Never have production types or engineers try to understand a market or a consumer group when they can be fiddling with bios configurations and board layouts instead.

                                            Did a double take? Yes, that's a Foxconn box.

It seems that with Foxconn’s latest P35 offering, they took the smart road and assigned the correct people to the correct duties, even going as far as hiring away some DFI engineers to design a proper enthusiast’s board and probably a whole party of marketing types to create a board with more personality than all of Foxconn’s boards over the last year combined. I am referring of course, to the Foxconn 6100M2MA-RS2H Mars.

                                             First time I've seen a heatpipe system on a Foxconn.

This board is one of the first in the Quantum Force series of Foxconn motherboards, which professes to be overclocking and enthusiast – friendly from the get-go, and fesses up to having the latest (of the time) in technology when released. Part of this is the Gladiator BIOS which contains the aforementioned overclocking options, a front-end named Aegis that’s accessible from the desktop, and an interesting package both inside and out that is supposed to attract the enthusiast, although this can be debatable for many so-called enthusiasts.

                                             Extra / extra-neous items?

Starting with the box, this undoubted product of hours of market study sports a red and black theme, which is fittingly the “power colors” of many enthusiast boards. Not green, not purple, or a sickly yellow (like Foxconn’s previous Winfast-branded boards), thankfully, and with warriors with spears and shield at the front to underline the marketing name, although the figures seem oddly greek-ish to me. No matter, it sets off the proper atmosphere for Foxconn’s first attempt at proper packaging.

The box has a cover piece that slides off to expose an inner box of the same color, with clear windows to show the pretty components on the board itself. The board is primarily black, with red, white and blue accents on the connectors, with gold on the heatsink/pipe components. All in all, reminiscent of an MSI Platinum or an Asus RoG series board.

                                              Without the brand names, this could have been any other board. Which isn't exactly a bad thing.

The package inside includes a lot of “extras”, particularly meaning extraneous items that does not help with performance or cooling, even if it ups the “bling” factor and the exclusivity of the motherboard. This is particularly true for the dog tags engraved with the quantum force sword and product number series, which I’m sure some will drool over. Also included are some reverse appliqués that can be attached to case windows from the inside. I want to diss this as much as the dog tags, but find I cannot; I’ll wait for you people to turn around so that I can stick them on my case without anyone seeing.

                                             That's a lot of swag~

Some better received items from the package are the SATA connectors, one for each available board socket, matching molex power converters, an IDE and Floppy connector, a quick install board layout / guide, a comprehensive manual an additional USB bracket, and drivers. With the dog tags and other sundry items, this makes for a hefty package.

The board layout gives off the suggestion of cautious extravagance, with a northbridge cooler of medium proportions, evenly spaced components, and more than adequate connectivity options. Of note are the six SATA connectors at the lower right edge of the board; these aren’t obstructed in any way when a double-wide graphics card is used. In fact, there is little sacrifice made when dual graphic cards are used, as even the USB headers and a single legacy PCI remains uncovered for use. The only sacrifice made is the fact that the 2 PCI-C x1 slots will automatically be disabled when the second (blue) PCI-X slot is used, as its x4 lanes are shared between the physical x4 PCI slot and the two x1 slots.

                                             An optional fan may be attached to the side of the NB.

Space around the CPU socket is well thought out, with half-height solid caps serving as power chokes around it, and the MOSFETS and cooling apparatus far enough away to clear extra-large CPU fans, such as the Gigabyte Volar and Cooler Master Geminii S that we test-fitted. Memory slots are far enough away from the first PCI-X slot for easy RAM installation, and all connectors (except for the supplementary 4 pin motherboard power connector) is located along the motherboard edge, to aid installation and airflow.

                                             The supplementary power molex is somewhat out of the way.

There are four fan connectors, one for the CPU and the rest for system cooling (or chipset), and these are controlled through the Gladiator BIOS which has three presets for fan speed. More overclocking potential is unearthed in the voltage control panel, which features a CPU voltage multiplier, and specific setting toggles for RAM, northbridge, CPU VTT, and SB voltage settings. RAM timing and CPU clock speed toggles are also present, with very good option depth, that is, there are a lot of options to choose from, if you know what you’re doing. There is an automatic overclocking option which works for quick and easy overclocking, but stutters when too much is asked of it.

                                             Comprehensive fan speed controls in BIOS.

Taken as a whole, this new board from manufacturing giant Foxconn is a revelation; it feels like a formerly distracted giant has refocused all its energies into this one product. Nevertheless, the board even with all its new terminology and marketing names still feels a bit “standard” when compared to its peers – although it is an enthusiast board and promises to show “wow” technology, it is everything that’s expected, plus not much more. But to put things into perspective, this is a first effort from the company for an enthusiast board; it succeeds admirably in that it is designed according to the very high standards of hardware enthusiasts, and promises more for other releases down the line.

                                             Careful which button you press while its powered on!

This is a marked change from previous Foxconn products with names like N68S7AA and C51XEM2AA.  The Foxconn giant has set its sights on us enthusiasts with a change in market priorities, and pulling together all of the product names, we have Quantum Force (series), Mars (product name), Gladiator (BIOS name), Aegis (front-end), and 6100M2MA-RS2H (product code). Guess which name was contributed by the engineers.

Please look forward to our in-depth review in the December issue of HWM, complete with benchmark scores, connector specifics and other significant features! More pictures to follow.

                                             The desktop-based Aegis control panel.

                                             Rear panel connectors - to be covered in our print review.

                                            An older, plain-jane Foxconn board. Such is progress.