Final thoughts and rating
Due to be launched in January 2009 and with an expected etail price of around £300, the Foxconn Bloodrage X58 will appeal to the enthusiast that wants to push their Core i7 to the absolute limit.First impressions are positive, from the quality of the box to the aesthetically-pleasing red-and-black colour scheme that makes the board stand out from the competition.
We like the fact that so many features have been crammed in - including above-average audio, SAS support, debug LED, power buttons, four PCIe x16 slots, voltage-monitoring, and changeable IOH cooling - but all this goodness still isn't enough to take away from the egregious oversight of having only three DIMM slots, limiting most to 6GB of RAM. Foxconn may argue, successfully, that its Renaissance board would better fit the bill if RAM expansion is of utmost importance.
Moving on, the four-in-one cooling system for the IOH is cool (groan) because you can either run the board with a chunky passive heatsink, add on a fan, change it for a brass-and-copper waterblock, or even use an aluminium dry-ice container for some seat-of-the-pants action.
The BIOS, too, is solid and the ability to save settings is key, and the sample board hit 200MHz reference clock without too many issues.
We'd change the expansion-slot arrangement a little and, somehow, find space to shoehorn in another three DIMM slots, but apart from that there's little to have a good moan about.
As a motherboard geared towards the overclocker, Foxconn's Bloodrage X58 will quicken the pulse of the enthusiast enough to put it on a shortlist for as a base for an ultra-high system. Yes, the asking price is exorbitant, but then no X58-based board is particularly cheap, and Foxconn has successfully differentiated Bloodrage enough to make it stand out.
Bottom line: as an X58 board aimed at the enthusiast, the Foxconn Bloodrage is a fine effort, from looks to performance. We would have given it a coveted recommendation had it shipped with six DIMM slots.
The good
A good-looking board
LGA775 mounting holes in addition to the standard LGA1366
Overclocks well
Loaded with features, some quite innovative
Changeable IOH cooling is cool
BIOS provides granular control over frequencies and settings. Voltage adjustment is extraordinary
The not so good
Only three DIMM slots may persuade some interested folk away from it
£300 for a motherboard is hard to stomach, no matter how good it is
HEXUS Rating
HEXUS.net scores products out of 100%, taking into account technology, implementation, stability, performance, value, customer care and desirability. A score for an average-rated product is a meaningful ‘50%’, and not ‘90%’, which is common practice for a great many other publications.We consider any product score above '50%' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.
Foxconn Bloodrage X58
HEXUS Awards
Lots of overclocking potential on a board chock-full of
feature goodness, we reckon the Foxconn Bloodrage X58 just about
deserves the coveted HEXUS Extreme Speed award.
Foxconn Bloodrage X58
HEXUS Where2Buy
The Foxconn Bloodrage is available from Scan.co.uk for £277.35.As always, UK-based HEXUS.community discussion forum members will benefit from the SCAN2HEXUS Free Shipping initiative, which will save you a further few pounds plus also top-notch, priority customer service and technical support backed up by the SCANcare@HEXUS forum.
