Overclocking:
Overclocking on this motherboard is simple, but severely restricted by the 233 MHz frontside bus cap set in the BIOS. I was able to get the test system to boot up at 233 MHz without a problem, with no voltage adjustments, and minimal impact on temperatures. The nice thing about this overclock is that it provided just enough to take this 2.6 GHz processor to just over the 3 GHz milestone... a mental victory. As mentioned previously, FoxConn is presently working on a performance BIOS for this motherboard, and I have a feeling it could allow for some serious overclocking once released!
To analyze the benefits of overclocking the FoxConn 865M01-G-6LS, I ran it through a handful of the benchmarks used at default speed in order to see how the scores matched up. The results from 3DMark03 (using only the Radeon 9600XT), PCMark04, PCMark2002 CPU, and PCMark2002 MEM are charted below at default speed of 2600 MHz, as well as the maximum overclocked speed of 3029 MHz.
|
Test
|
Default
|
Overclocked
|
% Gain
|
|
3DMark03
|
3783
|
3830
|
1.2%
|
|
PCMark04
|
3306
|
4550
|
37.6%
|
|
PCMark2002 CPU
|
6392
|
7439
|
16.4%
|
|
PCMark2002 MEM
|
7233
|
9406
|
30.0%
|
The overclock from 200 MHz to 233 MHz is a 16.5% increase in straight speed, but notice the percent gains seen in the benchmarks above! 37.6% in PCMark04 and 30.0% in PCMark2002 MEM are quite impressive, and the PCMark2002 CPU score increase is right inline with the increase in the bus speed. With the AGP clock locked, the system overclock wasn't expected to do much for video performance, and the test results proved this.
With overclocking being this easy and providing such significant benefits, its hard to recommend against it! If you get one of these boards, crank it to the max and consider that your new enhanced default speed!
Conclusion:
Having never seen a FoxConn motherboard before this review began, I was anticipating a plain vanilla offering, and this board is nothing like what I was expecting. The attractive and well thought out physical layout, the comprehensive bundle of accessories and utilities, and the overall performance are all quite impressive.
The benchmarking performance as a whole was solid. Other than the performance of the onboard Intel Extreme Graphics 2 (which I expected little from anyway due to its lack of DirectX9 support), the motherboard performed admirably in all tests, and for the most part was able to keep pace with the higher end ABIT IS7-G 865PE board it was matched up with.
Overclocking the 865M01-G-6LS is a mixed bag. On one hand, it is extremely simple and provides a decent performance boost with no adjustments required other than raising the front side bus. On the other hand, the overclocking settings are capped at a relatively low 233 MHz front side bus, which is much lower than I know I can achieve on other motherboards with the same components installed. Perhaps the future release of a performance BIOS will open the overclocking features up, but for now the simplicity is overshadowed by the limitations.
The price on the 865M01-G-6LS adds to the appeal. Although PriceGrabber doesn't find any listings for it, Newegg has the board for $79.99 with free shipping. A search of PriceGrabber does return a few results for the 865M01-G-6ELS (the version with Firewire), with a price tag around $85 (US). A mere five dollar difference would have me choosing the version with Firewire, but neither price will break the bank, while providing solid performance.
Overall, I was quite impressed with this board, and rate the FoxConn 865M01-G-6LS micro ATX motherboard at 4 out of 5 stars, "Recommended".
Final Rating (4 out of 5 stars): 
Pros:
• Board is well laid out - makes for easy installation and wire management
• Solid performance in real world applications and benchmarks
• Overclocking is easy - either in the BIOS or Windows
• Loaded with onboard features, requiring few add-on cards
• Onboard Serial ATA with cables included
• Includes comprehensive suite of Windows utilities
• Well priced
Cons:
• Overclocking may be easy, but is restricted to a maximum of 233 MHz frontside bus
• No Firewire
• Onboard video is not capable of gaming or output to a home theater system
• Utilities function well, but are a bit crude
Special thanks to FoxConn for providing the 865M01-G-6LS micro ATX motherboard to BigBruin.Com for review!
Please drop by the BigBruin.Com forum and feel free to discuss this review!
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