Foxconn Blood Rage - If Looks Could Kill (UPDATE)
by Rajinder Gill on January 2, 2009 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Maxing out
The final challenge was to strap a cascade to the CPU and see how far we could push things with the additional overhead sub-zero temps can provide. Those of you into this sort of thing will be happy to know that we found no cold bug bootup limits on the board itself. Nehalem processors are known to average bootup limits in the region of 50-80C. Our retail i920 processors (purchased from Scan UK and Tank Guys) will boot on this board as cold as our smaller cascade will go, which is -95C (sounds lucky at this point does'nt it?).
There is one huge caveat, though: although our i920 CPU boots all the way down to the limits of the cascade, overclocking it at sub-zero temps is another matter altogether. Anything over a reference BCLK of 166MHz on the 20X multiplier refuses to boot. We added a number of shims between the evaporator and CPU to increase the temperature delta to find where this situation begins to manifest. Our saved 195 BCLK x20 multiplier BIOS profile loads fine as long as the CPU is in the positive temperature region. Anything on the negative side and we're stuck at near board defaults for voltages.
The major obstacle for us was that we were limited to using "BIOS-boot only" overclocking. As we mentioned on page 2, the AEGIS panel and the last version of SetFSB did not work properly for us. Had AEGIS panel worked, we would have been able to tinker with voltages at the OS level perhaps providing us with enough room to manipulate the BCLK reference clock to favorable levels. BIOS voltages for the CPU and VTT/Uncore were raised and lowered in BIOS to see if we could get around any kind of current limiting at negative DTS readings; unfortunately, these attempts proved unsuccessful. What we ended up with as workable voltage put us in a worse position than when we were using water-cooling at ambient temps.
It seems we have an i920 processor with an odd cold bug, or perhaps we're seeing what could be some kind of power throttling due to a built-in CPU thermal condition breach. Nehalem monitors processor Vcore at all times and can make dynamic changes on-the-fly in an attempt to rectify temperatures that fall above or below predefined DTS thresholds. Still, this is another story altogether and not something we're blaming the board for just yet. Although we are beginning to see BIOS's on other boards that offer partial workarounds to some of these conditions. A hard modification will be required to the Blood Rage to overcome some fo the current throttling at the PWM end of things, and this is an avenue we will explore. Before doing that, we're going to try out a few more processors to double-check everything and report back in the full review.
After all that effort, it was back to water-cooling the processor, and we managed to get a clean boot at 200 BCLK on the 20-21X multiplier and run 3DMark06 along with several other benchmark programs and applications.
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We did manage to get the board to boot at 203 BCLK, but it seems our processor is too VTT hungry (at least on this current BIOS) to scale past this at voltages we'd deem being past intelligent for ambient benchmarking. The i920 series is hampered in this regard by Uncore and QPI MHz limits, although we did try lowering the multiplier/memory speed to work around this without success. Future tests will be compared against a retail Extreme i7-965 CPU to get a broader picture of motherboard capabilities.
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gemsurf - Friday, January 2, 2009 - link
Absolutely! Why pay any homage to a company like Foxcon that releases this crap to the unsuspecting public! Most early adoptee's will have dropped about a grand counting memory and a processor only to be a friggen frustrated betatester! That sucks and should be pointed out for what it is! A crappy company! Anandtech has the clout to be heard saying just that and it's time you did it everytime something "released to market" that doesn't work properly!JonnyDough - Friday, January 2, 2009 - link
I agree. They BLOW. Support for bios updates and drivers is lacking bad. I could even say the same for Phoenix who makes the BIOS for their boards. If you go to their website (because FoxConn BIOS are years old) and want an update to your BIOS you have to pay for a subscription to a driver update program. I guess nothing in life is free, except that I PAID FOR THE MOTHERBOARD. Which, I guess should mean that they support it for AT LEAST FIVE YEARS.Anyway, my experience with FoxConn has been dismal at best. They have no real American tech/website support to speak of. Steer clear.
JEDIYoda - Friday, January 2, 2009 - link
You will never ever satisfy all the people all the time. So continue to do your very best!!In fact some people with complaints just enjoy complaining!!
Gasaraki88 - Friday, January 2, 2009 - link
NO, I want you to call out the manufacturer and say that this is a bad motherboard because IT DOESN"T EVEN WORK OUT OF THE BOX! You do know that this mobo is for sale now in the general public right? If this was a pre-release board for reviewers then fine, but a retail board that can't boot properly? Come on...The0ne - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
This isn't new, MBs have been shipping with bad BIOS firmwares for some time now. Even if sites like Anandtech were to find the issues, the MBs are going to make it out to the public as is. We as the consumer can only pray that they will have a fix, sooner than later.On this particular subject I am really disgusted at the companies for not doing a better job. As an Engineer myself I have to ask whether I'm happy with the current state of development to release it to the public or not. And if the MB is buggy with it, then DON'T ship it until you can stabilize it. Of course you have the QA and testing that might be missing as well. Shame really.
The0ne - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
sry, website didn't process so clicked 3 times :/The0ne - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
This isn't new, MBs have been shipping with bad BIOS firmwares for some time now. Even if sites like Anandtech were to find the issues, the MBs are going to make it out to the public as is. We as the consumer can only pray that they will have a fix, sooner than later.On this particular subject I am really disgusted at the companies for not doing a better job. As an Engineer myself I have to ask whether I'm happy with the current state of development to release it to the public or not. And if the MB is buggy with it, then DON'T ship it until you can stabilize it. Of course you have the QA and testing that might be missing as well. Shame really.
The0ne - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
This isn't new, MBs have been shipping with bad BIOS firmwares for some time now. Even if sites like Anandtech were to find the issues, the MBs are going to make it out to the public as is. We as the consumer can only pray that they will have a fix, sooner than later.On this particular subject I am really disgusted at the companies for not doing a better job. As an Engineer myself I have to ask whether I'm happy with the current state of development to release it to the public or not. And if the MB is buggy with it, then DON'T ship it until you can stabilize it. Of course you have the QA and testing that might be missing as well. Shame really.
gemsurf - Friday, January 2, 2009 - link
Well, I'm a consumer (system builder) and I have yet to see an X58 board that is ready to market? Everything you have tested or teased with "has issues" and were not ready to market from what I can gather. So I guess what I would like to see is articles or follow ups on items that are really up to the promises on the box? Are there any because everything I've read here since the X58 release seems to have bios issues. Is the best board out there just the one with the fewest issues? Are they ready to trust across 25 mission critical workstations? I'm left with the impression that no, they are not? Seems these manufacturers want us to buy them and wait for the bios updates? If thats the case, then all I really expect is for you to say it that way.Exar3342 - Friday, January 2, 2009 - link
I have yet to hear any issues from the Gigabyte or Asus X58 boards (I happen to have used both myself) and each is rock-solid. Quit spreading FUD.