Foxconn, a traditional player on the OEM market, entered the retail market a while ago using its own brand. For the AMD platform Foxconn is using WinFast brand, which was licensed from Leadtek. WinFast 6100K8MA-RS is a socket 939 motherboard based on GeForce 6100, a chipset from nVidia with embedded graphics, supporting Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 X2 and Opteron CPUs.
We were very curious to see how GeForce 6100 performed and to compared it to entry-level VGAs like GeForce 6200 and also to its main competitor, Radeon Xpress 200 (RS482) from ATI, which is based on Radeon X300. Check it out.
You can learn more about GeForce 6100 family reading our nVidia GeForce 6100 and nForce 400 Chipset Family article.
We have also reviewed the socket 754 version of this motherboard.
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Figure 1: Foxconn WinFast 6100K8MA-RS motherboard.
Since it is an entry-level motherboard it doesn’t have a fancy look. Its memory sockets are black and white in order to differentiate the memory channels. GeForce 6100 and nForce 410 chips use a silver passive heatsinks (i.e. fanless).
During our tests these heatsinks heated a lot, meaning that it is advisable to install this motherboard in a well-ventilated case, preferably with an extra fan.
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Figure 2: GeForce 6100 and nForce 410 passive heatsinks.
As WinFast 6100K8MA-RS is a micro-ATX motherboard, its layout is very compact, but it has a good manufacturing quality, using Taiwanese capacitors from OST – which are also used by ASUS – and some Japanese from Chemi-com.
This motherboard has on-board video, audio and LAN, using a nForce 410 south bridge, which brings two Serial ATA 300 MB/s (RAID 0 and 1) ports supporting NCQ (Native Command Queuing).
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Figure 3: Two SATA-300 ports.
It has four DDR-DIMM sockets, accepting up to 4 GB of DDR266/333/400 memory. Foxconn used white on sockets 1 and 2 and black on sockets 3 and 4. To use DDR Dual Channel feature you need to install the memory modules on sockets with the same color.
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Figure 4: Detail of the memory sockets.
Its on-board audio is controlled by nForce 410 south bridge together with 6-channel Realtek ALC655 codec. Its on-board LAN is 10/100 and is also controlled by its south bridge, using a Realtek RTL8201BL chip to make its interface with the physical layer. This board was also eight USB 2.0 ports, four soldered directlty to the motherboard and four available thru I/O brackets, which don’t come with the motherboard.
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Figure 5: WinFast 6100K8MA-RS rear panel.
Since it is a very simple motherboard, it carries only a few accessories: a Serial ATA cable, a Serial ATA power adaptor and a 80-wire IDE cable.
Besides the motherboard drivers and utilities you will find Norton Internet Security 2005 OEM (90 days trial) on the CD-ROM that comes with this motherboard.
