Introduction

When NVIDIA's GeForce 6100/nForce 400 (Crush 51) chipset series was launched, one of the first manufacturers to have motherboards available was Foxconn. They had then graciously provided us with a sample motherboard (6100K8MA-RS) for our performance preview article. Since then, we've also reviewed a full retail board from Gigabyte (GA-K8N51GMF-9). However, both of these boards were based on the entry-level GeForce 6100 GPU without the more advanced video capabilities of the GeForce 6150 part. These boards were perfectly positioned for the OEM office workstation but frankly, wasn't all that interesting.

Recently, Foxconn shipped us another motherboard based on the C51 and this time around, what we received was a retail 6150K8MA-8EKRS, a motherboard based on the GeForce 6150 and nForce 430 instead. Needless to say, we put it through its paces immediately to find out if the GeForce 6150 is really the new king of integrated chipsets.

The Foxconn WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS motherboard.

Packaging contents include the following items:-

1 x SATA data cable

1 x SATA power converter cable (dual plugs)

1 x 80-conductor Ultra ATA data cable

1 x floppy drive data cable

1 x TV-Out bracket

I/O shield

NVIDIA NVRAID driver disk

Driver CD

Foxconn WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS Technical Specifications

CPU Support	Supports Socket 939 AMD Sempron CPU Supports Socket 939 AMD Athlon 64 / Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64 X2 CPU Supports AMD Cool 'n' Quiet Technology
Chipset	NVIDIA GeForce 6150 GPU Bi-directional 1GHz (2000MT/s) HyperTransport interface to processor PCI Express x16 graphics Supports two PCI Express x1 lanes NVIDIA nForce 430 MCP Supports up to five PCI  v2.3 slots Supports up to eight USB 2.0 ports Dual controller SATA II architecture Dual-channel Ultra ATA-133 IDE controller IEEE 802.3 NVIDIA MAC for 1000BASE-T
Memory	Dual channel memory architecture integrated into processor Four 184-pin DDR DIMM sockets Supports 2.5v DDR SDRAM DIMM modules Supports up to 4GB using PC1600 (DDR200), PC2100 (DDR266), PC2700 (DDR333) and PC3200 (DDR400) unbuffered DDR SDRAM DIMM
Storage	NVIDIA nForce 430 MCP 4 x Ultra ATA 33/66/100/133 (data transfer rate up to 133MB/sec.) 4 x SATA II (Serial ATA II 3.0Gbps interface) NVIDIA MediaShield Technology Supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, RAID 5
Audio	Realtek ALC850 8-channel AC'97 Audio CODEC
Networking	NVIDIA Gigabit LAN co-supported by Marvell Alaska 88E1111 PHY chip (Transceiver)
IEEE 1394 (FireWire)	Texas Instruments TSB43AB22A Host Controller 2 x 1394a ports @ 400 Mbps speed
I/O Interface	1 x Floppy connector 2 x Ultra ATA IDE connectors 4 x SATA connectors 8 x USB 2.0 ports (4 x rear, 4 x header) 2 x IEEE 1394a ports (1 x rear, 1 x header) 1 x RJ45 LAN port 1 x TV-Out (bracket) 8-Channel Audio I/O ports 1 x CD-IN 1 x VGA port (onboard graphics) 1 x parallel port (SPP/EPP/ECP) 1 x serial port (COM) 1 x mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port 1 x mini-DIN-6 PS/2 keyboard port
Expansion Slots	1 x PCIe x16 slot, PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant 3 x 32-bit PCI slots, PCI 2.3 compliant
Special Features	SuperSpeed SuperBoot SuperRecovery SuperBIOSProtect
PCB	Micro-ATX Form Factor, 24.4cm x 24.4cm

Standard I/O panel design with onboard VGA, USB 2.0, FireWire, RJ-45 and surround analog audio. Don't forget the legacy Parallel and Serial port as well.