Foxconn Z68A-S – Keeping A Low Profile

Physique and Features

A Latecomer to the Z68 Party?

The Foxconn Z68A-S would probably be the final Z68 motherboard that hit our testing ground. Since Intel’s launch of the Z68 chipset earlier this year, the platform can now be considered quite old. What further makes the Z68 appear mature are the shipping of Bulldozer CPUs from AMD’s side and the coming of the X79 chipset (Patsburg), Intel’s successor to the enthusiast-grade X58. However, by the time these new standards penetrate the local market, do anticipate that these will be initially offered at pricey costs that only wealthy enthusiasts can afford.

Fortunately, by that time, we also expect prices of existing platforms to plummet significantly, including Z68-based motherboards. Thus, in spite of the fact that the Z68A-S’ arrival in our test lab is behind schedule, it would still be a timely offering for those who have been yearning for a less expensive rig based on a Sandy Bridge processor.

Forthright Foxconn

Foxconn’s press release on the Z68A-S reveals that the board is not actually a latecomer. Foxconn launched the board a couple of days after Intel officially released the Z68 chipset. The first thing that we immediately noticed was the board’s simple packaging design. This is a far cry from the explicit box art of boards from other vendors like ASUS and Gigabyte.

The board itself is among the simplest Z68-based platforms that we have seen by far. A quick glance at the Z68A-S, you can easily tell that it is a mainstream model. Its printed circuit board (PCB) is dark and peppered with a moderate amount of capacitors, all of which are Japan-made and solid type. What furthers the simplicity of the board is the lack of a heatsink near the processor socket. The Z68-based boards that we met before have that heatsink to cool down the MOSFETs. The only heatsink that we spotted on the Z68A-S is the one found near its SATA connectors. Also adjacent to the CPU socket are the DIMM slots that can handle up to 32GB DDR3 at 1333MHz speed.

On the connectivity front, the Z68A-S’ rear side has a decent set of I/O ports. Sadly, it does not have a built-in HDMI which is becoming a common video out interface for boards that support discreet graphics. In any case, the absence can be filled by using an adapter or a graphics card that comes with a built-in HDMI. Like most of the Z68-based boards, this Foxconn comes with two USB 3.0 terminals. In addition to the ports at the back, the Z68A-S also has onboard connectors for front audio, serial, S/PDIF, and USB 2.0 headers.

Being a basic motherboard, the Z68A-S only comes with one PCI-Express x16 2.0 slot, hence, if you are an SLI or a CrossFireX fanatic, this board is not for you. Two PCI-Express x1 and three PCI slots are also thrown in the mix, but chances are, you would not have to use any of these imminently, considering that everything that you need is integrated to the board.

As mentioned previously, near the Z68A-S onboard heatsink is a group of SATA connectors. Three of these are SATA 3Gbps compliant (black in color), whereas the rest (yellow) are SATA 6Gbps compatible. Since all of the SATA connectors face up, one issue that you might encounter, like in our case, is they can be interfered by a lengthy, dual-slot graphics card. We’re quite a fan of side-facing SATA connectors these days.