Layout observations
On first glance, the Foxconn P9657AA-8EKRS2H motherboard's layout is clean and thoughtful. The various ports and sockets have room to breathe, thanks to Foxconn, in the main, not adding a bunch of discrete controllers for added functionality. Rather, as mentioned, it's taken the P965 chipset's attributes and based a sensible, mid-priced board around it.
The CPU area is uncluttered, thereby making heatsink installation the simple affair it should be. The board's pricing may be on the low side for a P965 but Foxconn still adds in high-quality capacitors from Rubycon. Alongside the CPU, the 8-pin 12V connector's associated cabling can be tucked around the heatsink for neat assembly. Foxconn's taken into account the lack of CrossFire compatibility inherent in the P965 design and not aimed this board specifically at the high-end gamer/enthusiast, as there's no second x16 electrical PCIe slot or myriad of cooling on chipset bridges.
As you may know, Intel's new southbridge, the ICH8(R), doesn't support the PATA interface. Foxconn, though, understands that whilst the majority of users may have swapped out to SATA-based hard drives, PATA optical drives still account for the majority of sales. Like so many other manufacturers, it has turned to JMicron to provide combined SATA/PATA support with its JMB361 controller, and you can see the PATA port sensibly located on one edge of the board. abit, however, includes the better-featured JMB363 on its P965 AB9 Pro, which adds a couple of extra internal SATA ports on top of the '361's feature set.
The main 24-pin power and floppy ports are grouped alongside, which also makes decent sense.
Four DIMM slots provide dual-channel DDR2-800 running that can, theoretically pump 12.8GB/s of data to the CPU. Speaking of which, the P965 chipset has been designed with Intel's Core 2 Duo/Quad processors in mind, and Foxconn medium-priced solution will sit well with, say, a Core 2 Duo E6400. In layout terms, with Foxconn eschewing a second extra-long PCIe slot and opting for 6 expansion slots, there's no difficulty in removing and installing system RAM with a graphics card in place, which isn't always the case with most motherboards. We also like the fact that the PCIe x4 slot won't be obscured by a graphics card with a double-width cooler.
Looking down at the bottom of the board, we see 6 SATA ports that are all run off the ICH8R southbridge. What that essentially means for IHVs looking for a low-cost P965 board is the removal of a discrete controller that would, as in the case of i975X, offer 2/4 extra ports. 6 internal ports should be enough for most users, we reckon.
You can also see the JMicron SATA/PATA controller to the very right and just below it the Fox One microprocessor that's designed to replicate the BIOS tweaking in the OS. Handy, colour-coded motherboard-to-case pins makes connecting up the case's wiring a cinch. You can also see the second of the board's usable fan headers, with the main four-pin header reserved for the CPU's fan.
The ICH8R southbridge also provides for 10 USB2.0 ports. FireWire connectivity, though, is handled by the all-new VIA VT6308P ASIC that adds in two-port 1394a support. Further, Foxconn has endowed this model with Gigabit LAN, courtesy of a tiny PCIe-based Marvell ASIC.
You can see it on the right of the above shot, next to the I/O section. To the left, in the usual place, is Realtek's 10-channel (7.1 + 2) ALC883 audio CODEC that works in conjunction with Intel's High-Definition Audio emanating from the ICH8R.
Expansion-wise, Foxconn adds in PCIe x4 and x1 slots to complement the graphics-based x16. A further 3 regular PCI slots are available, too. You can't add a second x16 graphics card to the x4 slot, obviously, but, for example, with Sapphire releasing an x1 PCIe X1300 card recently, there's always the option of enhanced multi-monitor support.
eSATA support is a welcome addition to the regular-looking I/O section. Foxconn, then, seems to have all the bases covered as far as board layout is concerned. It's not as feature-rich as abit's AB9 Pro, but the P9657AA does ship with an attractive street price of around £78, making it over £15 cheaper than abit's effort.