Foxconn Renaissance

Foxconn Renaissance

Manufacturer: Foxconn
UK Price (as reviewed): £229.05 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): $249.99 (ex. Tax)

Increasingly over the years motherboard manufacturers have been swerving away from catchy and interesting products names such as M3ZU94-TX-FTW-111oenoen and instead using cool words such as Rampage, BloodRage and Commando for their wares. Today we have one such a board from Foxconn, the Renaissance. Although the Renaissance II is not far off - because it's essentially a stripped down version this Renaissance - we decided to look at the fuller fat version instead.

The Renaissance is geared highly towards connectivity and has just about every semi-useful port and header you possibly think of, a quality that the company has used as the pitching angle to grab the attention of potential X58 adopters.

The metaphorical maggot on a hook comes in the form of a slogan, and Foxconn has branded the Renaissance with the words "Digital Life". On its website the company claims that the Digital Life brand "aims to deliver more options for accessing and managing other devices, enhanced reliability features and new PC multimedia technologies' and that 'the Renaissance is the ideal choice for a digital lifestyle".


As you can see from the photography we’ve had to borrow a front-on photo of the box from Foxconn rather than having the clear shot we’d normally have. Apologies for this mishap but unfortunately a wild and particularly angry badger got loose in the labs and gnawed the Renaissance box before we had an opportunity to get a photo. No badgers were harmed in the writing of this review.

At first glance the Foxconn appears to be much like other X58 boards we’ve seen. That is, apart from the heatsinks and in that regards let’s start with the Northbridge. This is not actually a speaker, nor is it – disappointingly – a cupcake. It is in fact, a cupcake-shaped, speaker-resembling heatsink. We have had no experience with cupcake-shaped heatsinks before, however, so we’ll have to assume that the delicious connotations that particular characteristic musters can only be a good thing.

To accompany the potentially edible Northbridge heatsink, Foxconn has added a trick cap to the Southbridge heatsink which makes it resemble a volume knob. We thought the novelty heatsinks were pretty cool if a little gimmicky, but whether you think they’re stupid or not, it’s an original way to make your board stand out from the other closely matched X58 boards on the market.

In the Box

• Harp Audio Daughterboard
  
• Four SATA cables
  
• One IDE cable
  
• Four Molex to SATA power adapters
  
• Power and SATA adapter for SATA hard disks (including SSD)
  
• Driver CD
  
• Metal rear I/O bracket
  
• User Manuals
  
• Crossfire SLI Bridge

The board ships with a driver and utility disk which includes a BIOS update and custom splash screen utilities. Our review sample disc didn't contain Foxconn's Fox One software or an SLI/CrossFire bridge, but the company has assured us that both items will ship with the retail version of the board.