Foxconn Blood Rage - If Looks Could Kill (UPDATE)
by Rajinder Gill on January 2, 2009 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
We've received confirmation from Foxconn that a certain number of retail boards may be incompatible with some of the higher power PSU's such as the PCP 1200W, Cooler master and Silverstone 1200W units we used for this preview article. Foxconn have identified and rectified the issue with a board modification that has already been rolled out to retail. If your board is having symptoms such as those described at the top of page 3 in our article, please contact Foxconn customer support. They will be happy to replace your board with an updated version.
Things are at a fever pitch in the labs at present because we've got a plethora of products from the proverbial who's who of the motherboard industry all awaiting testing and final review. Some of these "superstars" have already received some airtime in our $300 motherboard roundup. Final report compilation is ongoing, with products from ASUS, Biostar, DFI, MSI, ECS, EVGA, and Gigabyte, each presenting its own set of merits and quirks depending on your needs.
If you read the opening page of the first look round-up article, you'll already know what scintillating fun the past two months of BIOS testing has been for us. We'll sum this up by saying, "You can beat us up, but we're never down for long." Yes, we're still excited when we get something new, and the latest contender from Foxconn has certainly been at the center of enough internet-based ballyhoo to provoke our interests enough to march on into the unknown.
Much of the initial crowd "pop" reaction to Foxconn's Blood Rage is related to pictures of the motherboard that have been on the forum based cha-cha-cha circuit for several months now. We'll be the first to tell you, good looks do not necessarily a great motherboard make. But we have to admit, a passing glance at the Blood Rage is compelling enough to create the desire of at least taking a deeper look into what makes this thing tick.
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Foxconn's last big foray into the enthusiast segment was with the Intel X48-based Black Ops motherboard. It was a market tester with the goal of establishing their brand name whilst simultaneously demanding accelerated learning from their newly employed Quantum Force BIOS programmers, support staff, and engineering team.
We reviewed the Black Ops back in July. Although the board threw us a few curve balls on occasion, it happened to possess enough substance to make it one of our favorites in what would now be cited as a product from Intel's last generation technology -- a technology that we still think is viable for most users. Those that had positive experiences with the Black Ops by using it in the intended manner have been imbibed with plenty of thought provoking fodder to wonder what's coming next from the Quantum Force development team.
Part of the Blood Rage development process was getting Foxconn personnel to work with the inquisitive consumers who frequent their support forum. The forum staff asked Quantum Force team members and support forum goers what they'd like to see on their upcoming boards, ranging from component choices to color schemes. Although this takes place in various forms at other companies, it's not often you get to provide direct feedback to those who are close to the engineers and design teams. Some of this public brainstorming filtered its way into the final rendition of the Blood Rage, possibly making it the birth-child of a thousand collaborative fathers -- and that could be a good thing. Think of it as a throwback to the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Danny Devito film called "Twins", only this time the outcome is focused solely on releasing the physically superior "Junior" to the public while successfully incinerating Danny Devito's inadequate character before birth. (At least, we think that's the plan Foxconn had in mind.)
Anyway, let's not dwell on those aspects for too long; what matters is whether the Blood Rage really delivers on the promise of its super-charged appearance. Although this first look will concentrate mainly on the overclocking side of things, we'll also be telling you what we like so far and what, if anything, makes us grit our teeth. By the way, the board has performed like any other X58 based product in application and game testing so no worries on that end. Read on if you like to overclock….
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strikeback03 - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
Being "brand centric" is being a fanboi if you don't even consider other competing brands. The motherboard gods did not reach down and bless abit, Asus, Gigabyte, etc, with good reliable motherboards; they are the result of good decisions in design and support from the companies. These companies do produce the occasional problem product, and there is nothing stopping them from deciding to cut costs and ride their reputation for a while while producing substandard merchandise (see: Sony). At the same time ECS, Foxconn, etc could decide to dedicate the resources to produce good boards and support themselves, and in time they would have a good reputation. Every product needs to be judged on its own merits, not just the company reputation.As far as this board goes, the layout should make it obvious that this is not really a general-purpose board, but a benchmarkers delight. So as Raja mentioned, pressing the reset button isn't a huge deal if the board isn't in a case. The data is there to draw conclusions from based on each reader's needs.
yyrkoon - Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - link
Being brand centric might mean you're a 'fanboi' if you're you. I however have larger issues to consider, such as customers to please, and support.The 'motherboard gods' do bless companies who put a bit of effort into their product, although you could also think of that as the company being thorough. Every company does have problem products I will agree with that, but time after time again, and it is time to call a lemon, a lemon. As for judging a product by its own merits, I could not agree more, that said there are companies whom have already been named who do put out quality products time , and time again. All you have to do is ask any professional, and I bet if you did not know already it would not be hard to figure out. *hint* Asus does not enter the picture.
Also, I could care less if this is an "benchmarking board", for $300 usd it had better work right, and maybe even serve me coffee in the morning. People such as myself are tired of paying a premium for "quality" parts, only to become a paying beta tester. Now, if Foxconn had a reputation for giving good support, this whole conversation would be moot. As it stands, I can go to the competition and get a rock solid board with excellent support if needed for half the price.
Maybe it is time someone started doing reviews on the average every day system board/parts most people would use instead of wasting every ones time reviewing a niche product that obviously is not going to sell well. To add insult to injury, we see these same kind of reviews _all_the_frigging_time_ here, it would be nice to have a change.
Rajinder Gill - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
Thanks StrikeBack..Updated first page btw with a para at the top - Foxconn appear to have fixed the issue. I'll be checking this out for myself. They had to change 3 SMT resistors on their boards to rectify it. It only affects some of the high power supplies over 1000W, which many of the people who buy boards like these seem to have - although not all of the PSU's appear to have the issue.
Sorry for the inconvienience caused btw..
later
Raja
7Enigma - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
Thank you as well from me for the update. I was hard on this article earlier in the comments (and still stand by them), but thank you for the update. I can see now why you were not as gung-ho to bash on the mobo (as not everyone was having problems with it), but I still feel the criticism towards the product was warranted.It is a shame that RMA is required and not just a bios fix. I'm hoping they at least pay shipping both ways....
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - link
That's Ok. You live and learn. It was a mixture of getting something up fast and not having enough feedback that prompted the format. The Bloodrage is quite a niche product so it can take a while to get sufficient feedback from users in the wild before you can really say soemthing is seriously wrong. Even though our PSU's threw curve balls, similar units from users and in labs have not - go figure, (where do you go from there?) Anyway, I'm glad they're on it and have nailed it. My sample board here is a rev. 1.0 btw, I'm not sure if the updated boards have a different rev number yet - I'll ask.WIth the PSU swap it's a completely different board. I'm running through the regular daily testing atm rebooting, overclocking etc and not one problem since making the PSU change.
Again, sorry for the rigmorale folks. Foxconn have been great over the past few days answering everything within minutes mostly. Thank Sascha @ Foxconn support!
regards
Raja
Gasaraki88 - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
Thanks for the update. =)Rajinder Gill - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
If any one reading this has an afflicted board/PSU combo;http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p...">http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p...
later
Raja
yyrkoon - Sunday, January 4, 2009 - link
It is a shame companies like this still litter the market with junk motherboards, and companies such as ABIT who at least once in a while make a few decent boards go out of the business. To be perfectly honest though, I have been using ABIT since the early to mid 90's, and their boards have ALWAYS served me well.I guess I will be moving to Gigabyte, it sure will not be foxconn.
hooflung - Sunday, January 4, 2009 - link
While I won't lay the blame completely at Anandtech's feet I feel these articles are just reader fodder in the sense that any news is good news. Review after review from this site and others the consensus is X-58 motherboards suck. Despite the quality of the components. Despite the quality of the build. Despite the quality of the spec's and engineering of Intel's chipset and cpu... these boards are just plain quirky.If AMD did this we'd have a complete AMD motherboard review that criticized the company left, right and center and point out how good Intel is. Seriously guys... I'd rather read about how good P45 chips are doing and a review of companies who gave the best amount of bios and mobo support throughout the product cycle than late breaking news on how much potential a motherboard could have with a few tweaks.
Also, Foxconn is crap for supporting their motherboards. I have their 780G mini-atx and the NIC died on me after a Vista Realtek 8111B driver update to the point NO OS would install an official realtec, official foxconn or opensource driver even though the chip is seen by all OSs. Foxconn responded for a week to me via email with broken English requests to try xyz that I already did, and explained to them, and then asked ME to contact Microsoft and Realtek to inquire into what might have happened to the Realtek August 2008 Vista 64 driver updates. I mean... ok. Yeah... one guy with a warrantied board asking these companies... or a multi-million dollar partner. Which one is more likely to get a response?
Screw Foxconn... screw all these bloody half-baked Intel X58 mobo reviews and get down to what many people crave. Real company insight in an unbiased fashion. Get back to the basics and quite this techfodder.
InSearchOf - Saturday, January 3, 2009 - link
i have decided on buying a motherboard based on the P45 chipset since for me it offers the best bang for your buck. the dilemma im having is which manufacturer should i put my money in?ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, DFI etc....
ive also read alot and one should never buy the first versions of mobo and wait for 2nd version after the kinks have been worked out but how long before manuf. put a revised mobo on the market after first release? 3, 6 or 9 months???
what about BIOS updates? how often do these companies update them and how do they treat RMAs and warranties?
can any of you enlighten me with your past experiences and knowledge!
thanks