Foxconn H55MX-S Motherboard Review

Foxconn have chosen to use a dark blue PCB for the H55MX-S which is accompanied by dark blue memory slots and SATA ports.  We can't say this is one of the most attractive PCB designs we have seen.

This motherboard clearly isn’t designed with serious overclocking in mind as there aren’t any heat-sinks cooling the power regulation circuitry around the CPU sockets.  Like most larger boards, the CPU power connector is located in the top left corner of the board.

The Intel H55 chipset supports Intel’s HD graphics core, making the board perfect for those who don’t want to use a discrete graphics option.  This is what differentiates the H55 and P55 chipsets and makes this motherboard perfect for use in a compact HTPC chassis.  The Intel H55 chipset supports six SATA 3Gb/s ports and these are situated in the bottom right corner of the board.  Unfortunately, these aren’t angled perpendicular to the motherboard so it isn’t quite as easy to achieve a tidy build.

For those who do want to use a dedicated graphics card can make use of the yellow PCI Express x16 slot that is situated below the CPU socket.  This is accompanied by a single PCI Express x4 slot and two PCI slots so there is more than enough room for a TV Tuner and a decent sound card.  Bear in mind, though, that a dual-slot graphics card will block the PCI Express x4 slot which may restrict your choice of expansion devices.

Due to the size restrictions of the Micro ATX form factor, Foxconn have only been able to include two memory lanes to the right of the CPU socket.  But these should be more than enough for most users as it supports up to 8GB of DDR3 memory.  We can’t see many users opting for 8GB of RAM for a media system, though, as 4GB is more than enough for this specific environment.

The selection of back panel I/O connections is a little limited compared to most motherboards we’ve looked at recently but most of the basics are catered for.  Moving from left to right there is a PS/2 connector, two USB2.0 ports, a serial port, a DVI port, an HDMI port, four further USB2.0 ports, an RJ-45 Ethernet jack, an optical S/PDIF connection and six 3.5mm audio connectors.  We can’t really see why Foxconn chose to include a serial connector though; we would have much preferred to see an eSATA connector or USB3.0 support instead.

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