nForce4 Ultra Roundup: Charting the Mainstream
by Wesley Fink on July 5, 2005 10:28 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Winfast NF4UK8AA (Foxconn): Features and Layout
| Specification | Winfast NF4UK8AA |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nForce4 Ultra (single chip) |
| BUS Speeds | 200MHz to 300MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Asynchronous (Fixed) |
| PCI Express | 100MHz to 145MHz in 1MHz increments |
| Core Voltage | Default, 1.20V to 1.80V in 0.025V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | 2.5V, Default, 2.7V, 2.8V |
| Chipset Voltage | Default, 1.6V, 1.7V, 1.8V |
| LDT Bus Transfer | 16/16, 16/8, 8/16, 8/8 |
| Hyper Transport | 1x to 5x in 1x Intervals |
| LDT Voltage | Default, 1.3V, 1.4V, 1.5V |
| CPU Ratios | NONE |
| DRAM Speeds | Auto, 100, 133, 166, 200 |
| Memory Command Rate | Auto, 1T, 2T |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR Dual-Channel Slots Unbuffered ECC or non-ECC Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x16 PCIe Slots 2 x1 PCIe 4 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA | 4-Drive SATA 2 by nF4 |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard NVIDIA ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| SATA/IDE RAID | 4-Drive SATA 2 PLUS 4-Drive IDE (8 total) Can be combined in RAID 0, 1 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 ports supported nF4 2 1394A FireWire ports by Agere FW3226-100 |
| Onboard LAN | Gigabit Ethernet PCIe by Vitesse VSC8201 PHY |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel codec with 5 UAJ audio jacks, CD-in, front audio, and coaxial SPDIF Out |
| Other Features | AMD X2 Support with NF4UK8AA (6/29/05) or higher BIOS |
| BIOS | Phoenix Award Shipping BIOS |
Foxconn may not be well-known to some readers, but Foxconn is the manufacturer of almost every connector that you will find on almost every motherboard on the market. In addition, Foxconn is one of the world's largest motherboard manufacturers. Foxconn makes motherboards for many companies, and counts Intel to be among their clients. The quality of Foxconn boards is well-established, so it should come as no surprise that Foxconn is now interested in marketing their own branded motherboards.
The Winfast NF4UK8AA is another nForce4 Ultra motherboard that is long on built-in features, but is sold at a modest street price of $97. Foxconn includes two Firewire ports, 8-channel audio, a Phoenix Award BIOS with AMD x2 support, Gigabit PCIe Ethernet, and the full implementation of the NVIDIA nForce4 chipset features.
The BIOS feature set also is reasonably attractive with a full range of options for CPU voltage, memory voltage, chipset voltage and HT voltage. There is also a wide range of CPU speed selections from 200 to 300. Frankly, 2.8V is not enough on memory voltage with top memory now going to 3.5V and higher, and 300 looks low when other boards are running at over 300 at a 9X multiplier, but the controls that the enthusiast wants are all here. That is all except CPU ratios or multipliers. The AMD Athlon 64 features unlocked multipliers on all processors downwards, and unlocks up and down with FX CPUs. This is an important feature that differentiates AMD from the competition. However, an unlocked CPU is virtually useless if the multiplier adjustments are not available in BIOS. If Foxconn intends to sell to AMD enthusiasts, then they need to quickly make the same options available to buyers that competitors routinely provide.
Click image to enlarge.
The IDE connectors, 24-pin ATX power connector, and DIMM slots were all in near ideal locations and presented no issues.
Foxconn has placed the 4-pin 12V power connector between the CPU and the rear panel connectors, which can present some cabling challenges in some case designs. It works better at a board edge, but Foxconn Winfast is not alone in using the center of the board location for the 12V connector. The floppy is at the bottom right of the motherboard - a difficult reach in tall cases.
Additional connectors are well located along board edges and out of the way of the slot area. Foxconn also provides a rear coaxial SPDIF connector, which proves that you don't have to give up SPDIF connectors on a $100 motherboard.
While there are certainly several areas that can be improved upon in the layout of the NF4UK8AA, it is a pretty easy board to work with overall. The board is also built with obvious care and quality components, which is not a surprise when you consider the quality reputation that Foxconn enjoys in the motherboard market.
Like every other board in this roundup, Foxconn uses the ALC850 audio codec. Realtek appears to be doing a very good job of convincing Asian manufacturers of the features and value represented by the ALC850.
Epox 9NPA+ Ultra: Overclocking and Stress Testing
Winfast NF4UK8AA (Foxconn): Overclocking and Stress Testing
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tribbleva - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
Every single one of these MBs has a fan on the NB... where are the passively cooled mobos? The last thing I want is one or TWO more tiny fans just on the mobo to worry about failing...Zebo - Friday, July 22, 2005 - link
"someof you take Anandtech's word as the word of GOD"It's as close as you can get without dying.:)
Zebo - Friday, July 22, 2005 - link
Viper - You should come inside the forums for specfic help..dg3274 - Saturday, July 16, 2005 - link
The article states that the Abit board has a problem with 1:1 overclocking. I disagree. I think the problem is that it does not provide enough ram voltage to run the RAM at high 1:1 FSB. 2.8 volts is not enough to run ANY ram much higher than 280 or so FSB.Viper4185 - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link
No one wants to help me with my n00b questions :(Marcel - Tuesday, July 12, 2005 - link
#67 I must be a little a slow …In the test “Maximun CPU Clock ( Lower Multiplier )”
For Chaintec, Abit, etc you use the multiplier in “11”, and only for Epox and DFI you use the multiplier in “9”, then you show a diagram with nothing more than the fsb.
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/nf4%20ultra%20r...
The first question is WHY ?? there is no explanation for use different multiplier in the review. Not some guys, but ALL ones have better result in chaintec and abit with a lower multiplier.
TheGlassman - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
Thanks Wesley, I did find you had checked HTT, and as I stated in my last post I don't understand what the problem was. But the deeper I looked into the review, the better job you seemed to have done, so sorry if I impied you didn't try very hard.DFI has a dual core (beta) bios available, dated 6-23-05
Epox has a dual core (release) bios available, dated 6-29-05
These were not used in testing.
Wesley Fink - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
#59 and #60 - One of the first articles I did a couple of years ago about Athlon 64 was how to overclock by manipulating HTT frequencies. I ALWAYS test manual HTT dividers I know should work for certain 1:1 memory clocks as well as Auto HTT if it is an available option.#58 - I was very CLEAR in the review that I tested with the BIOS that would allow the X2 A64 to work. We did check each board with an X2. That is the ONLY reason we tested and used very recent Beta BIOS'. Also there are 2 other very recent Chaintech reviews at other websites who had test results almost equal to what I found on the Chaintech, so there are at least 2 other Chaintechs loose with less than stirring overclocking. In the end, as I stated in the review, the Chaintech is a decent board, but at about the same price as the Epox, with poorer overclocking results, it was hard to give it an Editor's Choice this time around. The results found in this roundup should remove anyone's concern that we get cherry boards from manufacturers. I am a good overclocker, and very experienced in air overclocking and memory overclocking. What I got from these boards on air is all they could do with the TCCD memory that is all but standard test memory for motherboards these days. The capabilities of the memory we used is also well known and I tweaked for TCCD if settings were available if the board was not doing well at stock memory settings and our normal test timings.
I am really pleased some of you experienced better performance than I did with the Chaintech and Abit boards, but I can only report what I actually found in my tests. I don't think you come to AnandTech for a survey of what other websites or Forums found, because I find overclockers are notorious at exagerrating what they can reach with overclocks. We try to provide a consisten test environment for overclocking that will give repeatable overclocking results. Results, of course, always vary board to board, but having said that, OC results are usually pretty consistent on better boards from sample to sample.
lefenzy - Saturday, July 9, 2005 - link
Sorry, wrong link. that one was for the SLI version.http://www.foxconnchannel.com/productsDownload_mot...
lefenzy - Saturday, July 9, 2005 - link
Foxconn has a BIOS release that allow for multiplier adjustment.http://www.foxconnchannel.com/productsDownload_mot...