Foxconn P55 Inferno Katana Preview - Quantum Force is Back

We’re Back!!! Just when we thought we had finished our P55 pictorial process, several more motherboards showed up for the launch article. We decided to continue with the pictorial process as the early September launch is quickly approaching and figured early coverage now would assist you while wading through all of the P55 choices available at launch.

Our featured product today is from Foxconn. Contrary to continued reports about Foxconn pulling out of the retail channel, they do plan to remain in this sector and have several new P55 motherboards launching next month. Foxconn will be shipping their entry-level uATX P55MX and P55A-S ATX motherboards with a price target in the low $100 range. We expect pricing to be around $115~$125.

The mid-range performance Inferno Katana GTI motherboard should launch around the $150+ range. Their top performance board and our preview subject is the Inferno Katana. This Quantum Force product should list for right under $200, maybe less. So let’s take a quick look at Foxconn’s latest design initiative.

Board Layout

We really like the looks of this board and the layout. The Inferno Katana features the VIA VT6308S chipset for IEEE 1394a support, Realtek ALC 888SD 8-channel HD audio codec with Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect support, and a Realtek 8111DL Gigabit LAN controller. The board includes 14 USB 2.0 ports (six headers/ eight ports on the I/O panel), six SATA 3Gb/s ports with RAID 0,1,5,10 support, IDE port, and room for up to 16GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory with BIOS support up to DDR3-1800+.

Foxconn provides power-on/reset/clear CMOS switches, DMM measurement points, and a Debug LED panel for the open bench crowd. Foxconn loads up the board with six fan headers. We think this a solid feature set without going overboard on other features like JMicron RAID or an additional LAN port.

Foxconn continues with their 12-phase Hybrid PWM design along with DirectFET MOSFET technology along with 2-phase control for VTT and Memory. We have favored this design and those featuring the Volterra PWM setup for stable overclocking duties. We expect to see really good things on the overclocking side once the BIOS is fully tuned. Otherwise, the layout accommodates a wide variety of coolers easily and the back of the board is clean without obstructions for water cooling plates.

The memory slot area contains the 24-pin ATX connector, Force Reset button, and Foxconn’s “Fuzzy Equalizer” layout with LEDs to indicate PWM loading status.

Nothing much to report here, just an interesting P55 heatsink, IDE and SATA connectors, LED Debug display, and the power on/reset switches.

The board features two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots, one PCI slot, and three PCIe 2.0 x16 slots (x16/x4 or x8/x8/x4). The third x16 PCIe slot (black one, x4 electrical) is provided by the P55 chipset and is not designed for optimal graphics performance although the board will support 3-way CrossFireX. The layout of the PCI/PCIe slots is very good and allows for a single PCIe x1, PCIe x4, and PCI slot when running SLI or CrossFireX configurations with dual slot cards. Due to the close proximity of the red x16 slots, custom cooling solutions might not work with two cards.

The rear panel features a PS/2 keyboard port, optical/coaxial S/PDIF out ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit LAN port, IEEE 1394a port, two eSATA ports, audio panel, and the clear CMOS switch.