Six 975X Enthusiast Motherboards for Today and Tomorrow

BIOS

We used BIOS version 597F1P23 (03/02/2006).

Foxconn does not offer a Windows-based BIOS update program. Since modern BIOS image sizes force you to use two floppy disks, the floppy update procedure gets annoying.

Overclocking is now well supported by Foxconn.

There are overclocking profiles that allow you to select any setting, ranging from Energy Saving to Gaming. Here are the available settings and the impact they have:

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FOX Intelligent Stepping
OptionFSBPower
Energy Saving232 MHz198 W
Office266 MHz204 W
Data Mining266 MHz206 W
Power Gaming266 MHz223 W
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Bios Voltage Settings
FSB frequency266 - 600 (Bios)
CPU Core voltage+0.0125 - +0.3000 V
Memory voltage-0.125 - + 0.600 V
Northbridge voltage-0.120 - + 0.240 V

Though you can freely set your memory timings, the 975X7AA will sometimes override these; for example, our CL 4.0-4-4-8 setting resulted in CL 4-4-4-12 timings. In addition, DDR2-800 is the maximum memory speed, while other motherboards are capable of supporting DDR2-1066 at FSB1066.

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Possible Memory Configration
FSB1066 (266 MHz)1:XXFSB800 (200 MHz)
DDR2-5331.00DDR2-533
DDR2-6671.25DDR2-667
DDR2-8001.33DDR2-800

The hardware monitor is pretty detailed, thanks to the Fox One chip.

As you can see, the shutdown feature did not work.