Review: Foxconn Bloodrage X58: the overclockers' dream

by Tarinder Sandhu on 22 December 2008, 03:00 3.85

Tags: Bloodrage X58, Foxconn (TPE:2317)

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The special bundle, and warranty


Inside the flashy packaging you'll find the usual extras that come with a high-end motherboard.

The fly-bracket includes a further two USB2.0 and a mini-FireWire400 port.

The I/O shield is suitably irregular to require a bespoke one, and it's nice to see Foxconn's attention to detail in having the Quantum symbol on most packaging.

A single SLI connector cable (not shown) is the concession to multi-GPU usage, and the manual (again, not shown, yours truly was reading it at the time) is pretty good, highlighting the important bits in easy-to-comprehend English.



Remember we spoke about the IOH cooling? Well, you can run the board passively, as it ships, or attach either a high-quality brass/copper waterbock, an aluminium container for, presumably, some dry-ice action, or a whiny fan that will help the pre-applied cooling - the choice is yours.

If nothing else, you could use the heavy waterblock as a weapon - it sure is heavy enough.

Warranty

The Foxconn Bloodrage ships with a standard three-year warranty that starts when the board is shipped to a distributor. Warranty-related issues are handled by the retailer from which the motherboard is purchased from and then escalated up the chain to distributor, if needs be.

The warranty is based on the motherboard and not on the owner, meaning that it's transferable should the card be sold on. However, as usual, subsequent buyers will need to submit the original proof of purchase if requiring hardware support.

You absolutely need to take the warranty's terms into account when evaluating comparative boards. Foxconn's terms are generally good and we like the fact that the warranty is transferable. However, we'd urge it to consider initiating the warranty on the date of customer purchase and not when sold to distributor.