14 DAY TRIAL // According to the latest news, Foxconn is preparing the launch of another Quantum Force series motherboard. The board features the Intel P45 chipset compatible with the Core 2 processors. The board is not a simple P45 product, as it boasts a lot of characteristics that no other similar motherboard has, although it comes a little late. The Santa Clara-based chip manufacturer is getting ready to launch its latest micro-architecture, Nehalem, and all the eyes are focused in that direction.
The new Foxconn motherboard is reported to be dubbed “Avenger”. The thing that makes the board a special product is a PLX chip placed between the two residing x16 PCI-E slots. The chip is the same as those used on the ATI HD 4870 X2 solutions and allows for two graphics cards to be used together in dual x16 CrossFire. The standard P45 motherboards are only able to provide dual x8 CrossFire across both slots.
This way, Foxconn offers to its users plenty of bandwidth for CrossFire configurations with the new Avenger. Enthusiasts also know that the P45 boards have proved many times to be better overclockers than the X48 models, the same as P35 was quite often able to reach higher FSBs than X38. The guys from Expreview managed to get some details and pictures of the Avenger.
The motherboard features a few modifications from what you would expect to see on a P45. The maker moved the Northbridge near the DDR3 memory slots, while also turning the LGA775 socket 90 degrees. This move is expected to reduce latency times between data links. This has not been tested yet, but future benchmarking will show the truth about it.
Foxconn's Avenger is also said to feature an 8-phase digital PWM. The future weeks should bring us more details on the board, mainly due to the fact that the motherboard maker is said to be preparing a launch.