiast - $199.99 (estimated MSRP) |
| CPU Interface | Socket T (Socket 775) |
| CPU Support | LGA775-based Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme, or Core 2 Quad recommended |
| Chipset | Intel P35 (MCH) Northbridge and ICH9R Southbridge |
| Front Side Bus Speeds | Auto, 100 ~ 999 in 1MHz increments |
| Memory Speed DDR2 | Auto, Six Ratios |
| PCIe Speeds | 100MHz - 255MHz |
| PCI Speeds | Synch, 33.33MHz, 37.3MHz, 42.0MHz |
| Core Voltage | Auto, 0.8250V to 1.6000V in .0125V increments |
| Core Voltage Multiplier | 1.00 ~ 1.296, results in 2.0736V CPU Core Max |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | 6x ~ 11x, downward adjustable for Core 2, upward to 50 for Extreme |
| DRAM Voltage DDR2 | Auto, 1.665V ~ 3.365V in various increments |
| DRAM Timing Control | SPD, Manual - 14 DRAM Timing Options |
| DRAM Command Rate | Auto, 1N, 2N |
| NB Voltage | Auto, 1.156V ~ 2.395V in various increments |
| SB Voltage | Auto, 1.388V ~ 1.950V in various increments |
| Memory Slots | Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered DDR3 Memory to 8GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 2 - PCIe x16 (1 - x16, 1 - x4 electrical) 2 - PCIe x1 3 - PCI Slot 2.2 |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | 6 SATA 3Gbps Ports - ICH9R (RAID 0,1, 10, 5) 1 eSATA 3Gbps Port - JMicron JMB361 |
| Onboard IDE | 1 ATA133/100/66 Port (2 drives) - JMicron JMB361 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 12 USB 2.0 Ports - 6 I/O Panel - 6 via Headers 2 Firewire 400 Ports by TI TSB43AB22A - 1 I/O Panel, 1 via Header |
| Onboard LAN | Realtek RTL8111B - PCIe Gigabit Ethernet contoller |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC888 - 8-channel HD audio codec |
| Power Connectors | ATX 24-pin, 8-pin ATX 12V, 4-pin 12V |
| I/O Panel | 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x eSATA 2 x SPDIF - Optical Out, Coaxial Out 1 x IEEE 1394 1 x Audio Panel 1 x RJ45 6 x USB 2.0/1.1 |
| Fan Headers | 5 - (1) CPU, (4) Chassis |
| Fan Control | CPU and Chassis Fan Control via BIOS, monitoring/control via Aegis |
| Auto Overclocking | 5% ~ 75%, in 5% increments |
| BIOS Revision | P03 |
| Board Revision | v1.00 |
The Foxconn MARS is designed with an enthusiast user in mind with an emphasis on BIOS features for those interested in overclocking the system. Foxconn provides the standard laundry list of board options such as the JMicron JMB361 chipset for eSATA and IDE support, IEEE 1394 support from TI, decent onboard audio support from the Realtek ALC888, 12 USB ports, Intel Matrix RAID, and Gigabit LAN support from the ubiquitous Realtek RTL8111B.
The board offers a very good mix of expansion slots although utilizing a CrossFire setup will create the physical loss of a PCI Express x1 and PCI 2.2 slot. The third PCI Express x16 slot operates at x4 electrically and can be utilized for various other PCI Express cards including RAID controllers or a second video card. However, note that the use of CrossFire in this system will negate the use of the two PCI Express x1 slots, both physically and electrically.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
17 Comments
View All Comments
Griswold - Sunday, September 23, 2007 - link
I see they also implemented the Northbridge<->PWM section cooling with heatpipes. Recipe for hot PWM with an Overclocked 4 core CPUHumbug. The PWMs with an overclocked quad will be hotter than a P35 NB - and they also can take alot more heat than a NB. Dont make issues up where there are none.
kmmatney - Saturday, September 22, 2007 - link
it seems like it would be better just to remove the covers over chipset heatsinks - don't they just reduce airflow? The coolpipe logo piece should just be taken off altogether.wolfman3k5 - Saturday, September 22, 2007 - link
Nice review, thanks allot! I want to buy one of these, where can I find this board?JarredWalton - Saturday, September 22, 2007 - link
Not out at retail quite yet - early next month I believe.cmdrdredd - Saturday, September 22, 2007 - link
Good board from the review, but it's a little late. Those who were looking to adopt P35 already have one of the other boards, everyone else wants to see X38. I suppose it would depend on the price of this board vs others once it hits actual retail channels.Griswold - Sunday, September 23, 2007 - link
Your world must be really small.strikeback03 - Monday, September 24, 2007 - link
Then again, didn't Gary Key say in the comments on the ASUS X38 board that he expects X38 to take over this market segment once initial hysteria wears off; as performance should be better than P35 for the same money. Then P35 would primarily work in the midrange.