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| Foxconn C51XEM2AA The Way nVidia was Meant to Be Built | |
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(Review by MS, July 17, 2006) |
| AMD Athlon64 x2-3800+ |
Board Layout
The layout of the C51XEM2AA is rather conventional, with the AM2 socket positioned in the upper half of the board, flanked on the right by the four 240 pin DDR2 memory slots and on the left by the I/O connector ensemble. The latter is characterized by the lack of legacy ports as for example the LPT (printer) port or even serial ports. For a high-end board, these omissions are perfectly excuseable, hardly anybody would use a nForce 590 SLI chipset-based board for control of NC machinery running real-time legacy control applications. The omission of a game port is also perfectly legitimate, especially in view of the fact that these ports are no longer supported by the 64-bit versions of Windows anyway.
Since the C51XEM2AA is based on the nVidia nForce 590 SLI chipset, there are two separate core-logic chips, namely the SPP and the MCP. The MCP is essentially the work-horse and, therefore, draws more current which, by extension, generates the need for additional cooling.
In terms of expansion slots, the C51XEM2AA offers two 16 lanes PEG slots for SLI configuration, along with one single and one quad lane PCIe slot in between the two PEG slots. Keeping the 1x PCIe slot adjacent to the upper PEG slot is definitely the way to go, in case a dual slot graphics card is used, only the least important expansion slot is lost. At the very bottom of the PCB are the two 32 bit legacy PCI slots. We found the placement of the floppy connector at the very bottom of the PCB a little odd, granted, we have seen this before but in this case, at least if the board is properly mounted, the cable cannot be run on the back of the PCB because a stand-off and mounting screw are in the way. Keep in mind, though, that the floppy cable provided is rounded anyway which means that there is no practical way of running it behind the motherboard. My personal preference is still to revert to a standard ribbon cable, leave out the standoff and the screw and loop the cable underneath the board to whatever position the drive is mounted in.
Actively cooled MCP and Boot code LED display,
As originally introduced a few years ago by EPoX, the boot code is provided by a pair of alphanumeric LED display bricks, the codes are listed in the manual and can provide helpful hints for troubleshooting of the system in case it hangs during the boot-up sequence.
Power Connectors and VRM
Both power connectors are positioned exactly where they should be, that is, the 24 pin EPS connector is flush against the uppermost portion of the right edge of the PCB, consequently, the rather bulky ATX/EPS cable tree is never going to be in the way. The 8-pin auxiliary 12V connector for delivering power to the CPU is directly adjacent to the quad-phase Voltage Regulator Module, which is about the latest in VRM technology and compliant with Intel's VRD 11 and AMD's K8-F specificiations The core of the VRM is the Maxim-IC MAX8810a controller chip with dual integrated MOSFET drivers for direct control of phases 1-2. Phases 3-4 are controlled over the same MAX8810a controller but require the additional MAX8532 dual gate driver.
Maxim-IC MAX8810 controller (left) and MAX8523 dual gate driver (right)
Input to the individual phases is buffered by one massive Rubicon capacitor each, rated at 16V and 1800 µF, whereas the output is low-pass filtered by the Falco chokes and additional capacitors rated at 4V and 560 µF. The result is extremely clean power supplied to the CPU.
| AMD Sempron 3600+ (AM2) |
| Foxconn CS51XEM2AA |
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