A79A-S Software, BIOS, and Accessories
Like all recent AMD chipset products, the A79A-S supports AMD’s overclocking utility. Foxconn also includes its Fox One utility for viewing and changing various BIOS settings from within Windows. Fox One has several optional skins, so we tried to show a different skin for each menu.
Fox One is reasonably comprehensive and works fairly well, but we prefer to adjust our BIOS settings from within the BIOS GUI to reduce the likelihood of a crash affecting our Windows installation.
BIOS
Foxconn’s “Northbridge Voltage Control” is completely different from Asus’, and we believe it’s because Foxconn is referring to the actual 790FX northbridge rather than the processor’s on-die memory controller.
| CPU Reference Clock | 190 - 400 MHz (1 MHz) | |
| Clock Multiplier Adjustment | Yes | |
| DRAM Ratio | All CPU On-Die Memory Controller Ratios | |
| PCIe Clock | 90 - 250MHz (1 MHz) | |
| HT Link Multiplier | 1x - 13x CPU Reference Clock | |
| CPU Vcore | Stock - +0.60 Volts (0.024 Volts) | |
| CPU PLL Voltage | 2.30 - 3.25 Volts ( 0.06 V) | |
| HT Link Voltage | 1.776 - 2.640 Volts (0.048 Volts) | |
| Northbridge Voltage | 1.68 - 2.355 Volts (0.045 Volts) | |
| DRAM Voltag e | 1.80 - 2.20 - 2.70 Volts (0.05, 0.10 Volts) | |
| Row 10 - Cell 0 | CAS Latency Range (DDR2-1066) | Row 10 - Cell 2 |
| Row 11 - Cell 0 | tCAS: 3-7; tRCD: 5-12; tRP: 5-12; tRAS: 15-30 | Row 11 - Cell 2 |
Foxconn’s BIOS is fairly limited by performance motherboard standards, yet still contains AMD’s Advanced Clock Calibration settings, which can help tremendously in overclocking a Phenom processor.
As usual for Foxconn, CPU core voltage is adjusted in steps, requiring tuners to do the math and calculate the actual target voltage. A little more confusing, however, are Foxconn’s CPU FID and DID controls, which we had to experiment with in order to find the actual ratios we sought.
Accessories
| Documentation & Software | Motherboard Manual |
| Row 1 - Cell 0 | Motherboard Driver DVD |
| Hardware | 6x SATA Data Cable |
| Row 3 - Cell 0 | 1x 80-conductor Ultra ATA cable |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | 1x Floppy Cable |
| Row 5 - Cell 0 | 1x Port Breakout Plate (2x USB, 1x IEEE-1394) |
| Row 6 - Cell 0 | 1x I/O Panel Shield |
| Row 7 - Cell 0 | 6x 4-pin to SATA power adapter |
Foxconn keeps Windows XP users in mind by supplying a floppy cable in the A79A-S installation kit, since floppies are handy for installing RAID drivers. The six SATA power adapters probably aren’t needed, however, since power supplies for its market already have several SATA drive connectors.
