Foxconn Dreadnought motherboard sails into market

Written by Tim Smalley

May 30, 2008 | 13:00

Companies: #foxconn

Yantai, China, May 30th 2008 – FOXCONN today officially launched the Dreadnought motherboard, first previewed at CeBIT 2008. The 3rd Intel platform motherboard in the Quantum Force series, it is based on the enthusiast-class NVIDIA® 790i Ultra SLI MCP and supports the latest Intel® Core™2 Extreme and Core™2 Quad processors up to FSB1600MHz.

“The Quantum Force range of motherboards is now expanding as we bring a wider range of solutions to the market for enthusiasts. Dreadnought allows enthusiasts to couple powerful Intel® processors with NVIDIA® SLI-enabled graphics cards” commented Greta Kuo, Quantum Force Product Manager.

Dreadnought certainly packs significant firepower, with support for the very latest component technologies including Dual Channel DDR3 2000MHz memory, which offers blisteringly fast response times for applications and includes SLI™-Ready and EPP2.0 memory support.

3-waySLI graphics firepower
Dreadnought includes 3* PCIe2.0 x16 slots, offering 3-way SLI at 3* x16 bandwidth, providing up to 2.8x the performance capability of a single graphics card and catering for extreme HD resolutions of 2560x1600 at truly playable frame rates.

Tuning and overclocking capabilities on the Dreadnought are equal to anything on the market, with the 8 phase Digital PWM and 4in1 Quantum Cooler, made famous by the BLACKOPS motherboard which recently caused a stir in the enthusiast community.

New power regulation offers better stability and higher output capability
The 8 phase Digital PWM provides more robust power delivery, standing up to the demands of enthusiasts and overclockers. Quantum Force engineers have spent 3 months finely-tuning and optimizing this digital system so that it operates with better power efficiency, has a faster and more stable response to changes in power consumption, and delivers higher current output capability to support extreme overclocking.

“There is no doubt that the 8-phase Digital PWM can sustain the massive demands which will be placed on it by enthusiasts and extreme overclockers... it can even do this whilst generating less heat switching between different voltage requirements with greater speed and reliability” asserts Peter Tan.

4in1 Quantum Cooler
The 4in1 Quantum Cooler is an all-copper NB-SB-VRM heatpipe solution with a difference; thanks to bundled accessories, the North Bridge (NB) section of the cooler can be quickly adapted for passive or active air cooling, water cooling or even extreme LN2 or dry ice cooling!

According to Peter Tan, Quantum Force Technical Consultant, the 4in1 Quantum Cooler “is the most adaptable and effective cooling solution ever integrated onto a motherboard”.

The Dreadnought version of the 4in1 Quantum Cooler also includes an optional NB heatsink spreader for improved passive cooling of the NVIDIA® 790i Ultra SLI northbridge.

New audio technology
Dreadnought includes a new audio solution using Low ESR Metallized Polyster Film capacitors to deliver greater sound clarity and audio fidelity.

The onboard audio circuits of the 7.1channel HD audio use metallized polyster film capacitors with low ESR to improve audio quality and reduce interference. These components are widely used in high-end audio equipment.

ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance) is the degree to which natural resistance occurs in a capacitor, generating heat and resulting in failure or distortion of signals.

The use of low ESR capacitors in audio circuits reduces occurrences of electrical noise and improves frequency response - especially in the higher audio ranges of 20-48KHz.

Quantum BIOS
The new Quantum BIOS is a quantum leap over the previous generation Gladiator BIOS found on the MARS motherboard. The new BIOS menus are intuitive and user friendly, organized in groups of inter-related settings. Not only are there many more voltage options, but they are arranged into groups relating to the different areas that they affect … CPU, Memory, FSB, etc. Notable additions to the tweaking options are CPU PPL and GTL for quad-core overclocking – expected to be widely-used by overclockers pushing their Core™2 Extreme and Core™2 Quad processors.

Unique accessories for enthusiasts
Just like the BLACKOPS motherboard, Dreadnought includes a range of accessories designed to provide additional convenience and performance enhancements for overclockers. In addition to the 4in1 Quantum Cooler accessories (which include a NB fan, extension tower for LN2 cooling and water cooling block), Dreadnought owners will also receive the Quantum Lap motherboard tray for convenient workbench access to all parts of the motherboard, and the Quantum Flow kit – which improves airflow around installed VGA cards. The Quantum Flow fan can be installed in a horizontal or vertical position, and lowers temperatures around multi-VGA rigs by around 5ºC.

Safety and convenience for overclocking
Onboard CMOS reset and power on/off buttons, a 2-digit LED debug display and the OC Recover feature all combine to speed up recovery time from unsuccessful overclocking attempts, whilst the new Twin BIOS feature safeguards against BIOS corruption and enables hot-swapping of BIOS chips.

Pricing & Availability
The Dreadnought motherboard will be available in retail channels this month, priced around US$399.

For further information about Quantum Force and the Dreadnought motherboard, go to www.quantum-force.net
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