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It Glows!
One thing that I found really cool about the LanParty is it's UV-Reactive slots. While the board is black, the neon green contrasts greatly, and gives the board a great look. In blacklighting, the board looks phenomenal. Unfortuantely the Diagnostic LEDs kill most of that effect when the motherboard is on.
The RAM slots as well as the IDE and Floppy cables are UV-Reactive too, which gives the whole board a uniform clean look.
Another thing that sets this motherboard apart is the built-in power on and reset switches.
Something I found curious was the fact that to fit in some audio headers where the PCI slots were to be placed, and to stop the cards from interfering with the header, the pins were bent at a 90 degree angle.
The DFI motherboards all have rounded edges - DFI claims it helps stability, I think it's just for looks, and it sure doesn't hurt stability either way.
The BIOS
The BIOS is an Award Pheonix BIOS with a Genie BIOS built in. The Genie BIOS basically handles all of the memory and CPU functions, as well as many of the built-in devices.
There are a myriad of combinations that can be made by keying in a FSB, and selecting the multiplier and voltage of your choice. Make sure to set the proper FSB on the DIP switches if you're overclocking!
Although the DIMM Voltage does not give too many choices, the DRAM settings leave nothing to be desired, and put the user in full control of the RAM timings. I was surprised not to see a spread spectrum option here, later I found a spread spectrum "enable/disable" without a percentage reading in the Genie BIOS.
The Genie BIOS is where things like Spread Spectrum Modulation, FSB, Multiplier, DDR clockspeed, voltage, and many of the onboard features are all accessable from. We can see that both LAN devices have boot ROMs, and can be enabled or disabled easily. CPU Voltage Control left nothing to be desired, and I was quite happy with the ease of use of the while BIOS.
Here we can see the AGP settings for the motherboard. The aperture ranges from less than 128 Megabytes to over 1 Gigabyte, and the voltage control should be enough for most users.
The advanced bios features allow the user to tweak the motherboard to their specifications.
Next Page - Test Setup and Benchmarks
Previous Page - DFI LanParty Motherboard
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DFI LanParty KT400A: One of the most unique looking motherboards makes it's way into the test labs at VL. Can the LanParty's beauty be backed up by it's performance?
