Foxconn A88GMX AM3 AMD 880G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: See previous review below.

Memory timings: 7-9-9-24, 1600Mhz (2 x 800Mhz) at stepped-up voltage of 1.64V.
So far, two passes of memtest86+ disk, V. 4.20 Kingston HyperX--not XMS (which is Corsair).

Cons: See previous review below.

All-purpose board--not the best for OC. BIOS OK for DDR3-1600 mem to 1600 for this board.

Debian Wheezy install indicated a request for Realtek LAN "firmware." I was able to skip this step, though. Open source offers a driver which forces this LAN to run DHCP for cable internet, anyway.

For Windows install, It's a pretty good idea to have available a pre-burned driver data cd, or the product CD for a workable Window's Realtek LAN driver. Realtek's newer LAN chips have have minor driver support issues....

Other Thoughts: After running sys for three days straight and "burning in, and some further use with Debian" Wheezy," idle temps have settled to 35deg C for CPU, 34deg C for system, and 42deg C for northbridge. Northbridge still is somewhat too hot for me, but the temps are a huge improvement. I'm sticking with this Foxconn board for the Deneb for now. (According to memtest86_, it's a 965 Phenom II model--not 945....

Pros: 1. Inexpensive.
2. Runs AM3 Phenom II Deneb 945, 3.4Ghz--Yes, it does!: Foxconn says on a compatibility page it's a "P"- a pass at 140W.
3. Four memory slots Dual-Channel each pair of (One black, one yellow, and both).
4. Fair onboard video with VGA, so far.
6. 1600Mhz DDR3 memory with OC.
7. BIOS is up to date for this board at this time--no need to update yet.

Cons: 1. Northbridge does run hot--Really, Foxconn needs a good fan for the 880G here (depite the large heatsink). Originally 60deg. C. Got it down to 56deg C so far with Zalman Bracket fan pointing at it and side exhaust fan. Loud sys now. CPU at 41 deg. C to 44deg C at idle. Using cheap CM cooler--will try better--may help NB. Will add 120mm side exhaust fan, and back exhaust fan setup, also.
2. DDR3 Mem slots are limited to 4GB each. Recommended memory compatibility sheet limited to 1333 or lesser sticks so far. 1333 is native. Using Kingston XMS 2X2GB 1600Mhz, so far. Haven't tried changing settings yet. 2X2GB more on order.
3. Recommended video cards in the relevant Foxconn compatibility list, for the most part, are old and dumb--9600GT, Radeon 3850 HD, etc. Lists apparently aren't updated very often--apparently, Foxconn neglects to test newer hardware often enough.
4. No USB 3.0 ports.
5. Has only one PS/2 port. (Legacy--maybe not really a serious con.)
6. As someone indicated, most recent BIOS is from 2010.
7. Quick install sheet, stupidly, proves limited and sketchy--Foxconn assumes that a person already is experienced in self-building and knows how to connect everything correctly. (Front panel connector instructions are OK.) Furthermore, pics of the board aren't oriented optimally (nor in the manual) as the board would appear in their cases for most users--that's simply confusing and irritating. Users will appreciate the better and much more complete manual available online from Foxconn support--it's full of broken English, though--that's workable, nonetheless. (Really, Foxconn should retain good technical writers as contacts from the US (and, likely also from other countries).) Totally correct pin orientations are available only with the online manual. Getting back to the quick install sheet-what if this is a builder's first sys or the sole sys for someone? Likely a version of the manual is on the disk (still, a user would need a PC)--I'm using solely Xubuntu 13.04 AMD64 for now, though--I don't need windows drivers yet and haven't yet checked the disk out....
8. I'm pretty certain that it's likely that the 8111D Realtek LAN driver isn't available in Win 7 Home Premium X64 install. I've found that that's true for the 8111E chip, for sure. It's a bummer when the NIC isn't working: It then can't facilitate updating drivers and Windows as one is installing software.

Other Thoughts: OK, maybe this Deneb is too intense for this. Even given this heatsink (which is copper core/aluminum fin), it's still OK as for its heat--no OC for me. NB is a problem. though. Probably a 990FX NB board is more suitable for 140W. Newegg should replace an Athlon II X3 that failed for me pretty soon--that should prove more appropriate for the A88GMX . Really, adding a better video card worries me with the Deneb, too--how much can this board take? Foxconn seems to stop at the AM3 socket-level--apparently, they don't yet support AM3+--that's odd. (Note that the AM3 socket has a few holes blocked--utilizing that fact makes it easier to orient procs correctly into the socket.) I think that, given sufficient, clever cooling care, it's possible to make this board workable for this proc, though. I am concerned, however, about builders indicating that this board conked too soon for them--perhaps it's not best to install an OEM version of Windows 7 or 8 given the A88GMX....

Pros: Cheap $$$
All connections are in well placed locations
Heatsinked VRM's (hard to find in AMD mATX boards)
Heavy - looks and feels of surprising good quality
4 memory slots

Cons: The bios -

For the most part it has everything you need, although it's a bit tricky to find where everything's located.

But there is one fatal flaw with it, and that would be the vcore and memory voltage adjustments. The problem specifically has to do with decreasing the voltage. The motherboard will set a minimum that tends to be way to high, and you cannot lower it anymore than that (although you can raise it if you wish)

As an example, my memory is rated to run spec @ 1.35v. The motherboard for whatever reason decided that 1.59v was where it wanted to be. Now to be fair, quite a few am3 mobos won't allow you to run lower than 1.5v on the memory which would be okay. But 1.59v is just excessively high and I should be able to lower that to at least some. Same for the cpu also, but not as bad (just .025v over what AMD specs as default vcore)

Other Thoughts: It doesn't have USB 3.0 or SATA 6gbps but for the price point that's a given. But overall it looks and feels like a pretty solid product at least hardware wise.

But the one glaring flaw is the voltage adjustment in the bios, and something like that is worth at least a couple eggs off IMO. It would be nice if Foxconn would release a bios update to address these issues but seeing as how the last bios for this board was released in 9/10/2010, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Pros: nothing ...cant be use. supposed to be zero egg

Cons: piece of cap, can't be depend on

Pros: Hasn't died on me yet. Well... I don't think it has. After 7 months it failed to post. Sent in for RMA and they said it tested fine for them, must be the processor. Foxconn then sent me a new board anyways. Great customer service, shipped it back overnight. We'll see if a new processor fixes it...

Cons: Can't hardware overclock at all, even with fully updated BIOS. It just flat out doesn't work. If you want to overclock, look elsewhere.

Pros: -

Cons: -

Other Thoughts: I almost bought this, then I saw the last update was from 2010. So good luck getting any newer tech to work on this mobo.

Pros: This motherboard does not over lock at all, nothing the combination of buying this board with amd phenom x4 is not a good pair, you can't do nothing with both. We will not benefit from buying this board towards overclocking because it lacks of overclocking capabilities, and it will shut down your PC, not matter how low you're input settings are. I tried every bit of ways and I couldn't.

Cons: I will buy a better board by tax season to over lock this CPU to the max at least it was only 50 dollars wasted.

Pros: For 6 months it has been running Fedora Linux smoothly with AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX

Support 32GB, used Kingston blue RAM at 1333.

Cons: None.

Pros: I've had this for a couple months now, It recognized my AMD Phenom 1090T immediately. Seems to be handling ever things well.

Cons: only 16gb RAM max? (didn't bother me as I had 8GB and was upgrading to 16BG (4x4gb) anyway..

Other Thoughts: I had a biostar board before this with no problems, until I got the AMD Phenom 1090T. It wouldn't recognize it and at max I could only get it to run at 800mhz on all 6 cores, thats with cool and quite off and several other things. I found out I had an older BIOS so I decided to flash a new one from there site. I followed everything to the T. I used a newly formatted USB drive, used their BIOS flashing tool, and it said everything was done and I should restart the computer.. It never posted again. I upgraded to this and havent had a problem since.

Pros: Well, it worked very well for 9 weeks, I came home one day, fired it up and was greeted with a black screen.

Cons: Lasted only 9 weeks with light usage.

Other Thoughts: I reset the CMOS, tried a different monitor, PS, cpu, etc.. but the board has failed. From what I read contacting Foxconn is useless so I guess I'll eat this for dinner.