Motherboard maker Foxconn today officially announced the launch of what it claims is its first true overclocking motherboard. The Intel P35 'Bearlake' based MARS will be the first in a new product line called Quantum Force, which will be dedicated to overclocking and gaming enthusiasts.

The new board uses a specially-designed BIOS, dubbed Gladiator, which allows CPU voltage and frequency adjustments, DRAM voltage, north bridge voltage, south bridge voltage and a couple other fine tuning voltage settings. In addition, Gladiator allows overclock settings to be saved and features a recovery mode that automatically loads the last working configuration after a failure.

Foxconn's P35-based mobo supports all Intel LGA775 processors with front-side bus speeds up to 1333 MHz, and can host up to 8GB of 1066MHz DDR2 memory in dual-channel configuration - no DDR3 support, though. Other features include an x16 and x4 PCI Express graphics slots for compatibility with ATI CrossFire multi-GPU technology, six 3Gbps eSATA ports, an eSATA port, two Firewire and 12 USB ports, 7.1-channel high definition audio and Gigabit LAN.

Foxconn's MARS is set to hit retail late September for a still-undisclosed price.