An old favourite is back. We take a look at Foxconn’s P67A-S Sandy Bridge board due to be released in January.
Foxconn have been behind the scenes over the last few years, providing OEM production for other manufactures. Sure enough they have also been launching some products to the market but retail hasn’t been a big focus for them… until now.
Come January, Foxconn will be back and launching a new range of P67/H67 motherboards armed with the new Sandy Bridge chipset. It’s good to see an old friend back again!
A few days ago a parcel arrived with us containing P67 and H67 motherboards from Foxconn – as with previous Sandy Bridge boards I thought it would be a good idea to get a preview out to you the readers, especially as from the outset the P67A-S that I will be showing off today seems to have a whole catalogue of rich features.
The P67A-S seeks to appeal to those who want the performance but on a budget. This board promises to have the competence to allow users of both novice and expert level to be able to overclock with ease.
Our P67A-S has very distinctive looks. Red and blue seem to be the most prevalent colours for motherboard design, Foxconn are breaking out of this trend with a Vortez-esque looking colour-scheme. We like it!
An overview of the P67A-S
Showing the profile of the P67A-S
Over on the page we will take a closer look at the various aspects of the P67A-S
Closer Look
Our chipset features just one heatsink for cooling. Around the socket there is actually quite a lot of space, so this will work in favour for those who have particularly large CPU coolers that have poor clearance. Being LGA1155 this board will also allow for LGA1156 CPU coolers.
Just the one heatsink for cooling
As with previous LGA1156 boards we have DDR3 dual channel memory lanes. There are 4 in total giving a maximum of 16GB. Supporting modules from 1066MHz right through to the high-end 2200MHz (OC). Both sides of each lane have latches to secure the RAM.
Dual channel DDR3 – 1066 through to 2200 (OC)
Seeing SATA advancing from 3G to 6G you will be surprised to see that Foxconn have decided to include an old predecessor – IDE. Those who still use this old standard can take advantage of this functionality although I can’t imagine many still use IDE since SATA has been mainstream for a long time now. This IDE slot is ATA133.
IDE socket providing ATA133 support
One aspect that motherboard manufacturers seem to be moving away from is LED debug. Personally I really like this feature and its great to see that Foxconn are integrating it onto their boards. LED debug assists with diagnosing faults on POST and will help identify what component is causing a problem without you having to discover the offending hardware by process of elimination – which sometimes can take a long time!
LED Debug
SATA support is provided via 4 x SATA 3G (black) and 2 x SATA 6G (yellow). Whilst there isn’t an over-abundance of storage options the number of potential drives is reasonable it is fair to say.
SATA storage in 3G and 6G
Over the page we will take a look at the last few elements of the board
Closer Look (Continued)
PCI-e comes via 2 x16 PCI-e 2.0 lanes (yellow) which are accompanied by 3 x1 lanes. So in essence this board will enable users to channel in to Crossfire or SLI. Beneath these lanes we have 2 legacy PCI sockets. It’s good to have so many options but does anyone use PCI anymore?
Plenty of options over at the PCI-e lanes
Covering the Southbridge chip we have a nicely sized heatsink with the Foxconn branding on it.
Southbridge heatsink
Lastly we have onboard power and reset buttons which are extremely useful for enthusiasts who have the board on a test bed and perhaps don’t have the front panel cables connected.
Onboard power and reset buttons
The P67A-S hopes to be a great performing board for those who want to build a high-end system whilst on a budget. Obviously at this stage we cannot publish any performance related results such as benchmarks or overclocking ability but rest assured, come January we will have a comprehensive review for you.
