Product Reviews

Onboard graphics are rarely any good, but nVidia is hoping to change that with its GeForce 6150 integrated graphics. We've got hold of one of the first motherboards to use them, Foxconn's WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS, which also features an nVidia GeForce430 chipset.

The board is a small MicroATX model, but still manages to provide a wide range of connectors and expansion slots, including three PCI slots and one x16 PCI-E. With four SATA2 and two IDE connectors, it also allows for plenty of storage capacity, and the rear of the board features all the usual connectors and ports.

The motherboard supports the full range of

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AMD Socket 939 processors. We tested it with our AMD Athlon 64 3500+ processor and 1GB of DDR RAM installed in a dual-channel configuration. Its score of 118 in Shopper's application benchmarks shows that it's a powerful board.

Graphics performance is the most interesting part of this board, but we managed to get 21.3fps in Doom 3 only by turning off anti-aliasing and dropping the resolution to 640x480. Like Intel's integrated graphics, the GeForce 6150 isn't powerful enough for the latest games.

However, the graphics chipset isn't just about games. The GeForce 6150 supports hardware video decoding, which means that you can play HD videos without having to upgrade to a dedicated graphics card. The chipset also supports a range of outputs including DVI, so it's a shame that the WinFast 6150K8MA has only a D-sub output. The box contains a blanking plate-mounted S-video port as well, so you can connect this motherboard to a TV.

Perhaps the best thing about the board is how cheap it is. If you're not a gamer but are still interested in video, the WinFast 6150K8MA is an affordable motherboard and a good base for building your own PC. We wish it had a wider range of outputs, including DVI, though.