Review-Foxconn A9DA-S Motherboard: High-end, Yet Affordable

The Board

The motherboard’s yellow-black color scheme gives it a somewhat unique look. Yellow elements on the PCI Express slots and processor socket stand out against the black background

There’s a bit of space between every component in this motherboard, unlike some other motherboards whose PCB could be very cramped with components.

We found these I/O ports on the backplate:

• 1 x P/S 2 Keyboard Port
• 6x USB 2.0/1.1 Ports
• 1x Firewire
• 1 x DVI-D Port
• 1 x HDMI Port
• 1 x VGA Port
• 1 x RJ-45 Port (LAN)
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF Out Connector
• 6 x audio jacks

The expansion slots consist of the following:

• 2x Slot PCI-Express X16
• 2x Slot PCI-Express X1
• 2x Slot PCI

Foxconn’s A9DA-S supports CrossFireX multi-graphics card configuration. Both of the PCI-Express X1 slots, however, are positioned right between the two PCI-Express X16 and could be rendered unusable when more than one graphics card is used.

Some headers provide additional USB 2.0 ports (x4) along with one FireWire connector.

There are a total of six SATA 3 ports (SATA 6Gbps) on this motherboard. The cable from the e-SATA bracket connects to one of these, thus reducing the amount of usable SATA ports to five when used.

Solid capacitors and chokes make up the VRM section on one side of the processor socket.

A passive heatsink sits on top of the north bridge chip, the south bridge chip, and the VRM. It sure doesn’t look fancy with no heatpipe involved, but at least the heatsinks are quite large, and they have quite a nice shape too.

A power button and a reset button are provided. There is also a POST reader that could give some clue if something goes wrong during system boot.

Foxconn equips this board with its special “FOX 2” overclocking chip. Pretty impressive for a US$ 100 board.