thirdshiftdj
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Over the course of the last year, Foxconn's channel division emerged as a mature, seasoned and determined player in the high-end PC motherboard industry. For Intel's new Core i7 platform, Foxconn started off with an enthusiast-grade motherboard called the X58 Blood Rage, and a premium X58 Renaissance model. Over time, the X58 Blood Rage became a series of motherboards based on the scaling-down of its feature-set. The first variant to emerge out of it was the Blood Rage GTI, and now a newer "value" offering: the Blood Rage Flaming Blade.
Pictured by Japanese AKIBA PC Hotline, the Flaming Blade shows a distinct scaling-down of Blood Rage's feature-set, beyond that of the GTI variant, with a remodeled PCB, rearranged components and colour-theme. To begin with the CPU is powered by standard ferrite-core chokes as against the PWM circuitry on the original Blood Rage, and the semi-digital circuitry on the GTI variant. A standard 6-phase circuit is employed. The board continues having three DDR3 DIMM slots. Memory is powered by a two-phase circuit. Instead of four PCI-Express x16 connectors on the other variants, Flaming Blade makes do with only two, with a PCI-E x4 slot added to the mix. There is a notable amount of changes with the placement of connectors and headers. The board reduces the use of red in colour-coding the connectors and slots. The SONAR X-Fi sound card gets replaced by onboard audio, while the rest of the back-panel remains the same in terms of connectors. According to the source, Foxconn is looking to target the US $200~$220 price range with the Flaming Blade. For reference, the third picture below is that of the original Blood Rage.
Pictured by Japanese AKIBA PC Hotline, the Flaming Blade shows a distinct scaling-down of Blood Rage's feature-set, beyond that of the GTI variant, with a remodeled PCB, rearranged components and colour-theme. To begin with the CPU is powered by standard ferrite-core chokes as against the PWM circuitry on the original Blood Rage, and the semi-digital circuitry on the GTI variant. A standard 6-phase circuit is employed. The board continues having three DDR3 DIMM slots. Memory is powered by a two-phase circuit. Instead of four PCI-Express x16 connectors on the other variants, Flaming Blade makes do with only two, with a PCI-E x4 slot added to the mix. There is a notable amount of changes with the placement of connectors and headers. The board reduces the use of red in colour-coding the connectors and slots. The SONAR X-Fi sound card gets replaced by onboard audio, while the rest of the back-panel remains the same in terms of connectors. According to the source, Foxconn is looking to target the US $200~$220 price range with the Flaming Blade. For reference, the third picture below is that of the original Blood Rage.
