DFI nForce4: SLI and Ultra for Mad Overclockers
by Wesley Fink on February 5, 2005 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz) Socket 939 |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 |
| Hard Drive(s): | Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM IDE (8MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | nVidia nForce 6.31 (nForce4 SLI) SiS 1.17e VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.51 (12-02-2003) nVidia nForce Platform Driver 4.24 (nForce3 Ultra) |
| Video Card(s): | nVidia 6800 Ultra (AGP 8X) nVidia 6800 Ultra (PCI Express) |
| Video Drivers: | nVidia nForce 61.77 (SiS, VIA, nF3U, Intel 925X) nVidia nForce 71.40 Beta (nForce4) |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Motherboards: | DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra-D Winfast 755FXK8AA (SiS 755FX) Soltek K8TPro-939 (VIA K8T800 PRO) Epox 9NDA3+ (nForce3 Ultra) nVidia nForce4 Ultra Reference Board Abit AV8 PRO (VIA K8T800 PRO) ECS KV2 Extreme (VIA K8T800 PRO) Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 (nVidia nForce3 Ultra) MSI K8N Neo2 (nVidia nForce3 Ultra) MSI K8T Neo2 (VIA K8T800 PRO) |
Tests used OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2, which uses Samsung TCCD chips. All memory ran at 2-2-2-7 timing in benchmarks on the DFI nForce4 boards.
The nVidia 6800 Ultra AGP was used for testing in all 939 chipsets other than nForce4. The PCI Express 6800 Ultra was used for all testing with the nForce4 and the Reference Intel 925X. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32 unless noted otherwise.
Results for the DFI nForce4 boards are color-coded red in all graphs. VIA K8T800 Pro based motherboards are in green in our results, and nVidia nForce4/nForce3 are in orange. Results for the SiS 755FX based Winfast are yellow in all graphs. Intel results are included for Reference only and are blue in the graphs. The color coding should allow easy comparison of the tested DFI nF4 to other nF4/nF3 results and to other chipsets and processors.
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rjm55 - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
It looks like your praise for the DFI riled the competition in #26. Frankly it is good to see your enthusiasm for the DFI. It is nice to see some excitement come through in the review.Over the years of reading your reviews I've learned that if you get excited it's a product I'll be very happy with. I just wish you could persuade DFI to use a VIA Vinyl codec instead of that very pedestrian Realtek 850. It's a shame to waste the potential of the Audio Module on the 850. This board deserves better.
bupkus - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
Oops, my bad. I need to wait until Epox releases their nForce4.Illissius - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
Awesome board. Unfortunately, not perfect. I find the following faults with it:- The second GbE is PCI and not PCIe.
- It uses the same crappy Realtek audio everyone else does, rather than Creative SBLive (a la MSI SLI) or VIA Envy24PT.
- Its color scheme is not blue thingies-that-are-not-the-PCB on a black PCB.
These shortcomings conspire to demote it from the status of 'awesomest motherboard in the history of history' to 'best A64 motherboard thus far, and possibly ever'.
Have a nice day :D.
As for the review; for the most part great, except... using 61.77 drivers for everything else, and 71.40 for the nForce4, probably invalidates all the gaming scores, as there have been significant performance improvements from the 61.77 to the 66.93, and I would imagine the 71.40 doesn't regress in this regard.
Also, I'm interested in the maglev chipset cooler. Is there any visual difference from a standard cooler? Is it quieter, at least?
bupkus - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
Was there anything good about the competition? Were they cheaper and almost as good, like a second place winner for us cheap economy guys. How about the Epox?knitecrow - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
The DFI board is very nice, and if anyone is going to overclock, this board is the one to get. For non-overclockers, MSI board looks good as well.The chipset fan seems gimicky, I wish it had a bigger heatsink with a more efficient fan.
I am reading correctly between the lines? Is Nvidia charging some insane SLI tax? I like to see what DFI can do with the upcomming ATI chipset for athlon64.
I can tell you from personal experience that the realtek ALC850 (also used on my DFI UT nF3 250GB) is absolute crap. And I am not being picky either. My old soundblaster 16 sounds better. Gone are the days of good audio on the NFII. There are SO many better choices, why not go with a better AC'97 codec? Via Vinyl, sigmatel, cirius logic?
Its really dumb to go through all the trouble of having an add-in card and then use the worst AC'97 codec chip on the market.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
#39 - The FrontX is a "breakout box" that installs in a drive bay and provides front audio, usb, firewire, and SATA ports in this design. FrontX also features diagnostic LEDs that tell you how the board is functioning.We covered FrontX in detail in past LANParty reviews which you can look up at AnandTech. It is a modular design. You can also find more info at www.frontx.com
SPDIF is a digital audio input and output. I'm sure others here will explain more about SPDIF.
DeanO - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
Does anyone know what the FrontX and Diagnostic LED Connector, that are included with the SLI-DR motherboard, do?The manual says:
One FrontX device equipped with:
- 4 diagnostic LEDs, 1 S/PDIF-out, 1 mini 1394 port and 1 Serial ATA port
The article doesn't seem to mention it anywhere, and neither does the DFI website.
What do the LEDs do? And what is an S/PDIF-out?
Thanks ~ DeanO
Aileur - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
Any idea how much the SLI bridge will go for, seperately?I can see it being as much as 20$, bringing the price difference between real SLI and modded SLI to a point where youd have to ask yourself, do i wanna risk it.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
#35 - 318 (DDR636) is the highest clock speed we have acheived with THIS memory at 1T with DS dimms in dual-channel mode AT ANANDTECH. The previous 1T record with this setup was 295.We are aware you can reach higher speeds with single-sided dimms and a single dimm, but users don't generally run their machines with 2 256MB SS dimms. We have seen reports of memory speeds of DDR680 and even higher with single-sided dimms.
You can also reach higher speeds with a configuration with water-cooling or phase-change cooling or liquid nitrogen.
The important thing in our opinion is performance with the exact same setup, and here the DFI reached new performance levels with this memory and this CPU with air cooling.
mctmcpoop - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
318 is not the highest record ...The HTT record of this board is 456mhz ...
http://www.coolaler.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=37...
The 1:1 DRAM record is DDR750 ...
http://www.coolaler.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=38...