Board Layout
The lone PCI-E slot means that DFI needed to provide reasonable onboard sound and a desirable LAN solution. What you get is the Realtek ALC885 teamed up with Creative X-FI drivers and the Intel 82578DC for LAN duty.
Most of what you'll need is available on the rear I/O panel. You've got 6 USB connectors (one is eSATA combo), together with analog and digital audio outputs. There's also a CMOS clear switch available which comes in handy when OC recovery fails to work.
There are cutbacks in the VRM department. CPU VCC (VCore) is limited to 150W max on the current BIOS (future BIOSes will see OCP limited to around 90amps with a maximum VID of 1.40V). There is no cooling over any of the FETs either.
150w is just about enough to support a very mild overclock on a 750 CPU long term. 860/870 CPUs are probably best left near stock if you run heavy loads. Over-current protection should kick in if you push things a little too far, although we often find that it's better not to test the limits of OCP in the first place. DFI will be releasing BIOS shortly that limits OCP to around 110W, which is a smidgen above stock TDP - basically, you'll be limited to near stock operating frequency on all CPUs.
You get 3 SATA ports courtesy of the Intel P55 PCH. Front panel I/O for audio, USB, IrDA, and power are all placed above or to the right of the PCI-E slot together with the CMOS battery holder, allowing access to all connectors when the PCI-E slot is occupied. A hex post code display is placed to the right of the DIMM slots for debugging purposes.
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michal1980 - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - link
Wrong.Why can't you reviewers, hold these manufactures feet to the flames.
Any one in the review business actually have a backbone?
I for one, am tired of what appear to be half hearted efforts on the part of Mobo manufactures to provide products that WORK.
Bios settings not working? Harddrives disappearing? Endless loops? Usb issues, with ding ding din, USB devices? WTF?
I've bought 'cheap' boards, i've bought higher end boards, i've bought everything in the middle, I've got boards with awesome reviews, boards with few reviews.
But just about each one has issues, needs various firmware updates, etc etc, just to hit a stable medium, and have all its features work. (well almost all).
And yet, no one, no one, in the review business seems to care. The slap (loosey using the word, since yes all the tests are alot of, at the end of the day, boring work) a few tests, or a battery they run. Post some benchmarkers, and basically call it a day. Not only that, but the bigger the reviewer, the more likely they have, and get access to actual support teams/ engineers, that get them around issues.
A regular cosumter? phhff, go on some forum and hope others have found the solution, because the CS you'll get is likely some idiot csr reading of a script, who's only goal in life is to churn support calls/emails to get a bonus, actually fixing a problem? HA.
BTW, problems which should have been caught by the manufacture INITIALY.
How hard is it to see if your bios settings actually do something? How hard is it to check how much power your board can supply without killing it self?
Which leads me back to review sites. Do you even care? You slap some winning stickers on some mobo's. and then go on to the next project you have to test. meanwhile your readers are stuck working with a product that in reality is half arsed garabage, they spent hunderds on, then countless hours patching, setting up, refining, etc etc, just to get it working... Doing the real testing, the testing companies should be doing, and reviewers should be checking.
Shame on all of you.
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - link
Hi Michael,All of the info is up on the first page - bold enough for all to see. The only poitive spin here is that we're glad someone is working with the M-ITX form factor because we genuinely want to see more vendors offer such products. That's what we're trying to promote.
DFI's mistake was openeing up overclocking functions on the shipping BIOS that the board is not realy designed to make use of. Keep the board a stock or below 160 BCLK and 99% of the issues I mentioned dissappear. Its not perfect, but the info is there and you decide if the issues mentioned are worthy of purchase or not. If not, then at least you got a heads up of what we found and the fact we asked for fixes. Having all of this on the front page is not an attempt to hide it or a cover angle. We give vendors 2 chances during the test period to respond with fixes, if they're not forthcoming we won't delay the review.
regards
Raja
Zebo - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - link
Appreciate some reviews like this tech but no conclusions?Zebo - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - link
This board needs wireless to be complete. Wireless N preferred. With only one slot, and no OB video you're left in cold with regard to wireless unless you want dongles hanging off the back of case. DFI needs to consider wireless.Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - link
Hi Zebo,The 'conclusion' is on the first page. We changed the layout of motherboard articles few months ago just to provide you guys with all the info in one place.
regards
Raja
Mr Perfect - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - link
Heh. It's supposed to e like that? I thought something broke.Still, are some of the pages out of order? The benchmarks are four pages before the specs of what's being tested, so all through the graphs I was thinking "This tells me nothing. What was tested?".
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - link
Hi2nd page is performance summary, for a quick overview (main tests) of how the board compares to others. After that, features/layout followed by the complete test resuslts.
regards
Raja
notposting - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Do you mean watts? I would love to see 90 (or 110) amps go through that thing.Rajinder Gill - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Hi,It's amps. Stock TDP of some CPU's is more than 90 watts, so you'd be somewhat concerned if that were the max power limit of the board. 1.40 VID max with 90amps gives you a max wattage of 126w.
later
Raja
piasabird - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
If DFI is marketing a motherboard for HTPC/DVR use then why use a chipset that basically supports mostly Quad Processors. May be overkill for HTPC. Might be nice to see more processor support for this socket.