DAAMIT's 790FX is the key element of its Spider platform, so it was about time that it got an upgrade for the old SB600 Southbridge. The first one to do it is apparently Foxconn with its A79A-S motherboard.

As you can read and see the pictures of 790FX chipset-based motherboard you know that it doesn't get that hot, and it doesn't need bulky heatsinks or even active cooling on it. Some motherboards based on 790FX, like DFI's LANParty UT 790FX-M2R, even have larger heatsinks on Southbridge than on Northbridge, but now that SB700 is getting ready it will all be behind us. According to AMD, SB700 will be out in Q1 of 2008, but it looks like it might even come a bit earlier than expected.

Foxconn's A79A-S looks good if you don't consider the layout, since those four PCI-Express slots are too close to each other, meaning that AMD's Quad-Crossfire will only be possible with four Radeon HD 3850 cards. It has a single PCI-E x1 and a single PCI, which doesn't sound good, either. It also comes with only four SATA ports, since the other two are used for double eSATA on the back plate.

The rest of the specs are the same as on any other 790FX based motherboard. This one is part of the Digital Life series, but it doesn't have that weird Foxconn Digital Connector. Anyway, this might not be the final layout of the board, so we shall wait and see how will it all look in the end. You can find the pictures over at Expreview.com.